-TheWire.in Most of the people studied in the survey lost their sense of job security and said the government should put a robust unemployment programme in place. In order to understand the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the common people, we made 122 phone calls from June 1 to 5, covering 595 people in the business capital and the second largest city of the state of Odisha – Cuttack. The respondents were...
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Can MGNREGA Be Reshaped and Reoriented to Help India's Farmers? -Siraj Hussain and Jugal Mohapatra
-TheWire.in As a fresh spotlight hits India's rural employment programme, two suggestions have been offered to “repurpose” MGNREGA to utilise the additional labour force that have returned to their villages. Due to the sudden lockdown and resultant job losses, over one crore people have returned to their homes, some walking hundreds of kilometres, others using all conceivable means of transport – buses, trucks, trailers, concrete mixers, Shramik trains, motorcycles, scooters, bicycles, auto...
More »Locust invasions in a number of Indian states have arisen out of climate change induced extreme rainfalls in desert areas
In the midst of COVID-19 lockdown, desert locust swarms have been seen in parts of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh in the second half of May 2020. The recent attacks by desert locust swarms have caused massive crop damage, depletion in the stock of cattle fodder and destruction of green vegetation in these states. As on 25th May, 2020, over half of Rajasthan’s 33 districts were...
More »India powers surge in global autocracy -Anita Joshua
-The Telegraph 'It is on the verge of losing status as a democracy due to shrinking space for media and civil society' More people are living under autocracies than under democracies across the world and India’s “steep decline” on democratic traditions despite electoral politics is a contributing factor to the global surge in autocratisation. India has also been put among the top 10 autocratising countries. This is one of the conclusions of a study...
More »Do doctors have an uncircumscribed duty to serve? -Errol D'Souza
-The Hindu If doctors have a duty to provide care then what about the value of reciprocity: does society not have a duty to support those who assume the burden to buttress the public good? During the lockdown I come across a number of stories in the press that are in some way related. A woman in Bengal was refused admission into a government hospital and eventually gave birth in an autorickshaw....
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