-Livemint.com The aim is to enrol nearly 380 mn workers and provide them benefits during times of distress The Union government will roll out the unorganized sector database by the end of July to enrol almost 380 million workers, weeks after the Supreme Court rapped the labour ministry, saying that it showed “unpardonable" apathy towards workers in the informal sector. The development comes more than a year after the mass reverse migration of...

-Livemint.com Amid a bumper wheat crop, India’s farmers sold more wheat to the government than ever before. Government procurement has only grown in recent years, making farmers wary of any attempt to dial back the role of the state in the farm sector This rabi marketing season has seen the highest procurement of wheat by government agencies in history. At 43 million tonnes, this is 33% higher than the average for the...

-IndiaSpend.com Knowing whether COVID-19 can be transmitted through faeces or through virus-laden particles released via sewage is important for India where many still defecate in the open and most sewage is released untreated. Delhi: Faeces of COVID-19 patients contain the virus, sometimes even days after the person tests negative on a COVID-19 swab test. But researchers have been unable to confirm whether the virus could transmit through faeces. We look at the...

The recent Supreme Court of India’s judgments (please click here and here) related to ensuring food security of the migrant and unorganised sector workers through the provision of dry ration, running of community kitchens and proper implementation of the 'One Nation One Ration Card' scheme should come as no surprise to us. A recent review of some of the robust studies, which relied on multi-state surveys (or reference surveys), having...

-TheWire.in Every sanitation worker’s life in India is a nightmare on any ordinary day. Add to this the callousness of administrations leaving them to face the virus without gear and training and the result is pure hell. Bokaro (Jharkhand): As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic tightens its grip on the country, the Chas Municipal Corporation in Jharkhand’s Bokaro district appears to have learned a few things from the last time...