Emerging Work Trends in Urban India COVID-19 and Beyond

This book offers an overview of India’s emerging digital economy and the resulting challenges and opportunities for urban workplaces. It examines contemporary economic and social transformations in India by focusing on how new technologies and policies are shaping urban work practices and patterns. The book emphasizes inclusive and equitable practices that consider the needs of the formal and informal sector workforce as essential to India’s urban development. Drawing on cross-disciplinary frameworks, it examines key issues related to work trends in the Indian urban economy and its digital landscapes, including Industry 4.0 and technology–labour nexus, smart cities and innovation, urbanism and consumerism, workplace transitions such as service industry and remote work, digital divide, skill development initiatives, and the impact of socio-economic inequalities and disruptions. The authors provide perspectives on the digital future of urban work in India and other emerging economies in the post-COVID-19 phase, and underscore the importance of enacting balanced policies, remodelling institutions, and equipping the labour force for adapting to new demands related to future employability and investments. This book will interest students, teachers, and researchers of urban studies, urban sociology, sociology of work, labour studies, human and urban geography, economic geography, urban economics, development studies, urban development and planning, public policy, regional planning, politics of urban development, social and cultural change, urban sustainability, environmental studies, management studies, South Asian Studies, and Global South studies. It will also be useful to policymakers, non-governmental organizations, activists, and those interested in India and the future of the global economy.

Foreword by Shashi Tharoor Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Future Workplaces: A Global Perspective Chapter 3 Workplace Transitions in India: An Overview Chapter 4 Services Industry: Consumerism and Urbanism Chapter 5 Technology-Labour Nexus and Industry 4.0 Chapter 6 Workers in the Urban Informal Sector Chapter 7 Digital Divide: From Smartphones to Broadband Chapter 8 Smart Cities: Innovations and Inequalities Chapter 9 Conclusion

Nidhi Tandon is Director of East Brunswick FIRST Inc., a non-profit organization based in New Jersey, USA. Trained as an interdisciplinary researcher at IIT, Bombay, she also holds professional certifications from MIT in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Smart Cities, and Equitable Education, along with a certification in project management from Cornell University. Her expertise is in the fields of education, public policy, and conceptualising solutions for digital and STEM education and workforce skills. Pratyusha Basu is Associate Professor of Geography in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and Director of the Asian Studies Program at the University of Texas at El Paso, U.S.A. She has an MPhil from IIT, Bombay and a PhD from the University of Iowa, Iowa City. Her research broadly focuses on economic development and social identities in the Global South. She conducts ethnographic fieldwork on rural–urban intersections and has published a book on gender and cooperative dairying in India. Omkumar Krishnan is Professor of Marketing Management at Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIMK), India. A PhD and MPhil from IIT, Bombay, his research focuses on destination branding and consumer well-being. Among courses that he teaches are Consumer Behaviour, Services Marketing, and Sociology for Management. He has earlier worked with Drishti Services and Lowe Lintas in Mumbai and also undertakes consultancies and training assignments. He has edited two books on branding and has travelled in 55 cities across 30 countries. Bhavani R.V. is a consultant with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N. in Bangladesh. She has an MPhil degree from IIT, Bombay, and a PhD degree from University of Madras. An economist by training, she started her career as an officer in State Bank of India. She then worked on development issues with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in India. The core domain areas of her work are livelihood, food, and nutrition security. She has published several papers and co-edited a volume on the agrarian crisis in India.