-Down to Earth Several Saurashtra migrants who had returned to work in Surat in May-end said they have fallen back on LAND RESOURCEs for agriculture The Saurashtra region in western Gujarat has been witnessing a second wave of reverse migration amid the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Labourers employed in the diamond industry in Surat had first migrated back to their villages in Saurashtra when the Union government had first announced nationwide lockdown...
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Can raising the approved labour budget from 280.76 crore person-days to 306.6 crore person-days help the unskilled returnee migrants who prefer MGNREGA to Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan?
Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »EIA Legitimised Environmental Destruction. Now, Govt ‘Renovates’ it for the Worst. -Manju Menon and Kanchi Kohli
-TheWire.in The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA), a legal process that effectively grants projects like mines, dams and industries access to land, water, forests and other environmental resources has been used in India since 1994. On March 12, 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, the environment ministry put out a draft proposal to amend the EIA norms. The last date for public comments is June 30, 2020. The EIA was designed within...
More »Groundwater depletion in Punjab: Time for a major policy overhaul -Balsher Singh Sidhu
-India Water Portal The time for quick fixes is over; a comprehensive policy overhaul is urgently needed to impede the juggernaut of Punjab's groundwater depletion. Punjab, a small state in northwest India, derives its name from the Persian words panj (five) and āb (water), meaning the "land of five rivers". Ironically, this state is now regularly in the news for its rapidly depleting groundwater levels. The most recent government report on Punjab's...
More »Jean Drèze, Belgian-born Indian economist and right-to-food activist, interviewed by Preetha Nair (Outlook India)
-Outlook India Indian Economist Jean Drèze, in an interview with Outlook, says that because of the Coronavirus lockdown, there won’t be any employment under MNREGA now and Bihar will be the worst-hit. Belgian-born Indian economist, Jean Dreze, says that the central government needs to take immediate measures to address the situation that has emerged in the wake of mass exodus of migrant workers due to the Coronavirus lockdown. In an interview with...
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