In a competitive marketplace, protecting India’s gig workers

In the past few weeks, anonymous Twitter accounts such as Swiggy DE and DeliveryBhoy have made allegations regarding issues faced by delivery partners of food delivery apps. These include low payouts, opaque payout calculations and alleged cheating, unexplained differences in surge rates, order clubbing and assignments to avoid incentive pay, and zone extensions to avoid return bonuses.

Swiggy and Zomato, which offer delivery work to more than 360,000 gig workers, have responded to these allegations by insisting that earnings per order are much higher than alleged, and that full-time delivery personnel earn over ₹20,000 per month.

India’s gig economy is among the few sectors offering flexible work to unemployed millions. In her 2021 Union Budget speech, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned the creation of a database of gig workers and extending social security to them. It is important, therefore, to examine these grievances and design policy mechanisms that protect worker rights..

Many of the grievances arise because of a trust deficit between the gig workers and the platforms. India has protected workers through heavy-handed industrial regulation and archaic labour laws, which suit the factory floor. They are irrelevant, insufficient, and ineffective in addressing disputes that originate on these platforms..

With the apparent oversupply of gig workers, the platform’s incentive is to deliver orders at the lowest marginal cost (a large component of which is gig worker fees) while keeping the customer happy. This task is assigned to algorithms. An analysis of the grievances suggests that many are linked to the way gig work is assigned (denial of high-profit surge or incentive-linked orders), performed (clubbing orders, zone boundaries), and rewarded (complex, multifactor payment calculations).

..

There are several factors in each of these algorithmic decisions. Work allocation can be based on weather, restaurant and customer locations, traffic, prevailing wages, and the available worker pool. The algorithms that make these decisions are flexible, learning algorithms that can account for the constantly changing input. Machine Learning (ML) and multi-factor optimisation techniques support millions of orders every day.

Crucially, most of these techniques are black-box — their inner workings are unknowable, even to the engineers that design them. Such algorithms are known to include biases. Research has shown that ML algorithms pick up pre-existing biases from their training data.

However, outdated, static mechanisms such as grievance redressal officers or onerous labour laws cannot keep pace with the gig economy. Instead, we can look to harness the power of technology towards improving trust between platforms and gig workers.

.

Algorithm audits are one such technique, where an auditor has access to the algorithms and examine the results produced by them. Suitably qualified auditors could uncover implicit or explicit biases, or other shortcomings of such algorithms using computational and statistical techniques.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare hare.....

In 100 days, sowing the seeds of a New Assam

It is often said, well begun is half done. Ever since our government assumed office in Assam in early May, we have endeavoured to live up to people’s expectations and deliver to them, the Assam of their dreams. While 100 days may be too short a period to bring about transformative change, especially in governance, the seeds have been sown and will bear fruits shortly.

Building on Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s philosophy of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Prayas”, we aim to ensure citizen-friendly governance in the state. Continuous engagement with citizens is an essential part of participatory governance. Case in point: The positive response to our government’s call for affluent people to surrender their ration cards. This appeal was made to ensure that those who need these benefits can avail them.

Our government was formed amid the devastating second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. To tackle this, Team Assam, led by Covid warriors, dedicated its entire effort under the guidance of the PM. We adopted the test, treat, trace, and vaccinate strategy. We have also made preparations to minimise the impact of a possible third wave.

With the tireless efforts of health workers, we brought the positivity rate down from 9.13% to 0.73%, installed oxygen generation plants with a total capacity of 13.56 MT, nearly doubled the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds in state medical college hospitals from 793 to 1,308, and administered over 14.8 million doses of the vaccine..

We recognise the long-term loss caused by Covid-19, particularly to children who lost their parents in the pandemic. We announced the chief minister’s Shishu Seva Scheme under which the state will provide these children with monthly support until the age of 24.

In these 100 days, we have taken firms steps to defeat several other ills that confront our society, threaten our civilisational heritage, and undermine our future.

A drug-free society is essential for a prosperous Assam. In 100 days, Assam Police made great strides in demolishing the infrastructure that facilitated the supply of drugs and narcotics. Working under the guidance of Union home minister Amit Shah, we seized drugs worth ₹183 crore, and arrested 1,760 people. We will continue to fight the drug menace with an iron fist and achieve our mission of drug-free Assam..

As mentioned in our election manifesto, the protection of cattle — revered in our culture — is a top priority. Delivering on our poll promise, we passed the Assam Cattle Preservation Act, 2021. With this, we intend to stop the illegal trade and transit of cattle through Assam, which was rampant over the years. Further, we led encroachment drives to clear illegal settlements built around our temples and namghars (prayer houses).

When I see files that come to my desk for approval, I prioritise those which reflect unfulfilled aspirations of our people. And in these 100 days , we have tried to shake status quo to ensure speedier outcome. People have voted for us with great expectations and we have to race against time to deliver them. For instance, in my various interactions with people, I came across heart wrenching stories of women being exploited by micro finance lenders for not able to repay small amounts of money. This was unacceptable and had to stop; our government cannot be a silent bystander to such injustice. We made a promise during the election to provide relief to small borrowers. To effect this, we notified the Assam Microfinance Incentive and Relief Scheme in 100 days by bringing all stakeholders on board..

For us our Sankalp Patra (the Bharatiya Janata Party manifesto) is a sacred document. In the past 100 days, we either delivered on these promises or are working hard towards realising them. For instance, we have increased financial assistance under the Assam Orunodoi scheme from ₹830 to ₹1,000 per month and added 638,000 new beneficiaries. We increased the wages of tea garden workers from ₹167 to ₹205 in the Brahmaputra Valley, and from ₹145 to ₹183 in the Barak Valley, with retrospective effect from February 2021. Deen Dayal Upadhaya’s clarion call of “Antyodaya” is the foundational premise of our policies and we will continue to focus on the last person in the queue...

Assam’s ace boxer, Lovlina Borgohain’s historic feat at the Tokyo Olympics was the proudest moment for every Assamese. We celebrated the occasion with great fervour by working towards ensuring that many more Lovlinas represent India at the 2024 Olympics..

To ensure that the next five years are a glorious era in Assam’s history, we used the first 100 days to lay the foundation of transformative change. Under the maxim of “minimum government and maximum governance”, we delegated more powers to district deputy commissioners to fast-track Jal Jeevan Mission targets, allot land for industries and expedite flood relief work.

In this short period, Assam became the first state to pass the Model Tenancy Act to provide a framework for resolving disputes between tenants and landlords. Assam has also become the second state to have an Ethanol Policy. For the first time, we created a consolidated database of all government-owned land within 100 days.

In the past, governments at the Centre and in the Northeast had left inter-State borders un-demarcated and ambiguous. Over the past 100 days, we made sufficient progress to put an end to these decades-old legacy disputes, particularly with Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Mizoram.

With the BJP at the Centre and in the state, the double engine of growth is gaining momentum in Assam. Along with our colleagues in the central government, we are speeding up the implementation of key central schemes such as Jal Jeevan Mission, PM Awas Yojana, and PM Kisan.

. Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri...

Amusement affect of affirmation..

Rudra rudra maharudhra Shiv Shankar pralayankar.

In 100 days, sowing the seeds of a New Assam.. Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe..

It is often said, well begun is half done. Ever since our government assumed office in Assam in early May, we have endeavoured to live up to people’s expectations and deliver to them, the Assam of their dreams. While 100 days may be too short a period to bring about transformative change, especially in governance, the seeds have been sown and will bear fruits shortly.

Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe...

Building on Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s philosophy of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Prayas”, we aim to ensure citizen-friendly governance in the state. Continuous engagement with citizens is an essential part of participatory governance. Case in point: The positive response to our government’s call for affluent people to surrender their ration cards. This appeal was made to ensure that those who need these benefits can avail them.

Our government was formed amid the devastating second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. To tackle this, Team Assam, led by Covid warriors, dedicated its entire effort under the guidance of the PM. We adopted the test, treat, trace, and vaccinate strategy. We have also made preparations to minimise the impact of a possible third wave...

.

With the tireless efforts of health workers, we brought the positivity rate down from 9.13% to 0.73%, installed oxygen generation plants with a total capacity of 13.56 MT, nearly doubled the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds in state medical college hospitals from 793 to 1,308, and administered over 14.8 million doses of the vaccine.

We recognise the long-term loss caused by Covid-19, particularly to children who lost their parents in the pandemic. We announced the chief minister’s Shishu Seva Scheme under which the state will provide these children with monthly support until the age of 24..

Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe

.

Overcoming the partition of the minds. Shri Radhe Shri Krishna

Three major partitions happened in the world in the second half of the 1940s. Germany was partitioned into the Eastern and Western blocs in 1945, followed by India into Hindustan and Pakistan in 1947. Finally, Israel was created by partitioning Palestine in 1948.

Germany’s partition was temporary. The Berlin Wall, constructed in the early 1960s to accord permanence to it, was dismantled by the Germans in less than three decades. The country was reunified in 1989..

But in India and Palestine, partition was a terrible affair, leading to a full-scale war in Israel and mass migration accompanied by mind-numbing violence in India..

More than a million were murdered, while many millions more had to endure a treacherous migration across the hastily created border, often on foot. Hundreds of thousands could not make it, as they were waylaid and butchered..

Those horrors are difficult to forget. Historian William Dalrymple, in an article in New Yorker, quotes from a book by Nisid Hajari, Midnight’s Furies, about the brutality of the period: “Gangs of killers set whole villages aflame, hacking to death men and children and the aged while carrying off young women to be raped. Some British soldiers and journalists who witnessed the Nazi death camps claimed Partition’s brutalities were worse: pregnant women had their breasts cut off and babies hacked out of their bellies; infants were found literally roasted on spits.”.

The Partition of India was a meaningless and reckless act. Mahatma Gandhi opposed it saying: “Vivisect me before vivisecting the nation”. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel vowed to fight till the end to reject it. Rajendra Prasad conclusively proved its irrationality in a thoroughly argued 1946-book, India Divided..

Across the border, for Saadat Hasan Manto, the famed author, it was all sheer madness. Those women raped, with bulged stomachs, distressed him. “Where should those bellies belong to — Hindustan or Pakistan?” Manto questioned in innocent grief. His dark satire on Partition-time madness, Toba Tek Singh, ends with his eponymous hero Tek Singh seen stranded on no-man’s land between the newly created India and Pakistan. “On one side, behind barbed wire, stood together the lunatics of India and on the other side, behind more barbed wire, stood the lunatics of Pakistan. In between, on a bit of earth which had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh”, Manto provocatively demurs...

Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe Shri Radhe..

Partition was not inevitable even until the early 1940s. But then, the British were in a hurry to leave. Louis Mountbatten arrived in India in March 1947 with the mandate to free the country before June 1948. After meeting Mohammad Ali Jinnah, “a psychopathic case”, Mountbatten decided not to wait for that long. In June, he unilaterally declared that the British would partition India and leave in less than three months..