-The Indian Express A collective of NREGA women activists discovers its political voice. As Jean Dreze recently observed, one of the key ideas behind NREGA was that it would serve as a platform for increasing the overall political capacities of workers. It was hoped that people would organise themselves to collectively demand work and, in the process, learn about other legal and constitutional provisions. While learning about the latter has been patchy,...

-The Hindu 20% of people demanding work have been denied; even higher on ground, say workers. Having run through 74% of its labour budget under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) at the halfway point of the year, and expecting the demand to go up still further in a pandemic year, Bihar has asked the Centre for an additional six crore persondays of work to be added to its...

-Scroll.in A large section of Migrant Workers surveyed who want to return have a single earning member, with family sizes ranging from four to eight dependents. “I was very scared. What kind of a disease is this? How will I manage with my small children here? Whatever happens I will never return to Surat again.” Durgabai, an Adivasi woman Migrant Worker from Udaipur, Rajasthan, was recalling her horrendous experience during the Covid-19 lockdown...

-Newsclick.in The plight of the Migrant Worker exploded as a repeating theme in Puja pandals across Kolkata at a time when the central government made its scandalous declaration in Parliament about its “lack of data” about the number of workers who had perished, evading all its responsibility and obligations. Much ink has been spilt over this past week on this sculptural tableau of goddess Durga and her children as a Migrant Worker...

-The Hindu While the view about the Narendra Modi government’s culpability differs, the anger against the Nitish Kumar government on lack of employment opportunities is all pervasive Purnia/ Kishanganj: Seven months on after lakhs of Migrant Workers returned to their homes, many on foot, following the announcement of sudden and extended nationwide lockdown, the narrative on the ground in Bihar is divided over religious and caste lines. There are no official figures on...