-IndiaWaterPortal.org A study conducted in 47 districts indicates that over half of the surveyed households are eating less during lockdown. The study, ‘Covid-19 induced lockdown - How is hinterland coping’, based on a large survey undertaken by a consortium of civil society organisations undertook a rapid assessment of the impact of series of lockdowns on rural poor households. Of the many coping mechanisms, the most prominent was that over 50 percent of...

-TheThirdPole.net Fisheries markets collapsed in the FIRst days of the lockdown, impoverishing hundreds of thousands of small fishers, and recovery is nowhere in sight When Pradip Chatterjee, president of Dakshinbanga Matsyajibi Forum (South Bengal Fishers’ Forum – DMF), starts talking about the problems that plague small scale fishers in West Bengal, there is no stopping him. He finds a multitude of issues that confront them, from climate change to Covid-19. DMF is...

-TheWire.in Why do some COVID apps prefer to shun location tracking altogether and some don't? The mobile phone seems to be an important weapon in the fight against COVID-19. Phone apps that track location – basically, latitude, longitude at a specific time – and send this information to health authorities live are being deployed to ensure that phone owners remain within quarantine zones. A different use simply records the location trail over a...

-The Telegraph 'Wish there were announcements on government spending' Kolkata: Like many Indians, a young businessman keenly awaiting the fine print of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan (Self-reliant India Mission) placed himself before a television screen around 4pm on Wednesday. The businessman did not have to brush up his language skills to understand finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman but he came away with a sense of déjà vu. “I heard that I will...

-The Hindu There are clear, implementable steps the Centre can take in fiscal terms to revive the economy and support livelihoods The Prime Minister has just announced Lockdown 4.0. Despite some resulting increase in economic activity, vast numbers of working people will remain without their regular incomes. He also announced a package of ₹20 lakh crore, but this includes already allocated money of ₹6-lakh crore and monetary policy directives to banks and...