-The Hindu This is an extreme underestimation, going by the other assessments made by Central and State governments, including Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s estimate of 8 crore stranded migrants. The Chief Labour Commissioner’s (CLC) office has counted over 26 lakh migrant workers stranded across the country, of which 10% are in relief camps or shelter homes, while 43% are in situ at workplaces and 46% are in other clusters. This is an extreme...

-The Telegraph For me, the migrant worker crisis has become a much bigger crisis than Coronavirus, says Emmy nominated newscaster Barkha Dutt’s been living dangerously during the last 74 days. She’s leapt into trucks crammed with scores of migrant labourers hitching a lift back to their villages. She’s jumped onto a train about to pull out of Bangalore station and talked to migrant workers returning to Uttar Pradesh. She’s struggled into a...

-Hindustan Times “It was a small swarm, and spread across 1km-by-1km,” Suwa Lal Jat, joint director of plant protection in Rajasthan’s agriculture department said on Monday. Jaipur: A new swarm of locusts entered Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer on Sunday, officials said Monday. This is the fifth swarm to enter the state in four days from its western border with Pakistan. Since the first locust swarm invaded the state’s Sriganganagar district from Pakistan’s Baluchistan on April...

-Society for Social and Economic Research Monograph 20/3 Key Messages Lack of planning and preparation by the Central government for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a massive blow to India’s economy and has caused enormous hardships to working people of the country. Harvesting of Rabi crops • Unplanned and sudden imposition of the lockdown resulted in a massive and unprecedented disruption to agricultural activities such as harvesting, sale of agricultural produce, and purchase...

-The Telegraph What transparency? Website does not specify contributions, spending The Prime Minister’s Office has refused to provide copies of the trust deed of the PM CARES Fund, besides those of the government orders, notifications and circulars related to its creation, saying the fund is not a public authority and is therefore exempt from the Right to Information (RTI) Act. “PM CARES Fund is not a public authority under the ambit of Section...