Talking about nothing but ultimately everything

October 10th is celebrated as World Mental Health Day to create awareness among people about mental health. But, in India, the issue still remains taboo and is very less talked about. It can be discerned from the fact that though 1 out of every 7 Indians, as per The Lancet Psychiatry , are affected by mental disorders of varying severity, the status of institutions, human resources and discussions about mental health are abysmally low. World Health Organisation's findings are emblematic of the inadequacy of the infrastructure and human resources to deal with the problem of mental illness. For every 1 lakh population, there are only 0.3 psychiatrists (against the desired level of 3 per 1 lakh), 0.12 psychiatrists nurses and 0.07 psychologists. But, the nub of the problem lies somewhere else. It is in misinformation and unawareness among the people about the issue. As a result of which they neither seek help nor demand institutions,  human resources and insurance facilities. Due t...

With the progress in data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics etc. our focus has shifted to Industrial Revolution 4.0. However much work of previous generations of the Industrial Revolution especially on the policy front has been pending, more so for the Internet. The Internet has touched almost every sector of our lives and countries of the world, including India, are found to be inadequately prepared in many of these sectors and regulations are either absent or nascent. Governments grappling with the Internet ecosystem Take for example the role of the internet in employment. The Internet has led to a whole new variety of job opportunities like gig and platform workers, freelancers etc. among others. These new jobs are outside the traditional employee-employer relation and as a result, they fall through the cracks of existing labour laws and benefits. India, with the recent Code on Social Security 2020, and Britain’s Supreme Court recent verdict of entitlement to labour right...