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Labouring Through Change
The Evolution of Labour Laws in India
Speakers
India’s labour laws have undergone a significant transformation — from colonial-era regulations to contemporary codes aimed at balancing worker rights with economic growth. This session traces the journey of labour legislation in India, examining the historical context, major reforms, and the recent shift to four consolidated labour codes. What have these changes meant for workers, employers, and the labour movement? And as the world of work evolves with technology and platform economies, what lies ahead for labour rights in India?
Join us for a timely conversation on the past, present, and future of labour protections in the country.
Speakers
Babu Mathew
Babu Mathew is former Registrar and faculty at NLSIU. He was also part of the Trade Union movement and various other social movements taking up issues of bonded labour, child labour, displacement and destruction of the livelihoods of the marginalised.
He combined the teaching and practice of Human Rights and he served as Country Director of Action Aid International in India. In this capacity he was in charge of evolving a ‘Rights Based’ policy and implementing a Human Rights agenda with special focus on Economic Social and Cultural Rights in 25 states of India. He led the process of presenting a Shadow Report focusing on the excluded communities of India before the relevant UN Committee in Geneva.
Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan
Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan graduated from NLSIU and holds an LL.M degree from NYU. She has been practising in the Madras High Court and subordinate courts and tribunals in Chennai for over the last 20 years. Labour law and service law are her main areas of practice. In addition to her law practice, she had been associated with various programmes and projects of the ILO as a consultant/resource person. She has written research briefs and conducted training programmes for ILO, and others on international labour standards as well as the labour laws of the country.
As a guest lecturer, she has delivered lectures on labour laws and taught a course on labour lawyering.
She has written extensively on labour rights related issues and has several publications to her credit. She is also a mediator on the panel of the Tamil Nadu Mediation and Conciliation Centre of the Madras High Court. She leads The Sustainability Platform Asia in areas relating to Law and Public Policy relating to Environmental and Labour Laws both for the Law and Capacity Building initiatives led by Dr. Reena Patel as well as designing and delivering TSP’s Public Policy Courses.
Poornima Hatti
Poornima Hatti is a senior disputes lawyer and leads the disputes team at the Pan India law firm Samvad Partners. She also teaches on occasion at the National Law School of India University, her alma mater. Poornima has over the past few years read stories and had discussions with children on various occasions, including with a focus on the constitution.
