-The Hindu School closures also interrupted support mechanisms from which many disadvantaged learners benefit The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities in education systems across the world. According to a UNESCO report released on Tuesday, about 40% of low- and lower-middle-income countries have not supported learners at risk of exclusion during this crisis, such as the poor, linguistic minorities and learners with disabilities. The 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report noted that efforts to maintain...

-The Indian Express The impact of the lockdown may make social issues more prominent again in terms of class, at the expense of caste as well as religious identities and communal tendencies. When interviewed by journalists, several migrant workers badly affected by the COVID-19-related lockdown admitted that they had voted for the BJP in 2019. Indeed, the party attracted poor voters in large numbers during the last Lok Sabha elections, especially among...

-TheWire.in The lack of a cohesive legislative framework stigmatises domestic workers and is a colossal disservice to those who rely on domestic labour for their livelihood. Shipra Mondal has been a migrant for almost her entire life. Having first moved villages after marriage, Mondal has since shifted around, within the state of West Bengal, numerous times and now lives in a slum in East Kolkata. Her husband works at a construction site,...

-Down to Earth Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India and current programme director of the International Growth Centre’s India Programme, speaks to Kundan Pandey about how recent government policies have crippled the income of the poor and slowed the economy * Kundan Pandey: Is there low demand in the economy? Pronab Sen: The demand is not low. The crisis is that the demand is not growing. For a long time, people...

-Livemint.com A top economic adviser has flagged the risk of stagnation that lack of inclusive growth could cause. We must reduce inequality and help everyone achieve upward mobility The warning by Rathin Roy, a member of an economic panel advising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that India could be headed for a “structural crisis" has sparked a debate on whether the economy’s days of high single-digit growth rates are a thing of the...