-Down to Earth Such a programme is the need of the hour not only as a measure to revive the urban economy now, but also to mitigate any further shocks to it in the future The collective memory of how India lived through the world’s largest lockdown will be seared by images of how our state and society dealt with the country’s workers. Left largely to fend for themselves, millions living in...

-The Hindu Diverse regimes in Early Modern India often saw the distress migration of rural inhabitants when, much like today, displacement became the forced choice between hope and hunger The scale of the migrant labourer exodus from the precariousness of cities to the security of their home villages has few parallels in Indian history. Economist Chinmay Tumbe estimates that by the end of May, no fewer than 30 million Indians had moved...

-Livemint.com Weakening labour laws just when they need greater social cover shows a lack of empathy for them The migration of thousands of workers trying to reach their home states has woken up the State, media and the middle class to a new category of citizens: migrants. Ever since the lockdown was announced in the last week of March, they have travelled long distances, dodging the police in state after state, to...

-Press release by Stranded Workers Action Network, dated 20th May 2020   We, the undersigned organizations call upon the State governments concerned to bring out all idle transport vehicles out from garages to the State and National Highways to carry the workers to their home. We also request that more interstate trains be run, and in a coordinated fashion, to ensure that workers do not remain struck in overcrowded dormitories and camps....

-Hindustan Times To enable their return to cities, improve wages, living conditions, safety net. Coercion won’t work Migrant workers are like nowhere people. Yet, they are everywhere. From high-rises to Highways, who builds them? It is a silent army of migrant workers, working day and night with no job security, no social safety net, and poor living conditions — yet, theirs are not the names we see on the billboards or the...