-The Hindu States, especially in the north, are facing the brunt of the second wave, made worse by their poor health infrastructure When the first wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic hit the country, the central government imposed the strictest lockdown for almost two months. For most of the migrants stuck in urban areas without incomes, jobs and food to survive, the only escape was to walk back to the rural areas...

-TheWire.in The Uttar Pradesh Primary Teachers’ Association has sent a list of the victims to the chief minister and put forth demands including financial assistance to family members of the teachers who have died. Gorakhpur: At least 1621 teachers and support staff have so far died from COVID-19 following poll duty during the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh panchayat elections, according to information provided by the Uttar Pradesh Primary Teachers’ Association on May...

-Scroll.in A report by the collective Hunger Watch reveals the extent of continuing hunger caused by state policy, and recommends ways to end the distress. A spectacularly uncaring, unaccountable state has abandoned Indians to their fate. Bodies are piling up, pyres burn late into the night, and corpses are buried in anonymous mass graves. Loved ones are choking to death because their governments failed to secure them oxygen. Vaccines have fallen short...

-Hindustan Times The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has witnessed the sharpest year-on-year increase in employment generation in its history in April 2021, government data shows, in a sign that the second Covid wave has caused major reverse migration adding to rural economic distress. According to rural development ministry data, around 22 million households have got work under the job guarantee in the month of April 2021, which is...

With the rise in Covid-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths since March this year, media reports (please click here and here) on migrant workers returning back to their native places (i.e. places of origin) from migration destinations (i.e. workplaces likes cities and large industrial towns to where the informal and low skilled workers from the marginalised sections of the society migrate seasonally, and sometimes for a longer duration,...