-The Indian Express Efforts to address child marriage in India should be in consonance with the socio-economic realities that demand investment in education, welfare, and opportunities for women. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis in his Independence Day speech on raising the legal age of marriage for women to 21 years is any indicator of the path the task force set up for this purpose is likely to tread, it needs to...

-The Hindu Most respondents feel it will disrupt education till vaccine is found Three out of four Indians say the COVID-19 pandemic will deepen inequalities among primary and secondary students, according to a survey by global education firm Pearson. Almost 80% fear the pandemic will continue to disrupt education until a vaccine is found. The global online survey was conducted for Pearson in May by a market research firm, with results weighted for...

-TheWire.in A recent survey conducted becomes invaluable in terms of data on the socio-economic backgrounds of seasonal and short-term migrants. The lack of a comprehensive database on India’s migrants has been one of the foremost hurdles preventing the Indian government from providing direct cash transfers to them. The most that the government has been able to say about migrants is their aggregate number. Indeed, one of the biggest non-medical tragedies of the COVID-19...

-The Indian Express India should not allow one emergency — the pandemic — to turn into another. Food security problems are not abating and there are clear steps that should be taken before it is too late. In the early days of India’s lockdown, stories of food insecurity were rampant. As “Unlock 2.0” progresses, many analysts hope that labour markets will provide the much needed economic resources to the vulnerable. But amidst...

-The Hindu The longer-term decline in the labour participation rate can be attributed to a host of factors The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted economies across the world and presented policymakers with the unenviable task of sustaining employment amidst lockdowns. However, the academic and political debates in India on unemployment, which is widely attributed to jobless growth amidst stagnation in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, predate the pandemic. It will be useful to...