-TheIndiaForum.in The lockdown has devastated livelihoods at unprecedented levels, causing widespread job losses and hunger. The measures so far will not solve the crisis. India should universalise the PDS, expand cash transfers, and create a national job guarantee scheme. The Covid-19 global pandemic and its associated containment measures have taken a heavy toll on economies and societies worldwide. In India, the national lockdown, imposed on 24 March and subsequently extended three times...

-The Hindu Averting a humanitarian disaster in India calls for an explosion of NREGA work in the next few weeks The abominable plight of migrant workers in recent weeks has invaded television screens and stirred the nation’s conscience. Alas, this is just the tip of the wave of hardships that is sweeping through the country. The situation looks increasingly alarming in the light of a series of surveys conducted by Azim Premji...

A recent survey conducted by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) -- a Delhi-based non-profit organisation -- shows how persons with disabilities in the country were disproportionately affected by the COVID–19 crisis. The report by NCPEDP has observed that persons with disabilities, particularly those from economically deprived sections, went through severe hardship during the lockdown. Without sufficient access to food or money, many of them faced hunger...

-The Indian Express Cash is easy to carry and widely accepted. But, our analysis of nationally representative survey data, described below, suggests that these transfers will exclude many of India’s poorest and, for others, come too late. The vast majority of India’s poor rely on daily wage labour for sustenance. With the current lockdown and its likely extension, millions of daily labourers and their families can no longer earn the money they...

-TheCitizen.in Their choice is simple: Either die of the pandemic or die of hunger Migration - or mobility of the human race is not a new concept. Mostly migrants are economic migrants, searching for means to live or visualizing migration as a means to increase their income. When we analyse human migration theories, it is implicit that the future gains from income, is what that prompts migrants to stay back in the...