India, Dec. 8 -- It's heartening that an opposition MP has garnered sufficient support to introduce the Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025, as a private member's Bill in the Lok Sabha. Supriya Sule's proposal would give employees a legal right to ignore work calls and emails beyond office hours.

Private members' Bills rarely become law, but they perform a vital democratic function: They flag issues the executive is ignoring or postponing. Here, the warning is not about a soft lifestyle concern but about a hard economic and public health question - how much of India's demographic dividend are we prepared to burn out before we admit that permanent overwork is not a development strategy.

Smartphones and laptops ensure that work follows employe...