-Business Standard Unemployment rate in the country will rise to a staggering 32.5 per cent, but will be higher in Sri Lanka at 37.8 per cent As many as 6.1 million young people (15-24 years) may lose jobs in India in 2020 if the containment of the virus takes six months (roughly till September), says a report by Asian Development Bank (ADB) and International Labour Organisation (ILO). India will be followed by Pakisan,...

Huge sums of money are allocated for the rural and agrarian sectors by the Union Government in its annual budget every year, and rightly so. But in the absence of an adequate number of officials in rural areas, can the various schemes and programmes of the government be implemented properly? We will find the answer if we think about this issue deeply and the answer that would emerge should bother...

-Livemint.com As a part of the relief measures, while the PDS system could reach a vast majority of people both in rural and urban areas, the system has failed to identify the affected informally employed labour force in largely urban areas. This makes a case for introducing an urban replica of MGNREGA With laudable measures like the increased allocation in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the Pradhan Mantri...

-Newsclick.in Even the lifting of the lockdown hasn’t brought much solace to the workers who say that job opportunities in the market are next to none, while their already depressed wages are witnessing further cuts. Construction workers staged demonstrations across the country on Monday, highlighting their plight amid the COVID-19 pandemic with the lack of savings and absence of any social security measures. Led by Construction Workers’ Federation of India (CWFI), the workers,...

-The Hindu Business Line The vague legal definition of ‘worker’ sabotages inclusive and eligible delivery of welfare to all workers during the pandemic The Covid-19 health emergency has disrupted trade, mobility and livelihood in unimaginable ways. The magnitude of the crisis grows manifold when social and economic shutdowns accompany it, and the uncertainties of livelihood, wage loss and lay-offs might last longer than expected as Covid-19 has hit almost all sectors. To...