-The Indian Express To achieve economic growth of 7-8 per cent, the government needs to start addressing some of the traditional sore points such as the large infrastructure deficit, the weak financial sector, archaic land and Labour laws, and the administrative and judicial hurdles. India entered the pandemic with declining growth and limited scope for a conventional and large fiscal stimulus. We had noted in an article (IE, January 20, ‘Limited scope...

ActionAid Association's (AAA) national level survey among people dependent on the informal economy during the third phase of the national lockdown towards the end of May 2020 (i.e. between May 14th and May 22nd, 2020) has documented the "nature and extent of the transitions in the lives and livelihoods of informal workers, including migrant workers, during the pandemic and provide[s] an insight into the precarity they experience and the coping...

-Newsclick.in “Timely salary payments for our Labour is not merely a demand, but a right of the employees. It is outrageous to not clear the dues on time,” said the 47-year old Surendra Singh, a primary teacher at an NDMC-run school in Delhi. A primary teacher at a North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) run schools, who is to be accorded with the annual national teachers’ award later this year, is among the...

-Livemint.com The April-July period typically sees 25% greater work execution (in terms of person-days) under the scheme compared with the rest of the fiscal, thereby aiding rural income, the Crisil report said The average income per person per month under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) doubled to ₹1,000 in the first four months of this fiscal from ₹509 in the previous year, ratings and research agency Crisil said...

-The Hindu The resultant distress in India has exacerbated pre-existing structures of disadvantage based on social identity In his book, The Great Leveler, Walter Scheidel, the Austrian economic historian, argues that throughout human history, there have been four types of catastrophic events that have led to greater economic equality: pandemic, war, revolution and state collapse. Currently, the world is going through one of them: a massive COVID-19 pandemic. In Scheidel’s analysis, the...