-Down to Earth Lower caste communities are ostracised and denied access to rehabilitation facilities during natural disasters The malpractices of untouchability and caste-based discrimination, although banned in India, continues unabated in several districts of Odisha. During a natural calamity, they turn into a greater menace as the ostracised people are denied access to rehabilitation facilities. Dalit communities Keuta, Kandara and Siara in Puri district, who sell fish to survive, suffered a major financial...

The recently released quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data broadly confirms the dip in employment and jobs during the countrywide lockdown period, followed by a certain degree of recovery in the post-lockdown months last year as have been indicated by various survey-based studies and research papers. The quarterly bulletin on PLFS provides data on key employment and unemployment indicators i.e. Unemployment Rate (UR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Labour...

-ThePrint.in Study by National Bureau of Economic Research notes that women's status in families resulted in them being more vulnerable during Lockdowns, suggests targeted policies to ensure well being. New Delhi: More women in India faced mental distress and had fewer meals than men, especially in containment zones, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic that caused stinging economic distress to households across the globe. Forced to stay indoors for a large part...

-Newsclick.in Besides the dire jobs situation, what is even more distressing is falling income from surviving jobs. People in India are in the grip of a severe income crisis brought on by myopic government policies and aggravated by mismanagement of the pandemic. Part of this economic collapse is because the absolute number of jobs has shrunk. Another part – not much talked about – is because of low incomes from existing jobs. This...

-The Hindu Lockdowns need to be guided by trade-offs between harsh and mild policies Data show that as of now 26.2% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Of them, only 1% live in low-income countries. By contrast, the richer nations, such as the U.S., Canada, Germany and Britain, registered above 50% vaccination by July 17. For India, the percentage of the adult population that...