-Hindustan Times They are underpaid and overworked, from marginalised communities, sustained by an invisible economy of care If anything positive has come out of the COVID-19 crisis, it is that the world’s most stringent lockdown revealed the plight of the vulnerable Indian migrant labour force. With no work and no way to feed themselves, removed from family support, millions had no choice but to defy the lockdown and return to their villages....

-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 Indian Express COVID-related crisis offers NDA government opportunity to increase work days, entitlements under the employment guarantee scheme. In a recent article (‘Credit where it isn’t due’, IE, June 10), Union Minister for Rural Development Narendra Singh Tomar described the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) as a “failing scheme” before 2014. MGNREGA under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was by no means perfect, but when the National...

-Counterview.net The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the risks of an unhealthy diet and the extreme fragility of food systems. The economic reconstruction that will follow the pandemic is the perfect opportunity to provide better nutrition and health to all. The pandemic should spur us to redefine how we feed ourselves, and agricultural research can play a vital role in making our food systems more sustainable and resilient. Family-owned farms still produce some...

-NDTV The chairman of the committee, Adhir Chowdhary, who is also the leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha, appealed to members to think of the nation and act with their conscience and find a consensus on the important subject. New Delhi: The Public Accounts Committee or PAC, one of the most important parliamentary panels which scrutinises key reports by the auditor general and has taken up issues like the...