This session of SOCIAL will feature a lightning talk by U of T’s Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat, followed by a main talk by Aditi Surie of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements.
Ashique’s lighting talk explores the generative politics of West Bengal’s Drivers Union, exemplified by initiatives such as the app-cab ambulance service, which politically questioned the apathy of the state and development deficits, while not waiting for the provincial government to make the city more liveable. In doing so, they brought visibility to the wretchedness of the public health infrastructures in the city through their labour that fixed the shortage in ambulance resources. The talk highlights how workers and their unions are critical to sustaining the rhythms of urban life without disruption, while broadening our understanding of worker resistance and unionism beyond protest and collective bargaining. It positions unions as social entities that have historically played a critical role both within and beyond the workplace, contributing to broader socio‑political struggles and particularly driving the regeneration of urban life amidst crisis.
Aditi’s talk explores platform economy through a broad political economy lens, adding to scholarship in HCI, sociology, and labour studies that explores how power is shaped around working lives on platforms. Focusing specifically on experimental partnerships during the COVID-19 lockdowns in India, this talk analysis documents how under-resourced urban governments collaborated with corporate on-demand platforms (such as Swiggy, Zomato, and Shadowfax) to manage emergency food distribution. This moment of crisis revealed that the platform’s core resource, its true offering to the economy and the nation, was its ability to command a reserve of workers—the key infrastructure needed to fill urgent governance voids.
This event will run from 9 -10 a.m. EST and 7.30–8.30 p.m. IST
*Please note: this is on online event. Zoom details will be sent out closer to the session*
About the speakers
Aditi Surie teaches and researches digital labour platforms, worker well-being, and livelihoods in India. At IIHS, she leads the academic and policy research portfolio on technology and society. Aditi has conducted extensive sectoral studies of working men and women from 2015 onwards, across location-based work and online labour platforms, which describe working conditions, experience of platform design, and the nature of risk on platforms. She has co-edited Platformization and Informality, published by Palgrave Macmillan (2023), which brings Southern scholars into a dialogue on Global South-specific frameworks to understand quality and regulation of platform work.
Ashique Ali Thuppilikkat (he/him) is a PhD student at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Canada and a researcher at STREET Lab. His research focuses on the role of technology in worker resistance and unionisation amidst the platformization of urban life. Specifically, he examines how digital tools can support unions and workers on location-based digital labour platforms to organise and resist the impacts of algorithmic management and environmental hazards on labour practices. He is a recipient of the 2025–26 Connaught PhDs for Public Impact Fellowship and the 2024 SDGs@UofT Student Award, and a former School of Cities Graduate Fellow. Ashique is also the co-founder of SAFAR, a research-action centre based in West Bengal, India.
