-Scroll.in During the coronavirus pandemic, India needs a free press more than ever. These intimidation tactics do not help. Publishing news based on information from credible, unidentified sources is a global journalistic practice. This allows critical facts to surface even if sourcexsce afraid of repercussions. In India, though, the government is creating an atmosphere in which journalists will be afraid of publishing such material. On Sunday, the Delhi Police summoned an Indian Express...

-Scroll.in The list of laws proposed to be suspended contains Centrals laws. Suspending them would require the President’s approval. On May 6, the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet decided to suspend 35 of the 38 labour laws in the state for three years. It said that this would attract much-needed investment to an economy battered by Covid-19. Three laws have been exempted from the ordinance: the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996; the Workmen...

-The Indian Express Citizens ordinarily advocating for free markets are now urging the governments to open up its coffers In the years after the Second World War, financial crises were frequent. But the current contagion has thrown many countries off guard. There is little or no experience to guide countries on how to tackle such an epidemic. The only alternative, widely adopted now, has been to suspend business as usual and coerce...

Most reports and studies by official agencies, international think tanks and private entities indicate the cataclysmic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy and society. They anticipate that lockdowns imposed by various countries across the globe to reduce the exponential diffusion of COVID-19 (i.e. for flattening the curve by social distancing and quarantines) would adversely affect economic growth and disrupt supply chains in most sectors, on top of causing...

-Vikalp.ind.in The unprecedented fear of Covid-19 leading to ‘social distancing’ through lockdown in the entire India has yet again unfolded the plight of informal sector workers even in the midst of a universal public health crisis worldwide. The lockdown, for a huge number of informal sector workers is associated with the loss of livelihood; but for others engaged in low-valued essential works such as home delivery, scavenging and cleaning the society,...