-The Hindu Lockdown slump may erase 20-30 lakh jobs, says expert Around 20-30 lakh workers, mostly contractual, could lose jobs in the Gurugram-Manesar-Bawal automobile belt due to slump in demand in the wake of COVID-19-induced lockdown, said Harbhajan Singh, chairman of Ease of Doing Business, CII, Haryana. Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Singh, also former director of Honda two-wheelers, said that the Gurugram-Manesar-Bawal automobile belt, which employs around six million workers and is...

Preliminary results of an ongoing study by the Centre for Sustainable Employment of Azim Premji University (APU) indicate that the lockdown has had a devastating impact on the livelihood security of the working people. The survey is currently being conducted across the country by the Centre for Sustainable Employment along with civil society organisations. Impact on livelihoods Analysis of preliminary data collected through telephonic interviews between 13th April, 2020 and 9th May, 2020...

-The Hindu All categories of manufacturing industries showed a contraction in production, with the worst affected being the automobile sector India’s factory output plummeted to record lows in March, with the Index of Industrial Production contracting 16.7%, reflecting the drastic impact of the countrywide lockdown that began on March 25. This comes after a positive growth of 4.5% recorded in February. Manufacturing sector output slumped 20% in March, while electricity generation shrank almost...

-The Telegraph The journal has cited examples of Kerala, Odisha and Maharashtra The Centre should loosen its control and give states more autonomy over funding and decision-making on the Covid-19 pandemic, The Lancet, a top international medical journal, said on Saturday in a commentary on India under the lockdown. The journal said the states “deserve much of the credit for India’s Covid-19 response” and that the lockdown was “hastily prepared and immediately disadvantaged...

-TheWire.in A market economy is not an automobile that can stop and restart at the touch of a button. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a total lockdown of the country to fight COVID-19, he did it perhaps with one idea in his mind. The spread of the virus had to be stopped first, no matter what it cost the economy. A trade-off between saving lives and saving incomes was unavoidable and...