On January 1, 2026, delivery workers across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru walked off the job. The strike was nationwide. It was also historic. For the first time, India’s gig workforce collectively demanded dignity, regulation, and accountability from the platforms that run their lives. On 21 November 2025, the Government of India brought the four Labour…
Rahul has a degree. He has sent 200 applications. He is twenty-three years old, and he is still at home in Indore, waiting for the market to catch up to what he was told he was worth. According to PLFS (2023-2024), India’s overall unemployment rate is 3.2%, which, by global standards, sounds like progress. But…
Every food delivery, every cab ride, every quick commerce order placed in India is fulfilled by a worker who has no minimum wage guarantee, no health insurance, and no pension. That is not an oversight. It is how India’s platform economy was designed to function. That is now changing. The government has set June 22,…
Ramesh, a 28-year-old delivery worker from Delhi working for a food delivery platform, spends nearly 12 hours a day on the road, yet his income remains uncertain from month to month. His story reflects the reality of millions of workers in India at a time when the Economic Survey 2025–26 estimates that the country has…
May Day 2026 highlights how labour rights struggles have shifted from long working hours to psychosocial stress in the gig economy, where workers lack legal recognition and security. Despite changing forms, inequality and exploitation between capital and labour remain largely unchanged. May Day 2026’s ILO theme is “A Healthy Psychosocial Working Environment” a nod to…
India marks May Day 2026 with strong labour laws on paper, but most workers—especially in the gig economy—remain without real protections. As platform work grows, the gap between rights and reality continues to widen, highlighting deep inequalities in the modern labour system. India marks International Workers’ Day on May 1, 2026, with the usual routine:…
India’s gig economy has grown rapidly with the rise of digital platforms such as Uber, Ola, Swiggy, Zomato, Urban Company, and so on. Millions of workers depend on app-based jobs for income now. However, for years, these workers remained outside India’s formal labour protection system. The Code on Social Security, 2020 aims to change this…
How privilege, policy gaps and worker precarity reveal a deeper crisis in India’s gig economy A backlash rippled through online circles after Deepinder Goyal spoke up for India’s gig setup. Work in fast delivery brings freedom, he claimed. Yet many saw his words as out of touch. A detailed breakdown of the issue peeled back…
