-The Hindu Economists urge cash transfers to 80% of households to revive economy. The Centre needs to announce a ₹10 lakh crore fiscal stimulus package providing universal food ration and cash transfers for 80% of households in order to revive the economy at this time, the Heterodox Economists Collective has urged. Employment guarantees must be expanded for both rural and urban workers at a time of soaring joblessness, the group of economists...

-The Telegraph Seasonal sowing, MGNREGA boost prospects The grim employment scenario in urban India got aggravated while the rural sector showed some improvement in the last week of May, with researchers attributing the uptick in the villages to seasonal sowing activities and increase in work under the MGNREGA while calling the overall condition critical. Data released by private research group Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) show that the unemployment rate for the...

-The Indian Express MGNREGA is not the best instrument to help MSMEs in urban and rural areas. Mixing up its objectives can only lead to chaos with no value addition Newspaper reports suggest that a Group of Ministers (GoM) on employment, whose report is not yet available in the public domain, has made draft recommendations including some on MGNREGA. Their suggestions include merging MGNREGA with skill development programmes and using its funds...

-Newsclick.in Additional funds for MSMEs and MGNREGA are going to create enough jobs, but the economy will remain in doldrums. There has been much mutual patting on the back and self-congratulation, after the Narendra Modi government announced two policy measures that could have a direct impact on job creation. These were: a special credit line of Rs.3 lakh crore for MSMEs (medium, small and micro enterprises) and an additional allocation of Rs.40,000...

A recent survey conducted by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) -- a Delhi-based non-profit organisation -- shows how persons with disabilities in the country were disproportionately affected by the COVID–19 crisis. The report by NCPEDP has observed that persons with disabilities, particularly those from economically deprived sections, went through severe hardship during the lockdown. Without sufficient access to food or money, many of them faced hunger...