The employment structure of India’s organised manufacturing sector has undergone substantial changes over the last decade with a steep rise in the use of contract workers in place of directly hired workers. Much of the existing literature has attributed the widespread use of contract labour to India’s rigid employment protection legislation.

Introduction : Concern for health inequalities is an important driver of health policy in India; however, much of the empirical evidence regarding health inequalities in the country is piecemeal focusing only on specific diseases or on access to particular treatments. This study estimates inequalities in health across the whole life course for the entire Indian population.

Inaccurate definitions of urban areas in developing countries could have detrimental consequences for public service provision and construction of development indicators. We explore the suitability of the officially used administrative definition of urban and rural in India through a study of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), a demand-driven scheme targeted to rural areas. Applying three alternative definitions we find that India is more urban than recognised by the administrative definition.