-Hindustan Times The dire projections of an acute food shortage came to the fore on the completion of four months of lockdown Restrictions, which were imposed in end-March in a bid to prevent the spread of the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak and the despite the largesse from the state government for 94 lakh beneficiaries between April and June. Bhubaneswar: A survey of pension beneficiaries from the four migration- prone districts of...

-The Indian Express A well-educated woman’s chances of making informed decisions and exercising greater agency in the household is monumental in breaking the cycle of poverty, ill health, as well as malnutrition. India’s Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) stands at 122 as per the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin from last year — a significant decline from an MMR of 556 in 1990. A parallel decrease in the prevalence of child marriage...

-Down to Earth The ordinance does not expressly define ‘extraordinary circumstances’: Such legislative ambiguity makes one question the entire exercise of introducing this particular provision As the Union government announced massive reforms as part of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) relief package, attention went to three agriculture sector ordinances related to farmers’ trade, contract farming and amendments in the Essential Commodities Act. While each of the three ordinances have far-reaching implications from legal...

-The Tribune The job guarantee scheme kept the rural sector afloat during the pandemic-induced lockdown. The number of people employed under MGNREGA in Punjab has gone up considerably. AMID the Covid crisis, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has sustained thousands of villagers who had been rendered jobless across Punjab. These also include the youth who returned to villages after they lost their jobs in towns and cities. After the...

-Hindustan Times The state government launched ‘Rozgar Setu’ web portal on June 10 to bring the migrant labourers and employers/job providers on a common platform so that the latter could choose the workforce as per their requirement. Bhopal: Nearly 5 percent of 7.30 lakh migrant labourers have got jobs and the biggest employers of these 35,000 odd labourers are village panchayats, not the private sector, shows Madhya Pradesh government’s data. The state government...