-The Hindu In the last few months, the industries have seen 30% to 40% fall in orders Coimbatore: Micro and small-scale enterprises here have appealed to the Central and State governments not to re-introduce restrictions even as COVID-19 cases rise in the country. Coimbatore District Small Industries Association president M.V. Ramesh Babu said the raw material prices have seen a slight drop and workers are available for the current level of orders. In...

-The Hindu Business Line Economy is recovering but rural labour market still in distress Even as the economy is on the recovery track — spurring optimism about job creation and better employment prospects — a large part of the labour force, especially in the rural areas, continues to face challenges. Data from the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) indicates that stress in the labour market, which escalated after Covid-19 lockdowns,...

-TheWire.in Supriya RoyChowdhury's 'City of Shadows' is a compelling study of the lives of the poor in a rapidly globalising Bengaluru. The long caravans of workers leaving the cities for their villages during the national lockdown in 2020 made visible the large proportion of urban workers whose homes are in the villages. Combined with the farmers’ protests, they brought attention to the crisis in agriculture and the failure of agrarian livelihoods that...

The increase in the total number of suicides committed in India during 2020 in comparison to the previous years has hit the headlines recently. While some media commentators have stated that the economic distress (caused by job loss, income loss, failure of business, and growing hunger, among other things) in 2020 could have led to more suicides being committed, others have said that home isolation and deteriorating mental health (associated...

-Scroll.in/ IndiaSpend.com Across India, more than Rs 2,850 crore in wages are pending approval from the Centre for work done between April and September. India’s flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme provided more days of work in 2020-’21 than in any year since the programme began in 2008. But states are falling short of funds to pay workers. In three charts, we take a quick look at the current status of...