-Press release by the Right to Food Campaign Secretariat dated February 23, 2022 * 66 percent respondents said that their income has decreased compared to the pre-pandemic period * 80 percent reported some form of food insecurity, 25 percent reported severe food insecurity * 41 percent said that nutritional quality of their diet deteriorated compared to the pre-pandemic period * 67 percent could not afford cooking gas in the month preceding the survey. * 45...
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Don't Withhold Pension, Benefits of SC/ST Employees Without Verified Caste Certificates: Parliamentary Panel -Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar
-TheWire.in A list of 136 deprived pensioners was submitted to Committee. It said, "withholding pension benefits for these persons is gross harassment." New Delhi: The Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has recommended that the Department of Personnel and Training should issue guidelines that caste certificates of SC/ST employees be verified within six months of their joining service, failing which they should be treated as authentic unless...
More »Jean Drèze, development economist and right to food activist, interviewed by Shriya Mohan (The Hindu Business Line)
-The Hindu Business Line The development economist, now part of Tamil Nadu’s Economic Advisory Council, says that public expenditure on health is just 0.6 per cent of the state domestic product, one of the lowest ratios among Indian states * Universal quality education, health care and social security are still distant goals * A well-designed system of emergency cash transfers would be quite useful in this situation of recurrent crises, which may last...
More »Cyclone Yaas-hit families in Jharkhand stare at starvation -Animesh Bisoee
-The Telegraph Survey done in June among 104 affected families finds several forced to stay under tree sheds in rainy season after houses were completely damaged Jamshedpur: A survey by Khadya Suraksha Jan Adhikar Manch in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district has painted a grim picture of tribals battling starvation after being battered by Cyclone Yaas on May 27. The survey done in June among 104 affected families in nine blocks (out of a...
More »A collage of laws that leaves the worker out in the cold -Santosh Mehrotra and Kingshuk Sarkar
-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...
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