-The Indian Express Over the last few weeks, many daily wage labourers and part of the unorganised or informal sector could not find work because of the lockdown. AT LEAST six top corporate leaders are said to have recommended to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the government should make payments to unorganised sector workers since they bear the brunt of the severe lockdown measures to arrest the spread of Covid-19 disease. N Chandrasekaran,...
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A pandemic, an economic blow and the big fix -Praveen Chakravarty
-The Hindu A package for Rs. 5-lakh crore-₹6-lakh crore targeted across different sections of society and the economy, is feasible India has just finished a day of curfew and clapping to practise ‘social distancing’ and to express gratitude to the millions of health and essential services workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a laudable initiative by the Prime Minister to rally the nation together. The nation is truly at war, as...
More »The perils of an all-out lockdown -Jean Drèze
-The Hindu If the poor must stay at home, they need income support and essential services As the novel coronavirus spreads, a double crisis looms over India: a health crisis and an economic crisis. In terms of casualties, the health crisis is still very confined (seven deaths in a country where eight million people die every year), but the numbers are growing fast. Meanwhile, the economic crisis is hitting with full force,...
More »Coronavirus: 54% of Indian firms can’t support work from home, says report
-Hindustan Times A report by Gartner, a leading IT service management company, says that 54 per cent of the companies in India do not have enough technology and resources for employees to work to home. While companies across the world mull over having their employees log in from home in the wake of the coronavirus scare, a report suggests that for many companies in India, this might just be a distant dream. Please...
More »Coronavirus -- The cost of opacity -R Prasad
-The Hindu It is not data, but lack of transparency and awareness that causes panic during a pandemic China’s initial cover-up of the novel coronavirus outbreak for nearly a month invited worldwide condemnation. Similarly, there were concerns when the U.S. was reported to be barring leading scientist, Anthony Fauci, from speaking publicly about the COVID-19 outbreak without approval. Dr. Fauci has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious...
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