-ThePrint.in Under the ‘Balaram’ scheme, the Odisha government will provide credit worth Rs 1,040 crore to 7 lakh landless farmers in the next two years. New Delhi: The Odisha government has launched a scheme to provide agricultural credit to landless farmers across the state. This is the ‘first’ such targeted scheme for landless farmers in India. Under the ‘Balaram’ scheme the Naveen Patnaik government announced Thursday, Odisha will provide agriculture credit worth Rs...

-The Indian Express The state's massive exercise to prepare a Database of returning migrant workers nears completion, provides detailed profile of workforce as government seeks to connect them with potential employers. As the Uttar Pradesh government nears the end of its massive exercise to profile the skills of over 30 lakh migrant workers who have returned following the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic, analysis of the data has revealed the extent both...

-Livemint.com A Mint analysis suggests that the CMIE figures should not be considered a proxy for the official unemployment and labour force participation rates As the country went under lockdown, and everything, including the collection of statistics, came to a halt, analysts and economists were left scrambling for data to seize up just how badly the economy was doing. One dataset that has come to the rescue is the nationally representative employment-unemployment...

-Livemint.com From an already low base, women’s employment has fallen further, and a recovery will be difficult A clutch of early studies on the impact of the lockdown on employment is showing that women’s employment could be particularly badly hit. Given India’s record low female workforce participation rates, growing child care demands, and a looming recession, researchers fear that women could be increasingly shut out of the productive economy. To estimate the impact...

-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...