-The Hindu  Growth impulses remained fragile, manufacturing output tanked 9.5% After touching a six-month high in May, India’s retail inflation was virtually unchanged in June at about 6.3%, remaining out of the central bank’s comfort zone for a second month in a row. Economists expect the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to revisit its inflation estimate of 5.1% for 2021-22 and stressed that lack of fiscal policy action to cool prices could precipitate...

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 The pandemic disproportionately impacted women and young workers. A school bus driver is struggling to make ends meet driving a tempo for hire, purchased with an informal loan; a five-star chef is volunteering for an NGO preparing cooked meals for distribution in the slums of Bangalore; and an MCA degree-holder is working as a door-to-door water purifier technician. These and many more such anecdotes give us a glimpse into the disruption...

-OutlookIndia.com The stranded migrant crisis caused by the national lockdown, imposed with little notice, in March 2020 shook the conscience of the nation. On June 29, the Supreme Court passed an important judgment providing relief to migrant and unorganized sector workers in a case where it has taken suo moto cognizance during the national lockdown last year. The directions of the court in this matter mainly address four aspects – speeding up...

-Press release by National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) dated 2nd July, 2021  The sudden and unplanned lockdown imposed by the union government in March 2020 in the wake of pandemic had caused immense hardship to the informal sector workers. After much criticism and concern on its inaction, Supreme Court on 26.05.2020 took suo moto cognizance of “problems and miseries of the migrant labourers”. Later, several persons associated with people’s organisations...