-VillageSquare.in More than ten thousand tribal and Dalit small holder poultry farmers who had successfully built cooperative enterprise and escaped poverty, were forced to cull chickens due to rumors linking spread of coronavirus to chicken consumption Hoshangabad (Madhya Pradesh): Kunti Dhurve is a small holder poultry producer from Jamundol village in Kesla administrative block of Hoshangabad District in Madhya Pradesh. Out of the total 15,000 households in Kesla, about 9,000 are tribal...

-VillageSquare.in With lack of access to authentic information, myths and fears proliferate. Health workers counsel communities over phone, addressing their anxieties about the disease and the returned migrants As COVID-19 grips the entire world in its talons and affects communities across geographies, ethnicities, caste and class, a wave of misinformation is spreading, sparking fear. This wave seems to have overtaken the outbreak, and poses a threat that may be more harmful than...

-The Indian Express The impact of the lockdown may make social issues more prominent again in terms of class, at the expense of caste as well as religious identities and communal tendencies. When interviewed by journalists, several migrant workers badly affected by the COVID-19-related lockdown admitted that they had voted for the BJP in 2019. Indeed, the party attracted poor voters in large numbers during the last Lok Sabha elections, especially among...

-Scroll.in/ India Spend In Qila Nau, Jat Sikhs are sending food to the homes of Dalits, who are not allowed to enter langars or touch vessels in their gurdwaras. Jagjit Kaur, 35, a Dalit resident of Qila Nau village in Faridkot district of Southwestern Punjab, has not cooked a single meal since March 25, when the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19 began. Her husband, a mason, has been left...

-NDTV "Social Unity amid Physical Distancing" is the slogan of Kerala in the war against COVID-19. It was coined after some elements began to use measures for social distancing to justify caste pollution distance norms. Kerala is harnessing its abundant social capital to overcome the limited fiscal space in which state governments are forced to operate in quasi-federal India. Led by a state government with commitment and the actualization of synergies...