Even if a wife doesn’t earn, she contributes to the household. The Delhi high court’s recognition of the role of homemakers, can only be welcomed. Hearing a case of maintenance by an estranged wife, justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said just because the wife wasn’t employed didn’t mean she was idle.

“Running a household, taking care of children, supporting the family, and adjusting one’s life around the career and transfers of the earning spouse are all forms of work,” justice Sharma noted. “These tasks are unpaid and often unrecognized…yet they form the invisible framework that keeps many families going.”

Justice Sharma’s words would be sweet music to the ears of feminists who have for years insisted that the activities listed by the Delhi high court do, in fact, constitute ‘work’. Feminist economists point out that the business of unpaid care work—cooking, cleaning, caring for children, the elderly, the sick—disproportionately falls on women, whether they are employed or not.

We have the data that tells us just how much. In 2024, the government’s Time Use Survey found, women spent 289 minutes a day providing unpaid household services plus another 137 minutes a day on caregiving activities. For men it was 88 minutes for housework plus 75 minutes for caregiving.

It’s this massive time gap that explains the discrepancy in paid employment. Put simply, the more time a woman spends on unpaid work inside the house, the less time she has for paid work outside it.

Time use for 2024 shows that 75% of men aged between 15 and 59 were in paid employment whereas only 25% of women in the same age group participated in paid work.

Unpaid care work is not only seen as a woman’s responsibility, it is often glorified in the popular culture—“maa ke haath ka khana” (a meal cooked by a mother’s hand) and the like.

B remembers when her mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer. Right until her death, she personally cared for her even though the family could afford a nurse. But her husband didn’t want a stranger handling his mother. He wanted his wife to do that job.

S went on maternity leave after the birth of her first daughter. But when the time came to return to work, she wavered. Sure, her husband chipped in. And she had reliable help at home, but somehow she couldn’t just go back to the long hours in the office. She quit. Does she have regrets? Sometimes, she shrugs. But takes satisfaction in the fact that her daughter is doing well in her career.

The motherhood penalty comes at a cost. Globally, mothers of children below the age of five have at 47.6%, the lowest employment rate, compared with 87.9% for fathers and 54.4% for women with no children, found a 2018 study of 90 countries by the International Labour Organisation.

Does care work have an economic value? A 2024 report by Nikore Associates puts it at 15%-17% of India’s GDP. In 2015, the McKinsey Global Institute looked at a “full potential” scenario where the world’s GDP could increase by $28 trillion in a decade if women’s participation in the economy was equal to that of men.

The Covid pandemic with people working from home during lockdowns focused renewed and urgent attention on care work. For a brief while, noted economist Ashwini Deshpande, the men stepped up to help their wives. Then it was back to usual.

Beyond the number of hours spent on various activities, there is the question of placing a monetary value to the work of a homemaker. In 2001, the Supreme Court determined that the monthly monetary value of a housewife’s work should be ₹3,000, “taking into consideration the multifarious services rendered” (Lata Wadhwa v State of Bihar).

Also in 2001, a three-judge Supreme Court bench, hearing a case against an insurance company (Kirti & anr v Oriental Insurance Company) where both husband and wife were killed in a road accident leaving behind two daughters who were toddlers, clarified that a homemaker’s work had economic value to her family and also the nation and deserved just compensation.

From then to now, the courts have continued to look at assumptions on housework, increasing its value progressively. Significantly, recent court judgments are also notable for speaking in the language of dignity and rights rather than charity.

In January this year, the Punjab and Haryana high court doubled the compensation paid to a woman motor accident victim from ₹58.22 lakh to ₹1.18 crore. The original compensation was simply not enough, justice Sudeepti Sharma said since the “services of a homemaker, if procured in the open market, would command substantial remuneration, underscoring the integral role played by a homemaker in family stability.”

A wife who is not employed still has to manage the household while the husband has a steady and substantial income, justice Swaran Kanta Sharma noted in the maintenance matter she was hearing. The case had been filed by an estranged wife who was appealing against a lower court order that refused to grant her and the child maintenance on the grounds that she was able-bodied and well-educated but had chosen not to seek employment.

Ordering mediation for the couple, justice Sharma said: “The grant of maintenance is rooted in the principle of equity between the parties. Maintenance, in such cases, is meant to place both parties at reasonably comparable levels so that each is able to sustain a dignified life.”

With an impeccable CV as a senior advocate—Rhodes scholar, National Law School, Oxford University and Harvard Law alum, visiting faculty at Yale, New York University and the University of Toronto, B.R. Ambedkar research scholar and lecturer at Columbia Law—Menaka Guruswamy will soon be adding member of Parliament to her long list of achievements.

The 51-year-old has been nominated to the Rajya Sabha by Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress, that would, when elected, make her the first openly gay MP in the House. One of the many lawyers who fought for marriage equality in the Supreme Court, Guruswamy had earlier represented petitioners in the landmark constitutional challenge that led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 2018. Menaka will, hopefully, continue to battle for gender rights and equality, now as a legislator.

The US intervention in Venezuela is both stunning and alarming for the manner in which the country disregarded international laws and abducted the elected President of a sovereign country to put him on trial in New York on charges of narco-terrorism. The implications of this action will not be limited to the US and Venezuela.

For the Trump administration, the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is the final proof that the foreign policy that President Donald Trump espoused at the start of his first presidential term is well and truly dead. Trump won the support of the Make America Great Again movement claiming he would end America’s foreign wars. Time and again, he insisted that his government was not interested in regime change. But it has been clear to everyone, especially since the start of his second term that Trump wants the world to kowtow to the US, and that he is not above using all weapons at his disposal to ensure this.

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Maduro’s abduction by US security forces, from the presidential quarters in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, is unprecedented, even by the US’s record of interventions in South and Central American countries. Trump has since said the US will now administer Venezuela, and American firms will manage that country’s oil and petroleum resources. He has even dismissed the credentials of Venezuela’s opposition, making the US goals resemble the European imperialist projects of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The West-enforced rules-based order that has shaped global power relations since World War II now lies in ruins. The Trump administration’s action undermines the US’s standing as a responsible world power — the perception was an important aspect of the rules-based order — and sends out the message that might is right in international affairs. Powers such as Russia and China have criticised the US action, but these nations too nurture imperial ambitions — events in Ukraine and the approach to Taiwan are evidence — and Washington’s action could set a new precedent. Venezuela is a close ally of China, and how Beijing responds to this event will be closely watched.

Under the rules-based order, national sovereignty and national borders have been red lines to be respected. India‘s response has been muted — it expressed “deep concern” — but much of the Global South, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Chile, among others, has criticised the US action. With the United Nations ineffective and big powers discredited, a reasonable framework or credible platform for dispute resolution is missing. Just as a new year begins, the world is staring at chaos, and the global economy may take a hit if supply from Venezuela, a major petroleum producer, is disrupted for long.

Recently, I visited a friend’s farm where he has spent years developing an organic and natural farming enterprise. Through sustainable practices, careful breeding, and chemical-free inputs, he produces high-quality farm products that meet global standards. His produce is pure, traceable, and responsibly grown. Yet, despite this commitment, he struggles to scale. The reason is limited access to reliable markets. He lacks strong links to organised retail, export channels, and professional branding platforms. Organic farming involves higher costs than conventional production, but he cannot consistently secure premium prices. His experience reflects a broader challenge in Indian agriculture. While there is dedication and quality at the farm level, existing systems to connect farmers to value and consumers are weak.

Every major trade agreement that India negotiates carries a significant agricultural dimension, reflecting how closely farming is linked to economic strategy, food security, and political stability. Industry estimates suggest that the global agri-food market — covering farming, food processing, logistics, retail, and exports — is worth over $8 trillion. Despite being one of the world’s largest producers of agricultural commodities, India accounts for only about 2.5-3% of global agricultural trade. This gap highlights the scale of opportunity that remains untapped.

India needs a fresh approach that connects farmers to markets, rewards quality, and builds globally competitive value chains. At the same time, efficiency must improve by moving more people into higher-value activities such as processing, supply chains, logistics, packaging, branding, and agri-services. In effect, India must build a modern agri-business ecosystem. Agriculture must be repositioned as a modern, market-driven, innovation-led enterprise.

On a market-size basis, India’s agriculture sector is often estimated at around $600 billion. With the right policies, investments, and market integration, there is no reason why this cannot be doubled to $1.2 trillion in the coming years—and expanded further thereafter. This growth will come from higher productivity, greater value addition, stronger exports, services, and innovation across the agri-business ecosystem. Here are 10 ideas that emerged from a recent PAFI roundtable.

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