-TheWire.in Across India, unorganised workers registering for the e-Shram card have to wade through rumours of monetary benefits, fear of fraud, and a daunting process. On June 31, 2021, in response to a petition on the struggles faced by migrant workers during the pandemic, the Supreme Court directed the central government to accelerate the process of building a database of unorganised workers. The government responded by launching the e-Shram portal – a...

-The Pioneer Aligarh: The observance of May 1 as Labour Day brings no hope for betterment to about 1 lakh labourers employed in Aligarh’s lock and hardware units when seminars, conferences and rallies were organized in different parts of the city to mark Labour  Day. Getting education for their children aged 8 to 14 years is a mirage. For earning little sums, they pay a heavy price in terms of their...

-Down to Earth There is a widespread availability of inferior quality as well as spurious biofertiliser and organic fertiliser products across the country The availability, quality and uptake of biofertilisers and organic fertilisers in India is poor, flagged a new report. These non-chemical options are considered critical to the transition from chemical-based to sustainable farming practices like organic and natural farming. The availability of cost-effective quality biofertilisers and organic fertilisers is, therefore, of...

-Financial Express Dataset and methodological weaknesses cast doubt on recent poverty estimates that claim drastic reduction Bhalla, Bhasin and Virmani in a working paper (IMF), claimed India’s poverty, per a $1.9 per person per day poverty line (at PPP), was 0.9% of the population in 2020. Thanks to government transfer of free rations of 5 kg per person month, it fell to 0.8% (from 0.9% in 2019). Roy and de Velt, for...

-The Tribune While many of the big defaulters have escaped abroad, why is it invariably a farmer (or a small borrower) who is left to face ill-treatment and injustice in the loan recovery process? While the big defaulters are treated with kid gloves, farmers are always treated with a different yardstick, as if they are children of a lesser god. WHILE the Punjab State Cooperative Agricultural Development Bank (PADB) has issued arrest...