-Outlook India Indian Economist Jean Drèze, in an interview with Outlook, says that because of the Coronavirus lockdown, there won’t be any employment under MNREGA now and Bihar will be the worst-hit. Belgian-born Indian economist, Jean Dreze, says that the central government needs to take immediate measures to address the situation that has emerged in the wake of mass exodus of migrant workers due to the Coronavirus lockdown. In an interview with...

-The Indian Express As the national lockdown entered its second week, The Indian Express travelled across four states to track this unprecedented exodus, examine what social distancing and isolation means in towns and villages off camera and off the highway — and what could await the first COVID-19 patients here. Morena (Madhya Pradesh): They built homes, offices, even cities. They worked in technology companies. They cooked the food we ate, cleaned the...

-The Indian Express Invisible, largely, in the Census and in national sample surveys — and consequently to administrators — field studies have consistently claimed short-term labour mobility in India was significant. Of the many, many countries that COVID has now locked down, India stands, or rather, walks, alone. Bereft of transport, by road or rail, people are walking home, to nearby districts, and to far-off destinations several hundred kilometres away, the mother...

-Scroll.in Falling through the cracks of the public distribution system, they fear stepping out, even for food. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a national lockdown on March 24 and asked Indians to stay home in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus, it triggered an exodus of migrant workers from the cities. With all work halted and public transport shut, they set off on desperate journeys, aiming to walk back...

-NDTV Spraying chemicals on migrant workers to sanitize them as in Uttar Pradesh. Locking them up in a shed as in Bihar. Opening temporary jails for them as in Haryana. Herding them into ill-equipped quarantine centers across national highways. A Home Ministry circular invoking the penal provisions of the National Disaster Management Act to imprison such defaulters. India has shamed itself in its utterly inhuman treatment of migrant workers - jobless,...