-The Hindu States creating artificial demand, says official; workers pushed into ‘forced labour’ by delayed payments, say activists The Centre’s flagship rural employment scheme has run out of funds halfway through the financial year, and supplementary budgetary allocations will not come to the rescue for at least another month when the next Parliamentary session begins. According to its own financial statement, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme shows...

-RuralIndiaOnline.org It's been hard days for powerloom weavers in the city's Bazardiha cluster – with lockdowns and monsoon flooding. But it’s the UP government’s review of their electricity subsidy that has them the most worried In the narrow lanes of Bazardiha, amid the clacking sounds of powerlooms, Wasim Akram is busy at work. He has been weaving since the age of 14 in the same two-storey brick-cement house – generations old, as...

-Article-14.com The government has rubbished the 2021 Global Hunger Index report saying it does not reflect reality. But the reality is worse because it reflects India’s own pre-Covid data. Current estimates of foodgrain to various welfare programmes reveal serious under-nutrition and wide gaps in safety nets for poor. Mumbai: Jolted by the overnight choking of all sources of income for her household with the imposition of a nationwide lockdown on 23 March...

-Hindustan Times Workers who have registered so far belong to diverse occupations, such as construction, apparel manufacturing, fishing, gig and platform work, street vending as well as domestic work. Nearly half of 40 million workers of the country’s informal economy registered on a recently launched national portal are women, and most workers regardless of gender are from disadvantaged castes, official data that shines new light on India’s invisible unorganised labour force shows. Trends...

-Newsclick.in Petrol and diesel prices have also zoomed, as Modi government rakes in over Rs.3.73 lakh crore as tax. The Central government continues to squeeze millions of Indians by relentlessly raising the prices of essential fuels, such as cooking gas and petrol/diesel. In the past one year, the price of a standard 14.2 kg cylinder of cooking gas (LPG) has been hiked by an incredible Rs.301.75, from Rs.604.63 (average of four metros)...