Starlink’s Entry in India: National Sovereignty at Stake

 In a surprising turn of events, India’s two largest telecom companies, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, have finally partnered with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to provide satellite-based internet services to Indian consumers via Starlink’s technology. This development is particularly striking given that just a year ago, these very telecom giants viewed Starlink as a formidable competitor and strongly opposed its entry into the Indian market.

A media hype was created around the Modi led BJP government’s budget 2025-26. It evoked a lot of debates and speculations around the tax concession and rebates but the most important proposal of deregulation of labour and its accompanied announcements in the budget was completely ignored by the media.

‘’Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.’’

–John Maynard Keynes.

In its recent judgment dated 29.01.2025 in Ajay Malik vs. State of Uttarakhand, the Supreme Court, while addressing a case involving the severe exploitation of a domestic worker by placement agencies, emphasized the vulnerable working conditions faced by domestic workers. The Court highlighted the glaring absence of legal protections for this workforce and underscored the urgent need for comprehensive legislation to safeguard their rights.

“It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine.”

- Estranged Labour, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx

AICCTU Condemns the Statement of Chairman of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) that employees should work 90 hours a week and demands strict enforcement of the 8 hour day and 48 hour week.

Election for the recognition of trade unions in Indian Railways was held on 4, 5 and 6 December 2024 via Secret Ballot. This election was scheduled to be held in the year of 2019, but at last Railway Administration was compelled to hold the election at the order of Delhi High Court. Election was held at Zonal levels. This election was held at 17 zones including Metro Railway Kolkata and two Production Units at RCF, Kapurthala and CLW, Chittaranjan.

LABOUR SNIPPETS – APRIL 2024

- Lekha

Almond Workers Protest in Karawal Nagar, Delhi

Workers’ Convention

Resolves to Vote Out the BJP!

Advisory for Employers to

Promote Women Workforce Participation: