Huge sums of money are allocated for the rural and agrarian sectors by the Union Government in its annual budget every year, and rightly so. But in the absence of an adequate number of officials in rural areas, can the various schemes and programmes of the government be implemented properly? We will find the answer if we think about this issue deeply and the answer that would emerge should bother...
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Jean Drèze, development economist and social activist, interviewed by Shreehari Paliath (IndiaSpend.com)
-IndiaSpend.com Bengaluru: Global economic output is expected to contract by 4.9% in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 lockdown. India announced a lockdown on March 24, 2020, which was extended over two months, and continues in pockets of states depending on the spread of the disease, which has now infected more than half a million people in the country. The lockdown impacted millions of inter-state migrant workers who form the bulwark of India’s...
More »Dominant-caste panchayats in Punjab pass resolutions to reduce labour wages -Jatinder Kaur Tur
-CaravanMagazine.in On 30 May, the dominant caste landowners of Ghanauri Khurd village in Punjab’s Sangrur district organised a meeting of their panchayat. Under the supervision of Rajdeep Kaur, the sarpanch of the village, they passed a list of resolutions against the wages, welfare and freedom of the primarily Dalit daily-wage labourers of the village. The resolution capped the wages of workers at Rs 3,800 for sowing an acre of paddy and...
More »Fewer hospital-born babies in Madhya Pradesh as women fear virus -Sidharth Yadav
-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...
More »SWAN’s third report outlines the perpetual plight of migrants in terms of food shortage, income insecurity and travel difficulties during the lockdown
On June 5th this year, the Stranded Workers Action Network, comprising volunteers from various civil society groups, academics and students enrolled in university education, released its third report entitled ‘To Leave or Not to Leave? Lockdown, Migrant Workers, and Their Journeys Home’. Among other things, the latest report states that nearly four-fifth of migrant workers (out of 5,911) who called SWAN volunteers for help (altogether 821 distress calls were made)...
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