-The Hindu Blames ‘fake’ online messages for the panic The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the 21-day national lockdown was “inevitable” in the face of an “unprecedented global crisis” like COVID-19. The government blamed “fake and misleading” messages on social media about COVID-19 for creating widespread panic, which led to mass “barefoot” journey of Migrant Workers from cities to their native villages. Please click here to...

-Business Standard Dreze was part of academicians and activists who recently wrote to the Centre about the situation of the Migrant Workers Jean Dreze, a renowned Belgian-born Indian economist, says Migrant Workers are not feeling safe and that is why they are desperate to go back home. He tells Indivjal Dhasmana the Centre’s new order that labour should stay where it is will be difficult to implement. Dreze was part of academicians...

-NDTV Spraying chemicals on Migrant Workers to sanitize them as in Uttar Pradesh. Locking them up in a shed as in Bihar. Opening temporary jails for them as in Haryana. Herding them into ill-equipped quarantine centers across national highways. A Home Ministry circular invoking the penal provisions of the National Disaster Management Act to imprison such defaulters. India has shamed itself in its utterly inhuman treatment of Migrant Workers - jobless,...

-The Indian Express Ranveer was one among the countless Migrant Workers walking home from big cities to their villages, where new rules of isolation and quarantine await. And his story is emblematic of their plight, and the trauma of waiting families. Morena (Madhya Pradesh): The audio file is 42 seconds long. On one end is a loud, animated voice. Screaming, beseeching. “Ask someone to give you a lift till Morena. Hello? Hello?”...

-The Indian Express That migrants' health takes a huge beating in this process. That the already-malnourished will suffer immensely, says Chinmay Tumbe. Economist Chinmay Tumbe, author most recently of India Moving – A History of Migration and an Assistant Professor at IIM (Ahmedabad) spoke to Seema Chishti on the many implications of the surging crowds of migrants anxious to go home in the wake of the national lockdown. * Given the sudden rush...