-The Indian Express PM wary of open-ended provisions: Fund for MSME with guarantee likely. AS the Covid pandemic and the prolonged lockdown batter all sectors of the economy, the government, sources said, is working on a rescue package that, for now, may address the needs of the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) segment rather than the larger corporate sector. More than six meetings have been held at the Prime Minister’s Office —...
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India must rescue farmers from Covid-19 shock -Soumya Sarkar
-TheThirdPole.net India’s pandemic-forced lockdown has plunged agriculture into a crisis that needs immediate cash transfers to bail out smallholder farmers preparing for the summer cropping season India’s complete lockdown to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic has upended the agrarian economy of the South Asian nation. It could have a serious impact on farm production in the main summer cropping season, work for which starts in May. Farmers in India are no...
More »COVID-19: One nation, one ration card turns spotlight on 2017 govt report -Shagun Kapil
-Down to Earth The Union govt report had asked states to remove provisions that restricted migrants in accessing PDS benefits The Supreme Court asked the Union government on April 30, 2020 to consider adopting a ‘one nation, one ration card’ scheme for migrants stuck in cities due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. This has brought the spotlight on a 2017 government report on migration that emphasised that short-term migrants usually lose...
More »An open-ended, expanded employment guarantee at minimum wages should be its centrepiece -Nikhil Dey and Aruna Roy
-The Indian Express It is a cruel irony that after the sacrifice they have been asked to undertake, they don’t even get the safety of physical distancing. Workers have lost hard-won rights, despite labour being the biggest contributor to the Indian growth story. There are no labour-day rallies, celebrations or meetings this year as everyone is under lockdown, fighting the coronavirus through physical distancing. Nevertheless, it is a day for totting up...
More »Kanuru Sujatha Rao, former Union health secretary and a past Takemi Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, interviewed by GS Mudur (The Telegraph)
-The Telegraph Govt should ensure infection did not slip into green zones Some public experts, while acknowledging India’s early initiatives to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, have expressed concern about what they believe are signals of inadequate planning and poorly coordinated responses to the pandemic. The Telegraph had requested former Union health secretary Kanuru Sujatha Rao, who had spent in the health sector 20 of her 36 years as an IAS...
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