-Livemint.com * Increased government spending on the rural jobs programme has also aided returnee migrants * The urban job loss rate fell nearly 2 percentage points to 11.19% in the week ended 21 June over the previous week The timely arrival of the monsoon has given a much-needed boost to rural employment, absorbing thousands of migrant workers who have returned to their rural homes in seasonal farm jobs. The rural unemployment rate continued to...

-The Hindu Business Line Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi threw open the auction of 41 coal blocks for commercial mining. The decision, which was part of the announcements made by the Centre under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, was already proposed in January through the Mineral Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020. What is it? These auctions invite participants to mine coal blocks by bids on the percentage value of coal sold that they will...

A recent survey that was conducted through telephonic interviews among 1,405 respondents across the states of Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan and Jharkhand reveals the precarious conditions of workers nearly 45 days after the announcement of COVID-19 lockdown. The report entitled Labouring Lives: Hunger, Precarity and Despair amid Lockdown tries to understand the extent (and depth) of job loss and hunger 45 days after the lockdown. Hunger and...

-Newsclick.in Meals distributed in anganwadi centres and schools petered out as the Modi government had made no PLAns for continuing the programmes during the lockdown. The world’s two biggest child nutrition programmes – the ICDS or Integrated Child Development Scheme and the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) programme – run by the Indian government suffered a severe jolt in March and April this year as foodgrain allocated for them was not made available during...

-Economic and Political Weekly Farmer suicides are an unfortunate result of the agrarian distress PLAguing the rural economy of many states of the country. Marathwada and Vidarbha regions in Maharashtra have recorded very high numbers of farmer suicides, and an attempt to calculate the number of suicides and the suicide mortality rate is the first step towards gaining an in-depth understanding of the prevalence and seriousness of the issue. An analysis...