-The Telegraph/ PTI Order issued to exclude non-essential items from cart The Centre on Sunday barred e-commerce firms from selling non-essential items during the Lockdown, reversing its own four-day-old order that allowed online platforms to sell mobile phones, refrigerators and readymade garments. The dismay of the e-commerce companies and the jubilation among domestic traders, considered a traditional vote bank of the ruling BJP, suggested politics has forced the Narendra Modi government to take...

-TheWire.in Social policies almost always have multiple, often unintended, consequences. This feature came out sharply, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared a nationwide Lockdown to arrest the spread of the novel coronavirus without announcing an immediate or near-simultaneous relief package for India’s poorest. As the fight against COVID-19 unavoidably puts the livelihoods of millions at risk, an ugly truth of Indian society has come out in the open – namely, a large...

-TheThirdPole.net Migrant workers in India, Pakistan and Nepal are crushed by poverty as earnings come to an abrupt halt in the Lockdown forced by the Covid-19 pandemic Across South Asia, the impact of the Covid-19 on livelihoods has been extreme. Despite being an outlier in terms of low infection rates, and even low casualties, most South Asian countries have been left reeling due to the impact that shutdowns have had on migrant...

-The Indian Express The usage of cash and other cash-based services, however, dipped during the period, the data showed. New Delhi: The month of March, in which the national Lockdown began, saw a sharp rise in digital financial transactions countrywide, according to data accessed by The Indian Express. According to the latest Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, the total value of Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) transactions — the biggest online payment...

-The Hindu In a communication to State-run banks, the government said the move is aimed at ensuring credit flow for economic activities and the guidelines come into effect from Monday when the business activities resume. Mumbai: As business activities resumed on Monday after a nationwide Lockdown, the Finance Ministry has swung into action to ensure credit flow to companies and prescribed a specific time frame for banks within which a loan needs...