Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
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Reset rural job policies, recognise women’s work -Madhura Swaminathan
-The Hindu As India emerges from the lockdown, labour market policy has to reverse the pandemic’s gender-differentiated impact The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on women’s work, but as official statistics do not capture women’s work adequately and accurately, little attention has been paid to the consequences of the pandemic for women workers and to the design of specific policies and programmes to assist them. A survey by the Azim Premji...
More »Ashwani Kumar, political scientist, interviewed by Nistula Hebbar (The Hindu)
-The Hindu It is shocking that those who build fantasy cities not only can’t own a home of their own but also can’t vote in elections, says political scientist Ashwani Kumar Political scientist Ashwani Kumar, whose forthcoming co-edited book titled Migration and Mobility is to be out soon, speaks on migration, inter-State workers and amendment to the Inter-State Migrant Workers Act, 1979. * The COVID-19 crisis for India has also become a humanitarian...
More »The Modi Sarkar’s Project for India’s Informal Economy -Barbara Harriss-White
-TheWire.in From demonetisation to GST and now the lockdown, the government's policies towards the 'unorganised sector' has spelt nothing but rack and ruin. What has the BJP-led government of Narendra Modi done since 2014 that does not suggest it wishes to destroy the informal economy, also known as the unorganised sector? While the ‘unorganised’ informal economy now accounts for roughly half of India’s GDP – and is shrinking relative to the share of...
More »Size of the population susceptible to coronavirus infection is significant
Between 25th and 30th of March, 2020, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India has more than doubled i.e. from 519 to 1,251, according to the data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). In a span of 6 days, the total number of deaths from COVID-19 has more than trebled i.e. from 9 to 32. In a health situation like this, when the coronavirus...
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