In the absence of income or expenditure-based headcount ratio, the growth in the real wages (i.e., nominal wages adjusted against retail inflation) of the manual workers is considered to be a good proxy to assess the trends in poverty. This is because the manual, unskilled/ semi-skilled labourers exist at the bottom of the pyramid or economic hierarchy, and most of them belong to the social categories Scheduled Castes (SCs) and...

-Press release by the Right to Food Campaign Secretariat dated February 23, 2022 * 66 percent respondents said that their income has decreased compared to the pre-pandemic period * 80 percent reported some form of food insecurity, 25 percent reported severe food insecurity * 41 percent said that nutritional quality of their diet deteriorated compared to the pre-pandemic period * 67 percent could not afford cooking gas in the month preceding the survey. * 45...

-OutlookIndia.com The Anganwadi workers alleged that they have been deprived of their minimum wage and held the AAP government accountable for making false promises over the ages.  “Jab mahilaon ko ghar ke kaam chhodkar sadkon pe aandolan karne nikalna padta hai, toh ye koi maamuli baat nahi hoti,” said Rajni, an Anganwadi worker from Birij Puri, Delhi. (When women leave their household chores to protest on the street, it’s not a petty...

-TheWire.in Both factory workers and owners are feeling the brunt of first demonetisation and then the COVID-19 lockdowns, and believe the government is ignoring them. Aligarh (Uttar Pradesh): Tahir Khan is a 35-year-old lock worker in Aligarh. He is among the thousands of workers bearing the brunt of COVID-19 lockdowns and what they call government apathy towards workers. He is currently employed under Saud Aijaz, whose family has been running a small-scale lock...

-Newsclick.in Primarily inhabited by the scheduled caste community, Bundelkhand is home to the most backward villages — where Yogi government's developmental schemes have not reached. NewsClick visits these villages to understand the electorate’s situation here. Banda (Uttar Pradesh): Village after villages wear a deserted look, with locks hanging on the doors of predominantly kutcha houses with bamboo, mud, thatch, straw and unburnt bricks walls and roofs made of straw or reeds, in...