-The Hindu Business Line/ NetworkIdeas.org With India experiencing a severe second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing decentralized lockdowns, a crisis of loss of jobs and livelihoods and resulting hunger is being reported from across the country. A reluctant central government has, therefore, been forced to revive the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), to distribute 5 kilograms of free foodgrain per person per month to the approximately 80 crore...

-The Hindu In the U.S., India and Brazil, messianic populism, polarisation and insularity have made the pandemic that much worse A year and counting into the greatest health crisis the world has faced in over a century we can identify one overwhelming factor that separates the countries that have done relatively well from those that have been complete disasters:Autocrcy elected autocrats. By any measure the most dismal performers in the democratic world...

-Down to Earth Physical distancing as well as home quarantining have changed the housing standardisation game; an overhaul is needed India witnessed a mass exodus of migrant workers in April 2020: Nearly 40 million migrant workers were affected by the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), according to the World Bank. Some estimates pegged the figure at 120-140 million. In April 2021, the country had a deja-vu:...

-The Hindu Bal Swaraj said they included children aged between zero and 17 orphaned or abandoned during the pandemic since March 2020. Bal Swaraj, an online tracking portal of a national child rights body, shows details of nearly 10,000 children in the country in immediate need of care and protection. They include children aged between zero and 17 orphaned or abandoned during the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020. The National Commission for Protection...

-Review of Agrarian Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, January-June, 2021 This note analyses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the production and cost of cultivation of crops grown in the monsoon (kharif) season. The note is based on a survey of 164 informants from 26 villages across 13 States of India. The survey, conducted by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies (FAS) between mid-September and mid-October, 2020, was based on telephone...