-Livemint.com * There will be a tsunami of job losses for employees who don’t have a regular salary, people without a written contract * A labour market crunch right now can easily turn into a nightmare. Besides the possibility of social unrest, expect more demands for more reservations in government On a Monday afternoon, a day before India announced a 21-day lockdown to flatten the curve of covid-19 infections, Sunil Gupta, chairman and...

-The Indian Express Nearly 19 lakh farmers had registered themselves on the MP government’s e-Uparjan procurement portal between February 1 and 28. Bhopal, Jalandhar: First it was over two weeks of political uncertainty and now it is the 21-day lockdown to combat COVID-19 that is giving anxious moments to the lakhs of wheat growers in Madhya Pradesh. Procurement of their produce —farmers in the state have sown a record 79.68 lakh hectares under...

-IdeasforIndia.in In this post, Sudha Narayanan provides a sense of current bottlenecks in the supply chains of food and agricultural produce, and makes recommendations for government action to get these back on track quickly. A critical fallout of the lockdown following the novel coronavirus pandemic has been a combination of confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety for farmers and consumers alike as to what lies in store in the coming weeks. There are reports from...

-IdeasforIndia.in With over 80% of India’s workforce employed in the informal sector and one-third working as casual labour, Covid-19's spread and subsequent unplanned lockdowns, have created economic havoc in the lives of millions. In this post, Reetika Khera puts forward suggestions on what can be done to help people immediately, ranging from cash and in-kind assistance to special measures for migrants in urban areas and urgent health-related measures. The spread of the...

-The Indian Express Threat from coronavirus is real, demands vigilance. But responses to it are bordering on paranoia. In The Plague, Albert Camus describes the French town of Oran, which is swept by a plague leading to the death of thousands of inhabitants. Camus’s novel is the story of a community struck by a destructive force, to which it refuses to surrender. The outbreak of the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus epidemic and the...