-Livemint.com * As consumers bear the brunt of high food costs, growers see no benefit. How long will this strange dynamic last? * Many lower income consumers are also not enrolled under the federal food security scheme. An estimate suggests that over 100 million eligible Indians are excluded Ramesh Pangal calls it a season of miseries: Farmers running around with vegetables to find a buyer; leaving tomatoes to rot in the field; dumping...

-Down to Earth Less availability of meat, long-term unemployment increased instances of hunting in Tamil Nadu Wildlife hunters — seizing the opportunity provided by the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) — have targeted animals in Tamil Nadu’s biodiversity-rich areas. The state has a lot of biodiversity: From deciduous forests to the Western Ghats that are home to rare animals and plants. Restricted movement of transport and human...

-Press release by Stranded Workers Action Network, dated 20th May 2020   We, the undersigned organizations call upon the State governments concerned to bring out all idle transport vehicles out from garages to the State and National highways to carry the workers to their home. We also request that more interstate trains be run, and in a coordinated fashion, to ensure that workers do not remain struck in overcrowded dormitories and camps....

-Scroll.in Emotion and grand political statements may normally distract and attract voters. In a crisis, they are poor substitutes for governance. It is now 41 days since the government told the Supreme Court that there were no migrant workers on the road any more. “They have been taken to the nearest available shelter”, and 2.3 million were being fed, India’s Solicitor General told the judges, who – in a now familiar routine...

-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...