-Business Standard Dept in advanced inter-ministerial talks; schemes for Bicycles, footwear to follow The industry department is in the advanced stage of inter-ministerial consultation for launching a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for both traditional and mechanical toys worth Rs 3,500 crore, which will be followed by PLI schemes for Bicycles and footwear. “Discussions for PLI for toys are at an advanced stage. PLIs for Bicycles and footwear are also under formulation,” a government...

-Hindustan Times During the Covid pandemic-induced lockdown in early 2020, nearly 25,000 migrant workers reached Saharanpur on Bicycles while heading back to their native places in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from their places of work in Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Meerut: The Saharanpur district administration has auctioned 5,400 Bicycles left behind by migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar while rushing home during the nationwide lockdown in the wake of...

-IndiaSpend.com Patna: The first time she heard of a woman leading a village in Bihar as its mukhiya (head), Ramvati Devi (name changed), 50, was astounded. “I couldn’t even comprehend how a woman could lead. How could she have any power over a man or the dominant castes in a village where she had walked all her life with her head covered?” she told IndiaSpend on a recent October day. In 2006,...

-Hindustan Times More than 20,000 guest teachers are employed in 1,030 government schools across Delhi. Paid between Rs 1,040 and Rs 1,400 per day, their contracts are renewed every year. New Delhi: An English teacher is forced to sell vegetables on the road; a natural science teacher has set up a bicycle puncture repair shop; and a Sanskrit teacher has returned to his village to work on wheat fields. Many guest teachers working...

-TheWire.in As a fresh spotlight hits India's rural employment programme, two suggestions have been offered to “repurpose” MGNREGA to utilise the additional labour force that have returned to their villages. Due to the sudden lockdown and resultant job losses, over one crore people have returned to their homes, some walking hundreds of kilometres, others using all conceivable means of transport – buses, trucks, trailers, concrete mixers, Shramik trains, motorcycles, scooters, Bicycles, auto...