-The Hindu The government has an opportunity to help farmers who are battling declining demand and lower prices Social distancing and living under a lockdown appear to be the only effective ways of dealing with the pandemic. As India lacks the resources to significantly ramp up testing, imposing a lockdown was the government’s preferred option. Although there is limited evidence to suggest that this strategy may be working in containing the spread...

-Newsclick.in With the Centre being both niggardly and thoughtless in the matter of relief following the unplanned lockdown, state governments, which are desperately short of funds, will be left holding the baby. The tragic irony could not have been more complete. The country is under lockdown, but last week thousands of Migrant Workers were thronging bus stands or marching on the roads, making a mockery of it; the aim of the lockdown...

-TheWire.in As India moves into the start of the second week of the 21-day lockdown period imposed nationwide by the Government of India, it helps to examine the manner in which Migrant Workers have been coping with the lockdown’s requirements. Migrant Workers have been moving out of India’s cities to their respective towns villages, many of them on foot due to unavailability of transport. Please click here to read more.   ...

-TheWire.in There are no credible reports suggesting that Migrant Workers decided to walk home based on fake news. In a recent public interest litigation (Alakh Alok Srivastava vs Union of India), the Centre sought a direction from the Supreme Court that “no electronic / print media / web portal or social media shall print / publish or telecast anything without first ascertaining the true factual position from the separate mechanism provided by...

-TheWire.in "There was no ventilation. It was pitch dark inside and police gave us 10 mins to get into the container truck." Mumbai: On March 31, solicitor general Tushar Mehta claimed before the Supreme Court that there was “no person walking on the roads in an attempt to reach his/her home towns/villages”. He further claimed, under oath, that all migrant labourers had been shifted to shelter homes and are being provided with basic...