-The Hindu Over 2 lakh households have exhausted quota. More than 2 lakh rural households have already completed their guaranteed 100 days of employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme within the first three months of the financial year, according to the scheme’s database. This is higher than seen at the same time last year, indicating even higher demand for work than 2020-21’s unprecedented levels. Given the high...

-TheWire.in Treating occupational safety for sanitation workers as a technical issue about personal protective equipment is not enough to understand the various elements involved, from changing behaviour to the larger context of sanitation workers’ lives. At 8 am every morning, Murali, a de-sludging operator bids his two children goodbye and leaves his house. He cleans his vehicle, removes and tucks his chappals in a corner of his truck, and begins his workday. As...

-The Hindu 2021 deaths surge reverses decline in mortality After registering a lower number of deaths overall in 2020 compared to 2019, Kerala witnessed a significant increase in the overall death count due to the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, resulting in an estimated 15,222 “excess deaths” till May 31, month-wise data from the Civil Registration System show. The overall “excess deaths” for the period April 2020-May 2021 were 13,868,...

-The Hindu The Government needs to reverse its neglect and policy missteps as key indicators show the sector has resilience The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic could be slowly receding with a decline in the official estimates of daily infections and deaths. The economy is also very gradually getting back to normal, with many States beginning to ease some of the restrictions imposed in their lockdowns. However, the challenge of an...

-IndiaSpend.com To fight hunger and distress due to the pandemic, India must universalise foodgrain distribution, expand the food basket in its rations scheme and provide cash transfers, activist Anjali Bhardwaj tells us in this interview Bengaluru: The pandemic-induced lockdowns have had a profound impact on livelihoods, affecting poor Indians' food intake, studies show. In October 2020, more than half the respondents of a Hunger Survey said their rice/wheat consumption had declined during...