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Automation of the Readymade Garment Sector in Bangladesh: Who is paying the price?
[By Mohammad Sahid Ullah and Rawshon Akhter] Alaya Akter, a first-generation garment worker in Bangladesh, began her apparel career as an operator assistant in the early 90s. She lost her job at the age of 48 due to automation at her factory last year. She is no exception; several thousands of Readymade Garment (RMG) workers
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Man or machine? Eliminating manual scavenging in India and Bangladesh
[By Sally Cawood and Amita Bhakta] Manual scavenging – the hazardous removal of human waste from drains, latrines, septic tanks and sewers by hand or with basic tools – persists as a form of caste-based slavery in South Asia. Across India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal, men, women and children from low-caste, religious and ethnic minorities
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Re-thinking a crippled society – Part I: Productivity
This is the first part of a three-part series by Soumita Basu. Soumita is a social- development-practitioner-turned-entrepreneur. When she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, her views on society transformed. This experience made her realize how much is wrong with our society and the way we organize it. Join her reflections on re-thinking productivity, inclusivity,
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Centered but invisible – On the contradictions of service design at Urban Company
[By Sai Amulya Komarraju] Ting! A beauty worker checks her mobile. A ‘lead’ appears on her mobile screen from the platform service aggregator she has registered with. She accepts it, calls the customer through the platform that has helped her become a microentrepreneur, confirms the request and location of the customer and rides off to
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Is feminist design a solution to platform workers’ problems?
[By Pallavi Bansal] Imagine a scenario in which you do not get shortlisted for a job interview – not because you are underqualified – but because the algorithms were trained on data sets that excluded or underrepresented your gender for that particular position. Similarly, you found out that you are consistently paid less than your colleagues
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