-Newsclick.in In April alone, over 12 crore jobs were estimated to have been lost, and unemployment is at over 27% in the beginning of May. After the loss of nearly 80 lakh jobs in March, most of them in the last week after the Countrywide Lockdown was suddenly announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24, latest data collected by CMIE or Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy through their periodic sample...

-NDTV Karnataka Lockdown: The trains to ferry migrants were started last week after much back and forth between the Centre and the states amid a countrywide exodus of labourers. Bengaluru: Special trains from Karnataka taking home thousands of migrants stranded by the coronavirus lockdown have been cancelled by the BS Yediyurappa government, which says workers are needed for construction activities that have resumed in the state. The BJP government is forcing the...

-Newsclick.in The lockdown has got the government talking about agri ‘reforms’ again, but the exploitation of India’s weakest farmers continues unchecked. It is a cruel irony that in the sixth week of the nationwide lockdown, the government is talking up omnibus agriculture “reforms” as if they can mitigate the growing distress in rural India. Reforms, no doubt, implies stricter compliance with online registration and payment rules, more focus on market-based pricing, and...

-Vikalp.ind.in The unplanned countrywide COVID-19 lockdown has resulted in widespread distress to both principal classes among the rural population namely the peasants and agricultural workers. Peasants suffered in the first place from crop losses due to unplanned lockdown induced delay in harvesting of mechanised crops. Apart from this an additional problem for peasants was the elevated fluctuation in prices (fall in nominal prices more often than not) of both crops and...

-Newsclick.in Over 14 crore persons have lost their jobs since the lockdown began a month ago. Over 26% of the workforce in India is without any job thus posing a dire threat to the social fabric and creating unbearable misery for millions. This is the estimate from the latest round  (April 19) of weekly sample surveys carried out by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The data shows joblessness zooming up after...