The National Food Security Act 2013 guarantees maternity benefit to the tune of Rs. 6,000/- per child by the Central Government for pregnant women and lactating mothers, barring those who are already availing such benefits while being in regular employment with the Central Government or State Governments or Public Sector Undertakings or under other laws. The NFSA 2013 also legally guarantees free meals for every pregnant woman and lactating mother...

The World Economic Outlook – a bi-annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- released in October 2020 has anticipated that the economic progress made by the countries since the 1990s to reduce poverty would be turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, economic disparity would rise too in the post-COVID world because the crisis has disproportionately impacted women, informal sector workers and people with...

-TheWire.in A recent survey conducted becomes invaluable in terms of data on the socio-economic backgrounds of seasonal and short-term migrants. The lack of a comprehensive database on India’s migrants has been one of the foremost hurdles preventing the Indian government from providing direct cash transfers to them. The most that the government has been able to say about migrants is their aggregate number. Indeed, one of the biggest non-medical tragedies of the COVID-19...

-The Hindu India risks losing benefits of the demographic dividend by not creating enough jobs for new entrants, warns Professor Mehrotra. Santosh K Mehrotra, Professor of Economics at the Centre for Informal Sector & Labour Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University and author of the recently launched book Reviving Jobs: An Agenda For Growth said the current reverse migration has set the country back by 15 years, and stressed that the economic stimulus...

-The Indian Express Of late, there have been changes in the destination choices of Indian migrants. The preference seems to be for non-Anglophone countries despite the integration challenges. Migrants have made notable contributions to their countries of origin as well as destination. This is especially true for South Asia. To commemorate their efforts, the UN celebrates the International Migrants Day on December 18 every year. For several years, India has ranked the highest...