-The Hindu Public works could provide valuable support to the urban poor, especially if women get most of the jobs The COVID-19 crisis has drawn attention to the insecurities that haunt the lives of the urban poor. Generally, they are less insecure than the rural poor, partly because fallback work is easier to find in urban areas — if only pulling a rickshaw or selling snacks. Still, the urban poor are exposed...

-The Indian Express The Covid lockdown has set off sweeping economic distress in cities but its crucial dimension has remained untold: the silent, devastating toll on the working woman in the city suddenly out of work *A month into the lockdown after she lost her job at an energy policy institute that paid  Rs 24,000 a month, 29-year-old Reshma, a post-graduate in social work, sent her four-year-old daughter to live with her...

-The Hindu These families are on the brink of urban poverty, forced to do what they once thought was impossible — borrowing for their children's school fees, defaulting on EMIs, falling back on rent, cutting down on necessities. Mumbai: MANY locks in the nation’s financial capital are being opened one by one, new Covid numbers are falling but most doors — or windows — to any opportunity to earn are still firmly...

Multidimensional poverty is about non-monetary poverty and is strongly associated with the challenges of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although previously defined only in monetary terms, poverty is now understood to include the lived reality of people’s experiences and the multiple deprivations they face. India’s multidimensional headcount ratio (H) i.e. the proportion or incidence of people (within a given population) who experience multiple deprivations has reduced from 55.1 percent to...

-The Hindu Analysis of NFHS-4 data finds skewed distribution of BPL cards that provide access to various welfare schemes, including food ration A first-ever study on the linkages between the availability of PDS (public distribution system) ration and the prevalence of malnutrition finds that the poorest households most in need of free food grains are often left out of the scheme. The study is authored by Basant K. Panda, Sanjay K. Mohanty, Itishree...