With the rise in Covid-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths since March this year, media reports (please click here and here) on migrant workers returning back to their native places (i.e. places of origin) from migration destinations (i.e. workplaces likes cities and large industrial towns to where the informal and low skilled workers from the marginalised sections of the society migrate seasonally, and sometimes for a longer duration,...

-Newsclick.in The deeper rot in agriculture can be overcome through more far-reaching reforms, starting from an overhaul of pre-capitalist land relations and relations of production that continue to shackle productivity and are at the root of aggravating poverty, unemployment and inequality in rural India. It has been more than five months since farmers from different parts of the country began protesting in Delhi. They have been unflinching when it comes to their...

-The Indian Express The pandemic revealed the precarious state of India’s informal sector. Localised production, trade and markets offer a better alternative to existing paradigm of development. Another wave of COVID, another round of lockdowns, another long journey back home for migrant workers. If there is one lesson we are learning after a year of COVID-19, it is that we have not learnt any lessons, at least not the crucial ones. 2020 exposed...

-The Hindu Business Line Data show that only 43% of those in informal jobs in Dec 2019 retained them in April 2020 Vs 72% in formal sector Pune: About 1.23 crore migrant labourers returned to their home States during the Covid – 19 lockdowns during 2020 and once again many State governments including Maharashtra government are considering lockdowns to curb rising Covid-19 cases. While industrial and business sectors are strongly opposing the...

-The Hindu/ PTI It is the steepest contraction in the last six months The output of eight core sectors declined by 4.6% in February, the steepest contraction in the last six months, which, experts said, could drag the overall industrial production in the month into the negative territory. All the key segments, including coal, crude oil, natural gas, and refinery products, witnessed a decline in production, according to the official data released on...