-Newsclick.in The dearth of capital will make a return to normalcy difficult for ostagars even when there will be a visible improvement and the authorities muster courage to lift all the restrictions. Kolkata: “We are passing through the worst phase in our 17 years old enterprise BabyGarments.in and we have no clue when we will see the first signs of revival”. This is how a middle-aged woman entrepreneur and proprietor of BabyGarments,...

-The Indian Express That’s the actual liquidity pumped into rural areas by government post lockdown – through grain procurement, PM-Kisan and MGNREGA wages. There are many parallels one can draw between the novel coronavirus-induced lockdown (gharbandi) and demonetisation (notebandi), in terms of their impact on India’s farm economy. Both resulted in the same thing – demand destruction – albeit through different routes. Notebandi caused a haemorrhaging of liquidity from the predominantly cash-based farm...

-Society for Social and Economic Research Monograph 20/3 Key Messages Lack of planning and preparation by the Central government for tackling the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a massive blow to India’s economy and has caused enormous hardships to working people of the country. Harvesting of Rabi crops • Unplanned and sudden imposition of the lockdown resulted in a massive and unprecedented disruption to agricultural activities such as harvesting, sale of agricultural produce, and purchase...

-The Hindu They are key to improve economic activity and liquidity, says Industries Ministry The Commerce and Industries Ministry has called for far-reaching measures to be taken to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown, urging the Home Ministry to allow relaxations of the restrictions on a number of industry sectors. In a letter to Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla on Saturday, Industries Secretary Guruprasad Mohapatra said “more activities with reasonable safeguards must...

-TheNewsMinute.com Producers of fruits and flowers across the state have been put in a difficult position due to the absence of transportation options for their produce. As hundreds of migrant workers stranded in different parts of Tamil Nadu are being identified and sheltered in government houses amid the coronavirus scare, there is another category of people who have been left in the lurch due to the lockdown -- the farmers and traders...