After the outbreak of COVID-19 in China during early January this year and its dissemination globally within a few days, health experts have suggested ways to check its spread exponentially among the rest of the population. In the age of internet connectivity, work-from-home and self-isolation have been advised as solutions to ensure social distancing and avoid large-scale social gatherings. Experts have asked governments and private enterprises to keep people at...

-The Indian Express Some fear such a census will “further marginalise” the descendants of Bengali-speaking migrants in Assam Guwahati: Assam’s Welfare of Minorities Minister Ranjit Dutta has confirmed the state’s plans to implement a census to identify Assam’s ‘khilonjiya’, or indigenous Muslim population, this year. On Tuesday, Dutta will meet with various representatives of the indigenous Assamese Muslim community to seek their “suggestions” in finalising the framework of the census. “A sum of...

-The Indian Express Fall in emigration, and reverse migration from the Gulf, challenge Kerala’s welfare model. The state must find a way Migration trends indicate that the Gulf, which had long funded the Kerala development story, may soon turn out to be a headache if not a nightmare. Economic slowdown in the Gulf countries, state policies favouring replacement of migrants with local labour, influx of workers from Africa and countries such...

-Mongabay.com * Women are often called as vulnerable victims of climate change as well as integral to climate change adaptation, but even then government policies overlook the oppression they face. * To address it, the latest report by ICIMOD has suggested a series of measures such as the government allocating resources, financial and human, for gender-responsive interventions, and creation of mechanisms to ensure the promotion of women’s rights. * The report also highlighted...

-TheWire.in Mexican economist David Barkin on India's neoliberal economics, growing inequalities, agrarian distress and more. David Barkin is Professor of Economics at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City. He received his doctorate in economics from Yale University and was awarded the National Prize in Political Economics in 1979 for his analysis of inflation in Mexico. His research has focused on the development of an alternative to the capitalist economic model. In an...