-CivilSocietyOnline.com Thiruvananthapuram: VEHICLES scattered left and right as Ushakumari S., surreally perched on her scooter in a personal protective equipment (PPE) suit, drove at top speed through Kollam’s streets to get to a hospital. Riding pillion with her was a COVID-19 patient, Ramla Beevi, who needed her second antigen test done. Ushakumari had got fed up, waiting for an ambulance to ship the patient, and decided to take matters into her own...

-The Hindu Workers in rural Kerala are badly hit. Kochi: Shanthi M., a 53-year-old from a family dependent on dairy farming in the Rayamangalam panchayat along the eastern suburbs of Ernakulam district, has dumped down the drain nearly 17 litres of milk daily ever since two members of her family tested positive for COVID-19. There are no takers for milk from an infected household. Nor is the family at liberty to cut...

-The Hindu With no ownership of land or houses and denial of minimum wage, lakhs of workers continue to live in a vicious cycle of bondage plucking Over the past few elections, Benam Oraon, a tea garden worker at Nagrakata Tea Estate in West Bengal, attended several election meetings and kept a note of the promises which political parties made. This election, however, he is contesting the polls as a candidate from...

-Civil Society News When the lockdown began to ease in June, migrant workers who had left Ahmedabad for their villages started returning to the city in the hope of finding some employment. It hasn’t been easy. Industrial areas haven’t opened up fully and employers are going slow on taking on workers. Sunk in debt with insecure work, hunger now stalks migrant workers. Entire families have been living out in the open on worksites....

-Article-14.com An apple tree takes a decade to mature. In Kashmir's Budgam, thousands were cut in 24 hours, as the government—in its rush to evict Muslim tribals from land they have used for generations—held back a protective forest law and ignored a Supreme Court stay. Kanidajen, Budgam: On a cold November morning, Abdul Gani Wagay was home when he heard that men with axes had come to cut his precious apple trees,...