-IndiaSpend.com Chennai: About 10 months, nine million cases and over 130,000 deaths later, India does not yet know enough about why the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 affected whom it did, and how it did that. There is wide variation in the spread of COVID-19 between states. Areas with higher population density are expected to have more cases, but varying testing rates could be affecting case detection. While the elderly and those...
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Social Security Code Limits Workers Access to Benefits Through Bureaucracy-Raj -KR Shyam Sundar
-Newsclick.in The Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008 (UWSSA) rightly conceives a “decentralised registration model” at the local levels with the help of the Workers’ Facilitation Centres (WFCs). Unimaginative and obscure rulemaking will make it difficult for workers to access benefits that the law entitles them to, argues Dr. K R Shyam Sundar. The government has endorsed the unjustified stinker of a tag of “Inspector-Raj”, crowned by the business class to labour and...
More »Prabhat Patnaik, eminent economist and professor emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University, interviewed by Subhoranjan Dasgupta (The Telegraph)
-The Telegraph ‘Farmers at mercy of corporates, food security threatened’ Eminent economist, professor emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University and activist Prabhat Patnaik traces the downward and dangerous slide of the Indian economy, from the demonetisation to the new farm bills. * The first onslaught was in the form of the demonetisation. While Amartya Sen termed this step “despotic”, Narendra Modi gushed that there would be no black money after the demonetisation. In the...
More »Hunger, nutrition are worse than before lockdown. PDS must be universalised -Dipa Sinha and Rajendran Narayanan
-The Indian Express All indications show that an economic revival will take some time — support is required during this period to at least prevent starvation. The effects of the lockdown and the resultant economic crisis continue to disproportionately impact the poor and informal sector workers. SINCe the lockdown, the Government of India (GoI) has announced relief packages under the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) and Atmanirbhar Bharat. However, numerous studies...
More »What is a bank moratorium, and when does it come into play? -K Bharat Kumar
-The Hindu * When does the Reserve Bank of India intervene, and what are some of the key steps it takes? The story so far: On November 17, the Centre, acting on the recommendation of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), imposed a moratorium on Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) for a period of 30 days. The 94-year-old bank, based in Karur, Tamil Nadu, has been struggling with losses for three years. As...
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