-The Hindu Business Line/ NetworkIdeas.org The disease ripping through the country is only one of the destructive forces affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians. The dramatic increase in hunger is another. Like devastation wrought by the current surge in Coronavirus infections, this too is the result of policy failure and official callousness. It is already causing immense suffering among affected people and will have serious repercussions on their...

-The Telegraph Workers yet to receive a month's payment from Centre and state at a time, no work is available owing to the pandemic Koushalya Hembram, 42, of Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district worked under the rural job scheme for 21 days in April. But the unmarried resident of Podahat village had not received her wages till Monday. No other work is available in her area amid a resurgent Covid. “I keep checking my mobile...

-Newslaundry.com 'What positivity do we look for in people's suffering?' “A 29-year-old man died in the hospital while his wailing wife and children waited outside,” Ronak Shah, a reporter for the Gujarati daily Sandesh said, recalling a tragedy he witnessed on April 12. “The three-year-old daughter kept saying, ‘My father is coming soon and we are here to take him home. I offered her a biscuit to eat, she did not take...

-GaonConnection.com The second wave of COVID19 hits rural India and the lockdown makes a comeback once again causing loss of livelihoods. People in villages are eating less, and many cannot afford vegetables and pulses. Plain rice and salt, or roti-chutney is what families are eating. But for how long? Sitting on the front steps of his home floor in Satna district’s Kitha village, 12-year-old Ravi Yadav holds a big thali on his...

-Down to Earth The nomadic pastoral communities cannot afford to remain in their houses even during a pandemic The second wave of the novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has ravaged livelihoods of people in urban areas. Its has now quietly started to wreak havoc on the lives of people in rural areas. Across the country, villagers are brushing off symptoms of COVID-19 as seasonal flu. The crumbling health infrastructure fails to provide them...