-Newsclick.in According to CMIE data, the national unemployment rate in April registered a four-month high of 7.97% – with urban and rural joblessness at 9.78% and 7.13% respectively – as against the previous month’s figure of 6.50%. The recent surge in COVID-19 cases has sent the pandemic spiralling anew in the country, with its impact visible not just on the already strained healthcare infrastructure but also on the economic front – particularly...

-The Telegraph Published by the University of Bonn in Germany, the findings are significant at a time workers have again begun returning home amid a Covid resurgence in India The rural job guarantee scheme and the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Yojana provided work to less than eight per cent of the migrant workers who had returned home after last year’s lockdown, a study has found. It has argued that the highly skilled returned migrants...

-Hindustan Times Income and urban expenditure grew at below the national average. But rural expenditure grew faster, and there is a sharper dip in poverty levels Poriborton, or change, was the buzzword 10 years ago when the Trinamool Congress (TMC) defeated the Left Front. This time around, one of the popular campaign slogans, used by the prime minister, is asol poriborton or real change. The demand for change clearly has not changed...

-The Indian Express Niti Aayog’s draft policy is a good start which could, with a few adjustments, reduce the vulnerability and risks faced by labour migrants and ultimately build a more sustainable model of development. The Niti Aayog’s draft Migrant Labour Policy is a clear statement of intent to better recognise migrants’ contribution to the economy and support them in their endeavours. It puts forward several radical ideas, including the adoption of...

-The Hindu In the post-pandemic world, addressing inequality is key to sustaining growth and well-being COVID-19 in the last one year has once again reminded us of the growing inequalities in India. A recent Pew Research Report shows that India’s middle class may have shrunk by a third due to the novel coronavirus pandemic while the number of poor people earning less than ₹150 per day more than doubled. The Pew report...