FOOD SECURITY

Locked Down and Hungry In the days following the lockdown, Gauramma’s kitchen in their small house in Whitefield’s Garudacharpalya, ran out of food. As irony would have it, she used to cook in other people’s homes before the lockdown. Hunger was imminent for her and her three children aged between 10 and 13 years.  Gauramma’s family arrived in Bengaluru two years ago. They knew nobody in the big city. And, when the lockdown was imposed, her husband, a taxi driver, was away in his home town Chitradurga.  “I hadn’t got my salary over the past month, and I didn’t have…

In this series, individuals, citizen groups and RWAs explain how they have dealt with the COVID-19 crisis in a constructive manner. In the sixth part of the series, a resident of Vasanth Nagar describes the measures his RWA took. It was two days into the nationwide lockdown when Muniratna, a milkman, mentioned to one of our core team members, “Sir, what about daily wagers in the area? They can’t go anywhere, how will they survive?” Muniratna’s question got this VRWA core team member thinking. He and his family decided to initiate their own small pilot effort to test the waters…

“I don’t see the pandemic but the hunger and starvation that comes with it as the reason for large scale unrest,” says Manaswini Bhalla, Associate Professor, Economics at IIM Bangalore. The context was the sorry plight of migrant and daily wage labourers stuck in the bigger cities due to the coronavirus lockdown. Now the migrants can go home, says the government With most migrant workers confined to shelters and dependent on charity for survival, the union government’s belated realisation that they should be allowed to get home is no doubt welcome. But there is much that is inexplicable about the…

Distressing stories of the loss of both lives and livelihoods have been reported across the country during the month-long nationwide COVID lockdown. The other side of the story has been the efforts of NGOs, activists and ordinary citizens who had to plan and respond swiftly to help out as best as they could. Citizen Matters has launched the COVID Learning Series, surveying relief efforts as well as public services like medical care, waste management and transport in different cities to see what has worked where and why. We are collating this emerging knowledge in an effort to support civil society…

Since April 1, Maraa, a media and arts collective based in Bengaluru, has been trying to ensure relief for migrant workers stranded in the city during COVID-19 lockdown. Our efforts have included conducting independent surveys and audits, fundraising, ration distribution and putting pressure on the BBMP to ensure accountability. During this period, several problems have risen that we feel need to be brought to public attention, primarily the government’s lack of response and accountability towards migrant workers. We have used our work in Chinappa layout in Mahadevpura, and Doddagubbi, as case studies to highlight these issues.  We received SOS calls…

“How would you feel if someone took a picture of your misery? I can’t even refuse the food though, because I am very hungry,” Manjunath, a 38-year old former sugarcane vendor said. Manjunath used to do quite well, earning Rs 700-1000 a day. But he was evicted during a BBMP drive last month, after cholera cases were reported in the city.  “The same corporator and police officials who made us jobless, now come with mobile cameras, give us some packet of food worth Rs 20 and take pictures. They barely talk to us, or even come close to us. They…

Co-authored by Angarika Guha and Senthil S Amidst the shiny offices and gated complexes of a prominent IT corridor in the city lies Chinappa layout, Mahadevpura, home to close to 600 migrant workers from West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. Scattered across the area, they live inside blue tarpaulin tents, small concrete sheds, inside godowns filled with plastic, scrap metal and tin, or between the bamboo poles in construction sites. Bricks, tiles, garbage, waste, scrap, cooking, cleaning, sifting, constructing, clearing - their work is crucial to the daily fabric of life in the city. The lockdown caught them unawares.…

WithBengaluru, a citizens' initiative that came together to support vulnerable groups during the lockdown, has reached dry rations to over 11,000 families. The team has also written a letter to the Chief Minister, asking the government to use anganwadis, mid-day meal programme and the PDS effectively, and to transfer Rs 1500 per family to tackle the food crisis. The national lockdown due to COVID-19 is having a huge impact on various groups of people. The lockdown is particularly detrimental to the millions of internal migrants, many of whom work in the informal sector and as daily wagers. The sustenance of…

India’s COVID-19 lockdown, one of the strictest in human history, was recently extended by the Prime Minister of India until the 3rd of May. Many stranded migrants waiting for public transport to take them back home or for production activities and markets to resume functioning were disappointed one more time, after the PM’s announcement on April 14th.  Along with poor migrants, other economically weaker sections in the city have been struggling for survival in the slums of cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Surat and Bangalore. This extension would seem like a terrible fait accompli and a final nail in the coffin…

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting everyone, but more so the vulnerable citizens – the homeless, migrants, destitute, those with disabilities, among others. As responsible citizens of our neighbourhood, we can support the government to avert a humanitarian crisis. Citizen Matters and Wipro Foundation are partnering to collate updates from the local community. This data will go into a dashboard that can be used by the civil society as well as the government to fill gaps in responses to the needs of all citizens. Do help by sharing this information - this form will be open for the period of the…