Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
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A safety net, post Covid: We need to provide minimum income for poor and vulnerable -C Rangarajan and S Mahendra Dev
-The Indian Express We need to provide minimum income for poor and vulnerable — cash transfers for women, increasing MGNREGA to 150 days in rural areas, introduction of urban employment guarantee scheme. In the post corona crisis situation, India has to address many problems, of which two stand out. First, the improvement of our healthcare system and second, the need for the institution of a scheme to provide minimum income support to...
More »Forcing migrants to stay back in cities during lockdown worsened spread of coronavirus, study shows -Pavitra Mohan & Arpita Amin
-Scroll.in A doctor looks at the pattern of Covid-19 cases in Rajasthan. On March 25, India went into a nationwide lockdown that had been imposed with only four hours notice. The clampdown on travel resulted in millions of migrant workers being trapped in cities that, even at best of times, are hostile to their needs. Faced with starvation and separation from families, lakhs of workers started walking or cycling hundreds of kilometres back...
More »Jean Drèze, development economist and social activist, interviewed by Shreehari Paliath (IndiaSpend.com)
-IndiaSpend.com Bengaluru: Global economic output is expected to contract by 4.9% in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 lockdown. India announced a lockdown on March 24, 2020, which was extended over two months, and continues in pockets of states depending on the spread of the disease, which has now infected more than half a million people in the country. The lockdown impacted millions of inter-state migrant workers who form the bulwark of India’s...
More »What does self-reliance really mean? Amazing stories emerge from India’s villages -Ashish Kothari
-The Hindu True self-reliance won’t come from relentless industrialisation, but from localisation and decentralisation, as demonstrated by these remarkable stories of empowered rural communities Not so long ago, Dalit women farmers in Telangana used to face hunger and deprivation. Today, they have contributed foodgrains for pandemic relief. Farmers on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border have been sending organic produce to Bengaluru even during the lockdown. And Adivasi villages in central India are using...
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