-Newsclick.in The pandemic has heightened an already simmering economic crisis – and the worst is still to come. The number of employed persons in India plummeted from about 40 crore in January to 39 crore in April 2021. That’s a loss of one crore employed persons, one of the steepest falls ever in four months, barring the brutal devastation caused by last year’s complete countrywide lockdown in April-May 2020. This emerges from...

With the rise in Covid-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths since March this year, media reports (please click here and here) on migrant workers returning back to their native places (i.e. places of origin) from migration destinations (i.e. workplaces likes cities and large industrial towns to where the informal and low skilled workers from the marginalised sections of the society migrate seasonally, and sometimes for a longer duration,...

-Down to Earth State pays out 83% of wheat MSP due for Rabi season in a month Punjab has successfully paid the lion’s share of price due to wheat farmers for their produce via the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) route as the Rabi marketing season nears its end. However, farmers are unsure about what it will mean for their equation with the aarthiyas or commission agents, who have been their financial backbones...

-The Hindu As incidents escalate amid the marathon Assembly polls, analysts point to a historical antecedents of widespread attacks Kolkata: Halfway into the marathon 33-day, eight-phase Assembly polls in West Bengal, leaders of the two major political parties are already talking about how violent these ongoing elections are. The ongoing 2021 poll is being compared to the 2018 panchayat polls in the State. While Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah said...

-The Hindu Rabi marketing season kicks off in Punjab Saturday but, until Thursday, the state and central governments had been locked in a tussle over the mode of payment to farmers. Chandigarh/New Delhi: A “threat”, some fireworks, and a concession — it was after a super-charged two-hour meeting between its ministers and Union Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal Thursday that Punjab finally agreed to introduce direct benefit transfer...