-The Indian Express The proposed policy, instead of addressing the causes and consequences of under-age marriages, may instead produce adverse, suboptimal outcomes affecting the poor and marginalised the most. Should women’s legal age for marriage be raised? The answer to this seemingly simple question is not so simple, because the question is not simply about replacing age 18 with 21. Rather, it deals with the social origins of a “problem” not easily...
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Over three-fourth of workers lost their livelihoods since lockdown, finds ActionAid India's national survey of informal labourers
ActionAid Association's (AAA) national level survey among people dependent on the informal economy during the third phase of the national lockdown towards the end of May 2020 (i.e. between May 14th and May 22nd, 2020) has documented the "nature and extent of the transitions in the lives and livelihoods of informal workers, including migrant workers, during the pandemic and provide[s] an insight into the precarity they experience and the coping...
More »Differential impact of COVID-19 and the lockdown -Ashwini Deshpande and Rajesh Ramachandran
-The Hindu The resultant distress in India has exacerbated pre-existing structures of disadvantage based on social identity In his book, The Great Leveler, Walter Scheidel, the Austrian economic historian, argues that throughout human history, there have been four types of catastrophic events that have led to greater economic equality: pandemic, war, revolution and state collapse. Currently, the world is going through one of them: a massive COVID-19 pandemic. In Scheidel’s analysis, the...
More »Afraid of Angering BJP, Facebook Ignored Hate Speech Rules for Party's Anti-Muslim Posts: Report
-TheWire.in A report in the Wall Street Journal, quoting unnamed current and former FB officials, alleges a top Facebook India official opposed taking down hate speech posts by a BJP MLA over worries it would damage the company's business prospects in India. New Delhi: A top Facebook official in India was opposed to applying the social media platform’s hate speech rules to at least one Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician and other...
More »Should early child care centres be opened sooner? -Ramya Kannan
-The Hindu A decision on this can be taken only when the pandemic begins to subside. The world is still struggling to come to terms with the unprecedented impact that COVID-19 has had on every aspect of human life. The pandemic has forced cities and towns to go into lockdowns. The attendant side effects — including the rather sudden withdrawal of certain social support services — have affected large groups of people....
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