-Press release by Working Peoples Charter (WPC) Network dated 23rd March, 2021 A statement on the condition of India’s migrant workforce one year after the COVID-19 lockdowns 24 March marks the anniversary of India’s harsh nationwide COVID-19 lockdown when we witnessed an unparalleled impact on the country’s poor, particularly internal migrants who comprise a 140 million-strong workforce. In 2020, India saw the largest urban-rural exodus in its history, with millions of workers...
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Labour codes need to be drafted keeping in mind realities of informal sector workers -Ileena Roy and Ranjana Das
-The Indian Express These vulnerabilities of the informal sector became even more prominent as the entire country went into a state of suspension due to the lockdown enforced as a state response to the pandemic. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech referred to the implementation of the four labour codes, closing the process that started 20 years ago. She also mentioned a handsome Rs 15,700 crore for MSMEs, more than...
More »Travails of ASHA Workers During COVID-19 Call for Renewed Focus on Public Health -Deepanshu Mohan, Jignesh Mistry, Advaita Singh, Sunanda Mishra and Shivani Agarwal
-TheWire.in ASHA workers and other community healthCare Workers have experienced extra working hours, loss of pay and social apathy during the pandemic. Walking into 2021, if there was one positive to be identified with the large-scale outbreak of a pandemic in 2020 in India, and the rest of the developing world, it would have been this: a primary focus given by most governments and their executive agencies to improve healthcare services and...
More »Govt must give ASHAs, Anganwadi volunteers rights, benefits due as workers -Neetha N
-The Indian Express Recognition of care work in the public sphere could also help in unsettling the gendered and unequal division of house work and unpaid care burden. COVID-19 has given visibility to Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers — women “volunteers” attached to a government scheme or employed on a mission mode — who are frontline warriors in the battle against the pandemic. In India, there are about a...
More »Community action, with a focus on women’s well-being, can fight malnutrition -Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta
-The Indian Express Anganwadi workers, ASHAs, ANMs and anganwadi supervisors can work together with panchayat members to ensure that all children and mothers are covered with immunisation, antenatal care, maternity benefits and nutrition services On an MGNREGA worksite in Kolar, Karnataka, a male worker came up to me and said that men ought to be paid more than women. I asked him why. “Adhu yaavaagalu hange,” he replied: That was how it...
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