-The Indian Express Barring Mirzapur in UP, none of these districts is included in the official government list of 116 districts that received most returning migrant workers during the lockdown, and where the government had launched the PM Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan on June 20. New Delhi: At least 12 districts have exceeded their annual job creation targets by generating substantially higher numbers of person-days’ work between April 1 and July 21,...

Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...

-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...

-Livemint.com Slogans, vision statements and acronyms are unlikely to be of any help to those in distress As the details of the mega fiscal package of ₹20 trillion announced by the prime minister are slowly being revealed by the finance minister (FM), it is increasingly becoming clear that it has less to do with the immediate crisis of lives and livelihood and more to do with the long-term agenda of reforms and...

-Economic and Political Weekly Though the 16-point action plan for agriculture laid down in the 2020 Union Budget continues prioritising subsidies and safety nets over agricultural investments, it does not make any fundamental improvements in the allocations towards these heads. Please click here to access the article. ...