-Newsclick.in The government’s brazen class bias is crystal clear, as it gives away national assets built with public money to its favourite capitalists, together with tax breaks. Junior Minister for Rural Development in the Central government, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, ruled out in Parliament any increase in the amount of monthly pension given by the Centre to the elderly under the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP). The amount currently being given to each...

-The Telegraph India spends only 0.04 per cent of its GDP on social security pension; several states add to the pension from their own funds Sulochana Behera eagerly waits for her old-age pension of Rs 500 every month at her home in Garh Nipania village in Puri district, Odisha. Within hours of receiving the sum, the widowed Sulochana spends it all on medicine and food that barely last a week. She then starts...

The pandemic's first wave had a devastating impact on the livelihoods of rural workers in Bihar (including the self-employed) last year, according to a survey based research, jointly done by economists from Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability at Monash University, Australia and the New Delhi-based Institute for Human Development. A recent press note issued by the authors of the study shows that almost 94.4 percent of the households participating...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-The Hindu The universalisation of social security remains an unfulfilled aspiration in the new code on social security As COVID-19 destroys lives and livelihoods, an unprepared government has rendered low-paid, informal workers, who constitute 91% of the workforce, totally hapless, pushing them further into poverty. Imagine if these same informal workers had social security (including free basic curative care in public clinics and hospitals, the elderly had Old age pensions, the dying...