-RuralIndiaOnline.org The government’s ‘package’ responding to the crisis is a blend of callousness and cluelessness With his first speech on the coronavirus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi got us to scare evil spirits away by having people bang the hell out of their pots and pans. With his second, he scared the hell out of all of us. With not a word on how the public, particularly the poor, are to access food and other...
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Kerala opens 4603 relief camps for over one lakh migrant 'guest' workers -Nidheesh MK
-Livemint.com * Another 35 camps opened for 1,545 homeless and destitute people, the CM said * Food, masks, soaps, sanitisers have been made available in all those camps, and in the coming days, more educational institutions will be taken over for these purposes, said Vijayan ERNAKULAM: At a time when reports are rife about scores of migrant workers walking back to their native states on foot, hit by the coronavirus induced lockdown in...
More »State’s measures to fight coronavirus are stripping the poor of dignity and hope -Harsh Mander
-The Indian Express Harsh Mander writes: The Indian government found it fit to charter planes with medical staff to fly in migrants from other countries. But it felt no responsibility at all to the millions of migrants stranded without work and food in every corner of the country. I won’t die of corona. Before that, I will surely die of hunger”. I heard this lament more than a dozen times from different...
More »Coping with coronavirus: Big challenge for India’s 37%— ‘internal migrants’ -Seema Chishti
-The Indian Express Jagdish (22), from Madhya Pradesh, does a mason’s work and is worried that even if the contractor gives money, that would be a loan, not relief. “It would be a very big government school when built,” says Kaushalendra Trivedi (45), a recent migrant from Gorakhpur, employed as a guard in Uttam Nagar in the national capital’s Rajkiya Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya. His family is five kilometres away in a makeshift...
More »Coronavirus lockdown forces migrant workers to walk from Manesar to home in Uttar Pradesh -Ashok Kumar
-The Hindu The 21-day lockdown has suddenly left several thousand workers in the informal sector without jobs and any means of sustenance. It is around 3 p.m. Carrying luggage on their backs and wearing black masks, seven men, visibly fatigued, are signalled to stop by a policeman who hurriedly jumps out of his vehicle at Rajiv Chowk on the Delhi-Gurugram highway. The officer makes a few inquiries before letting them off, asking...
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