-TheWire.in The pandemic and the response to it threaten to exacerbate entrenched economic and social disparities. Like most healthcare workers, my profession puts me at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19. Statistically, however, my risk of acquiring a serious infection is reasonably modest and the probability of dying from it quite low. After all, I practice medicine at a premier hospital in the wealthiest nation on this planet and have access to...

Most reports and studies by official agencies, international think tanks and private entities indicate the cataclysmic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy and society. They anticipate that lockdowns imposed by various countries across the globe to reduce the exponential diffusion of COVID-19 (i.e. for flattening the curve by social distancing and quarantines) would adversely affect economic growth and disrupt supply chains in most sectors, on top of causing...

-Scroll.in Contract Workers have not been paid full salaries and are uncertain about their future. Thirty-five-year old Surendra Shah has been eating smaller meals since the lockdown began. He eats only twice a day – at 9 am and later at 9 pm. Despite the frugality, the stock of flour in his home ran out on Thursday. He is left with barely any rice, a kilo of potatoes that he purchased for...

-The Indian Express Jagdish (22), from Madhya Pradesh, does a mason’s work and is worried that even if the contractor gives money, that would be a loan, not relief. “It would be a very big government school when built,” says Kaushalendra Trivedi (45), a recent migrant from Gorakhpur, employed as a guard in Uttam Nagar in the national capital’s Rajkiya Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya. His family is five kilometres away in a makeshift...

-Livemint.com * The crisis has led to a mass exodus of migrant labour back to their villages, mainly in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh * From those working in restaurants to those making a living by ironing clothes in the neighbourhood, daily wagers are finding it difficult to make ends meet New Delhi: Ashok Kumar, a 42-year-old carpenter, lives in the Rohini area of the national capital and survives on work that he gets...