-The Indian Express Government’s response to migrants’ plight, economic crisis, has been to unilaterally bring changes in labour laws. But industrial prosperity cannot be built on a race to the bottom for workers. Only weeks ago, India, and the entire world, witnessed the spectacle of the country’s employment precarity pour out on its roads and highways — men, women and children, in distress of having lost jobs, income and shelter, with no...
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How to reduce food, job insecurity in rural areas -Binoy Acharya, Ved Arya, Pratyaya Jagnannath, and PS Vijayshankar
-Hindustan Times Launch a massive programme to rehabilitate returnee migrants; allocate an additional Rs 50,000 crore for MGNREGS; extend the free ration scheme for six more months; revive and strengthen public systems of service deliver; RBI should give a directive to banks to extend a top-up loan of Rs 10,000 crore to Self-help Groups After the Covid-19 outbreak, 66% of rural households fell short of cash for food. About 40% reduced their...
More »Lockdown further impoverishes those who were living on the edges of existence even during normal times, finds a new report
A recent survey that was conducted through telephonic interviews among 1,405 respondents across the states of Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan and Jharkhand reveals the precarious conditions of workers nearly 45 days after the announcement of COVID-19 lockdown. The report entitled Labouring Lives: Hunger, Precarity and Despair amid Lockdown tries to understand the extent (and depth) of job loss and hunger 45 days after the lockdown. Hunger and...
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 »Bharat's lockdown diet is boiled rice, salt -Sayantan Bera
-Livemint.com * A ground report reveals pervasive hunger and undernourishment in rural India awash with returning migrants * Just providing rice and wheat at a highly subsidized price may not be enough when day jobs are scant and families have no cash in hand BANDA: Thanks to an all-familiar power cut in the evening, it’s pitch dark in Jhandupurva village. A few torch lights from smart phones pierce through the darkness and illuminate...
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