ActionAid Association's (AAA) national level survey among people dependent on the informal economy during the third phase of the national lockdown towards the end of May 2020 (i.e. between May 14th and May 22nd, 2020) has documented the "nature and extent of the transitions in the lives and livelihoods of informal workers, including migrant workers, during the pandemic and provide[s] an insight into the precarity they experience and the coping...
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Lack of jobs force migrant labourers to return to cities they left in March -Shinjini Ghosh
-The Hindu With few job opportunities in villages, migrant labourers who had left the city in March are returning in droves The Anand Vihar bus terminal — where thousands of migrant workers had assembled four months back in a desperate bid to return to their home towns after a nationwide lockdown was announced — is again abuzz with labourers, but this time they are desperate to return to the city. With the lockdown...
More »India needs an urban replica of MGNREGA -Nitya Chutani
-Livemint.com As a part of the relief measures, while the PDS system could reach a vast majority of people both in rural and urban areas, the system has failed to identify the affected informally employed labour force in largely urban areas. This makes a case for introducing an urban replica of MGNREGA With laudable measures like the increased allocation in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the Pradhan Mantri...
More »Strategy to spur the rural economy: Creating value and sustainable livelihood for migrants -GR Chintala
-Financial Express As part of the strategy to spur the rural economy, migrants should be encouraged to invest in the medium-term and long-term livelihood options. Roti, Kapda and Makan symbolise the essential requirements for a decent living with the absolute basic being food (roti). The question of lives and livelihood is inextricably linked to food. Perhaps, the most disruptive impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the forced return of migrants to...
More »The Peshwa’s tax holiday: How the Mughals and Marathas dealt with distress migration -Mario da Penha
-The Hindu Diverse regimes in Early Modern India often saw the distress migration of rural inhabitants when, much like today, displacement became the forced choice between hope and hunger The scale of the migrant labourer exodus from the precariousness of cities to the security of their home villages has few parallels in Indian history. Economist Chinmay Tumbe estimates that by the end of May, no fewer than 30 million Indians had moved...
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