Best of BS Opinion: India's workforce, fragile votes, and a hidden gem

Here are the best of Business Standard's opinion pieces for today

Have you noticed how in a street jewellery shop sometimes trays of crystals are piled high, each catching the light in its own modest way. They look beautiful in bulk, yet it is only when one stone, a sapphire, is spotted and the heart stops. Life often works like that. A thousand familiar surfaces, until one moment or truth flashes through with unmistakable brilliance. Today’s writeups, scattered across industries, sparkle with familiar concerns, yet each carries a rare hue. Labour, democracy, taxation, inflation, and even the wisdom of trees, all demand we pause and look closer to find the sapphire. Let’s dive in. 

The Annual Survey of Industries 2023-24 reveals how India’s factories are increasingly built on fragile foundations, with contract workers making up 42 per cent of the organised workforce, the highest in decades. Bihar’s 68.6 per cent reliance on contract labour contrasts sharply with Kerala’s 23.8 per cent, exposing a fractured landscape. What glitters as flexibility hides the dull edges of insecurity, leaving workers without safety nets, notes our first editorial. Even capital-heavy industries are not immune. The sapphire here may be the long-promised labour codes, still waiting to be polished into effect. 

In Bihar again, the Supreme Court has cautioned the Election Commission against dimming democracy’s light by restricting voter roll revisions. Excluding Aadhaar, a widely used identity document, risks sidelining thousands in a state where birth registrations are historically weak. While Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship, its absence in the process could disenfranchise many, highlights our second editorial. The court’s reminder is clear: electoral inclusiveness must not be clouded by rigid rules, for trust is the gem that makes democracy shine. 

And GST restructuring, as explained by M Govinda Rao, has shifted most goods from the 12 per cent slab to 5 per cent, simplifying compliance and offering consumers relief. But the two-rate structure (5 and 18 per cent) creates a wide fault line that invites misclassification, lobbying, and disputes. Unless petroleum and exempt services are drawn into the fold, cascading taxes will continue to blur competitiveness. The cut gleams, yet the gemstone remains unfinished. 

Meanwhile, inflation, writes Amarendu Nandy, has been steadied by the RBI’s flexible inflation targeting framework since 2016, with a 4 per cent anchor and a 2-6 per cent band. This discipline ended the old cycles of runaway prices. Proposals to change the target risk loosening the setting. The sapphire lies not in altering the anchor but in polishing transparency with clearer communication, accountability when breaches occur, and predictable flexibility that keeps credibility intact. 

Finally, Sneha Pathak reviews Laurent Tillon’s Being an Oak: Life as a Tree, where the life of Quercus the oak tree reveals how forests endure through hidden networks of support. By giving trees and animals human pronouns, Tillon shifts our gaze from dominance to kinship. The forest’s quiet wisdom is that coexistence, not isolation, is the true jewel, a sapphire glowing patiently beneath the canopy. 

Stay tuned!