-Scroll.in The migrant exodus will undoubtedly hurt the economy. But that is no excuse for forced labour. The Indian government’s policies towards its vulnerable migrant worker population were already a mess. This week, Karnataka made it worse. The Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state decided to cancel trains that would allow working-class people from other states to return to their homes five weeks after a national lockdown to combat Covid-19 left them stranded, often without...

-Business Standard/ TheWire.in Under cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, the State Government says exempting businesses from these laws will boost investment. But experts term the move an attack on fundamental rights. New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh government has approved an ordinance exempting businesses from the purview of almost all labour laws for the next three years in a bid to provide a fillip to investments affected by the novel coronavirus in the...

-Mongabay.com * The nationwide lockdown has affected the economy of India’s tribal population, which depends highly on the sale of minor forest products. * However, State Governments are hoping things will become normal soon as the lockdown norms get relaxed in the coming days. Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel even praised the tribal population in his state for maintaining social distancing properly. * Experts and organisations working with tribal communities demand removal or...

-NDTV Karnataka Lockdown: The trains to ferry migrants were started last week after much back and forth between the Centre and the states amid a countrywide exodus of labourers. Bengaluru: Special trains from Karnataka taking home thousands of migrants stranded by the coronavirus lockdown have been cancelled by the BS Yediyurappa government, which says workers are needed for construction activities that have resumed in the state. The BJP government is forcing the...

-The Indian Express Mani Shankar Aiyar writes: Planning for withstanding the ingress of COVID-19 requires the full deployment of the mechanisms for district planning envisaged in Article 243 ZD involving all three tiers of the panchayats and the municipalities brought together in the district planning committee An unintended but welcome consequence of the struggle against COVID-19 is that the “confrontational federalism” that has characterised the Centre’s relations with the states, especially those...