URBAN POOR

“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…

Ever since the first national lockdown to fight the battle with Coronavirus was imposed, starting March 25, 2020, questions over labour and labouring have been discussed and deliberated upon with an intensity hardly ever witnessed before in modern India. The trigger for it has been the hapless situation of migrant labour, the working poor and daily wage earners, evident across the country. This is an especially unique historical moment, because culturally speaking, we have never really valued labour or given it the dignity it deserves, even if we pay lip service to the same. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought…

April 15th is the day that marks the beginning of the annual 60-day trawling ban in Tamil Nadu. A ban that restricts fishermen with mechanised boats from venturing into the sea. A ban that sees fewer boats getting into the sea along the coastline of Chennai. Not this year! The Bay of Bengal was abuzz with activity on the 15th when scores of fishermen (mechanised boats are still banned) sailed into the sea after 21 days of the first phase of the nation-wide lockdown. While the lockdown was extended for another 18 days, the central government’s move to exempt fishing…

This article is co-authored by Jillian Du, Robin King and Radha Chanchani The COVID-19 pandemic has created a disruptive new normal for everyone through shelter-in-place orders and social distancing guidelines. But for the billions of urban poor, these guidelines aren’t just burdensome; they’re essentially impossible. Social distancing is a critically important response to the pandemic, but it also assumes that residents have adequate space, services and social safety nets to survive such an order. This is simply not the reality across cities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. More than 1 billion people live in slums and informal settlements globally. As much…

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…

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…

All hopes are pinned on the over 1000-plus fair price shops of the public distribution system (PDS) in the city to deliver on the central and state government’s promise of extra ration during the lockdown. There are over 16 lakh active ration cards in Bengaluru, according to the Food and Civil Supplies Department website. The state government announced the doubling of rations for the next three months for existing card holders while the central government announced extra 5 kg of wheat or rice per person per month and an extra 1 kg of pulses under the PDS. “Under PDS, 10…

With close to 2000 active COVID-19 cases reported across the country, India is under a total lockdown for 21 days that started March 24th. Prime Minister Narendra Modi strictly called upon citizens to stay at home to contain the spread of the novel virus through social contact. Maharashtra, with one of the highest reported positive cases, has imposed Section 144 in order to fight the virus, banning the gathering of five or more people and closing down everything with only the exception of essential services. However, the testing rates remain worrying in India with only around 21 people tested per…

With close to 2000 active COVID-19 cases reported across the country, India is under a total lockdown for 21 days that started March 24th. Prime Minister Narendra Modi strictly called upon citizens to stay at home to contain the spread of the novel virus through social contact. Maharashtra, with one of the highest reported positive cases, has imposed Section 144 in order to fight the virus, banning the gathering of five or more people and closing down everything with only the exception of essential services. However, the testing rates remain worrying in India with only around 21 people tested per…

On an endless stretch of National Highway 58 (NH-58), a batch of over 200 migrant workers, arriving all the way from Ahmedabad are intercepted at the Rajasthan borders. The officials manning the borders, who are short-stocked on testing kits or thermal screening devices are insistent that the ‘returnees’ produce ‘Health Certificates’. The repeated claims of the migrants, including women and elderly, that they are natives of the state are insufficient to secure them safe passage back to their homes in South Rajasthan. Since the nation-wide lock down on March 24th, the reverse-migration of semi-skilled and unskilled workers ‘on foot’ --…