-The Indian Express One year since the Covid-19 lockdown was imposed, there’s been little change in the hunger levels and unemployment rate among migrant workers, especially women. Today marks the first anniversary of the day the central government announced an ill-planned national lockdown. India is home to nearly 500 million informal sector workers with practically non-existent social security and the unilateral decision pushed them into perilous circumstances, triggering their great exodus from...

-The Indian Express Amid recent questions about the ECI’s autonomy, a look at how the body has steered India’s electoral history. On March 15, the Citizens’ Commission on Elections (CCE), chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur, which examines critical aspects of conducting elections, released the second part of its report. Titled “An Inquiry into India’s Election System,” the report evaluated the integrity and inclusiveness of the electoral rolls, increasing...

-IndiaSpend.com MGNREGS is going beyond its conventional role of acting just as a source of rural employment for women to becoming a platform to place demands for village community work, to negotiate for space and power with gram panchayats and for networking. Jorhat (Assam), Kannur (Kerala) and Bahraich (Uttar Pradesh): What does a job card under the national rural jobs programme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), mean for someone? For...

-IDROnline.org How a government scheme designed to extend maternity benefits to pregnant women in India is unequal and exclusionary. Child stunting (low height for age) has increased in 13 states, child wasting (low weight for height) has increased in more than 12 states, number of underweight children has increased in 16 states, and children who are overweight has increased in 20 states. (All four indicators refer to children between the ages of...

-Hindustan Times Studies have shown that women are willing to be employed, negating the argument that cultural factors keep women from working outside the household According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2018-19, the female labour force participation rates among women aged above 15 years are as low as 26.4% in rural areas and 20.4% in urban areas in India. Both supply and demand factors contribute to the low levels of employment...