A recent survey that was conducted through telephonic interviews among 1,405 respondents across the states of Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan and Jharkhand reveals the precarious conditions of workers nearly 45 days after the announcement of COVID-19 lockdown. The report entitled Labouring Lives: Hunger, Precarity and Despair amid Lockdown tries to understand the extent (and depth) of job loss and hunger 45 days after the lockdown. Hunger and...

-Hindustan Times Chief ministers of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha will participate in the virtual launch from Bihar’s Telihar village. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a massive rural public works scheme, the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, on Saturday to create jobs for millions of migrant workers who returned home during the coronavirus pandemic. PM Modi launched the scheme worth Rs 50,000 crore through video conference in presence...

-The Hindu In Madhya Pradesh, COVID-19 health priorities lead to 18.6% drop in institutional deliveries in April. Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh recorded a fall of 18.6% in institutional deliveries in April, the first month of the COVID-19 lockdown, casting a shadow on an improving trend, National Health MISsion (NHM) data show. Private and government-run health centres recorded 97,881 births in April 2019, around 18.1% more than the previous year. However, the count dipped to...

-Frontline.in The government uses specious arguments on COVID deaths and recoveries in comparison with other countries to cover up for its ill-thought-out strategies. On June 1, while briefing the media, the Joint Secretary (Health), Lav Agarwal, presented several PowerPoint graphs showing how India’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was on a par with, if not better than, many countries vis-a-vis mortality and recovery rates. This was on a day when the number...

-ThePrint.in None of the new agri-marketing laws have anything to do with the coronavirus or the lockdown, but were brought in by Modi govt when Parliament was shut. My friend Ajay Vir Jakhar, who runs Bharat Krishak Samaj and is currently the Chair of Punjab Farmers’ ComMISsion, has tweeted a MISchievous request asking for names and contact details of those farmer organisations that support the three “historic” ordinances passed recently for the...