-The Indian Express Epidemics are social dramas whose plots are made from the bricks and mortar of local material. An understanding of this will tell us who lives, who dies and what kind of society emerges. The odd thing about an epidemic is that though it might be global in nature, it is impossible to understand its impact without paying close attention to the local conditions within which it circulates. Calls for...
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India lockdown: There’s enough food, but India is struggling to get it to people
-The Indian Express As far as the availability of food is concerned, the country has more than adequate stock. Also, thanks to a surplus monsoon, a bumper rabi crop is on its way. With markets shut, farm labourers absent from fields, and transportation services at a halt, is India likely to face a food crisis because of the coronavirus-induced lockdown? Possible, if steps are not taken in some key areas. As far as the...
More »Mass migration defeats Corona preventive measures, MHA tells SC -Krishnadas Rajagopal
-The Hindu Blames ‘fake’ online messages for the panic The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the 21-day national lockdown was “inevitable” in the face of an “unprecedented global crisis” like COVID-19. The government blamed “fake and misleading” messages on social media about COVID-19 for creating widespread panic, which led to mass “barefoot” journey of migrant workers from cities to their native villages. Please click here to...
More »Migrant workers distrust a state that does not take them into account -Partha Mukhopadhyay and Mukta Naik
-The Indian Express Invisible, largely, in the Census and in national sample surveys — and consequently to administrators — field studies have consistently claimed short-term labour mobility in India was significant. Of the many, many countries that COVID has now locked down, India stands, or rather, walks, alone. Bereft of transport, by road or rail, people are walking home, to nearby districts, and to far-off destinations several hundred kilometres away, the mother...
More »Walking with the migrants, across four states, one story: What do we have here? -Dipankar Ghose
-The Indian Express As the national lockdown entered its second week, The Indian Express travelled across four states to track this unprecedented exodus, examine what social distancing and isolation means in towns and villages off camera and off the highway — and what could await the first COVID-19 patients here. Morena (Madhya Pradesh): They built homes, offices, even cities. They worked in technology companies. They cooked the food we ate, cleaned the...
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