-Networkideas.org The GDP growth in the first quarter (April-June) of 2020 over the first quarter of the previous year has been minus 24 per cent according to preliminary official estimates. But most knowledgeable people believe that even this is an underestimate of the actual contraction brought about by the lockdown. In fact, a former chief statistician of India, Pronab Sen, believes that the actual contraction would have been about 32 per...
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How Much Do We Really Know About the Migrants Who Shuttle Between Bharat and India? -Malvika Tyagi
-TheWire.in A recent survey conducted becomes invaluable in terms of data on the socio-economic backgrounds of seasonal and short-term migrants. The lack of a comprehensive database on India’s migrants has been one of the foremost hurdles preventing the Indian government from providing direct Cash Transfers to them. The most that the government has been able to say about migrants is their aggregate number. Indeed, one of the biggest non-medical tragedies of the COVID-19...
More »Construction Workers Protest to Highlight Plight During Lockdown -Ronak Chhabra
-Newsclick.in Even the lifting of the lockdown hasn’t brought much solace to the workers who say that job opportunities in the market are next to none, while their already depressed wages are witnessing further cuts. Construction workers staged demonstrations across the country on Monday, highlighting their plight amid the COVID-19 pandemic with the lack of savings and absence of any social security measures. Led by Construction Workers’ Federation of India (CWFI), the workers,...
More »A safety net, post Covid: We need to provide minimum income for poor and vulnerable -C Rangarajan and S Mahendra Dev
-The Indian Express We need to provide minimum income for poor and vulnerable — Cash Transfers for women, increasing MGNREGA to 150 days in rural areas, introduction of urban employment guarantee scheme. In the post corona crisis situation, India has to address many problems, of which two stand out. First, the improvement of our healthcare system and second, the need for the institution of a scheme to provide minimum income support to...
More »That foodgrain stocks lie in public godowns while people are going hungry is a scandal -Dipa Sinha
-The Indian Express What is disturbing is that in the middle of the current crisis some are now calling for a massive downsizing of the PDS and a shift to Cash Transfers in place of foodgrains. The Public Distribution System has played an important role in providing relief to people in the aftermath of the national lockdown. With COVID-19 cases increasing and the economy continuing to be in a downturn, some corrective...
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