Mohammad Arif is a singer of bhajans, and usually in high demand at functions. With the lockdown, functions were cancelled and bhajan singers were no longer needed. “I’ve taken a big hit, I’m just home in Meerut now, there is nowhere to go and no money made for months,” he said, at an online press conference held by the Stranded[Read More...]
NAPM welcomes the Supreme Court judgment on rations for all migrant workers and time-bound registration of unorganized sector workers. SC has fallen short of delivering on its own observation of a “socialistic pattern of society”. Struggle for holding Govt and Judiciary accountable to working class must continue. 2nd July, 2021: The sudden and unplanned lockdown imposed by the union government in[Read More...]
To Shri Apurva Chandra Union Labour Secretary Dear Shri Apurva Chandra, The preamble to the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 defines its primary objective to be “to regulate the employment of interstate migrant workmen and to provide for their conditions of service and for matters connected therewith“. This Act is by and large[Read More...]
It is now painfully clear that the Government of India has been woefully underprepared for the second wave of COVID-19. The resulting misgovernance [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, 9] is precipitating the announcement of partial or total lockdowns in various states to break the chain of infections. Like last year, informal workers have been left to fend for themselves and among them migrant workers[Read More...]
As the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic intensifies in India, migrant workers are returning back to their villages. Imposition of new restrictions to contain the virus – like the announcement of a night curfew in Delhi – has instilled fears in workers that they will be rendered jobless and get stuck in the industrial centres where they are precariously[Read More...]
Covid pandemic will remain an important chapter in India’s history. This is not only for the public health challenge it caused but it also brought out the deeply hidden flaws, biases, prejudices of the state and society. It was a mirror reflection of the state and society we are living in. The book by Harsh Mander titled “Locking down the[Read More...]
Karl Marx had once remarked, “Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways. But the point however is to change it.” Although, the following narrative which I am going to pen has only one interpretation. The triumph of human will in extreme moments of crisis and the immense possibility that one is capable of churning out to face that crisis.[Read More...]
Savita Kumari of Rasulpur village of Pindra Block of Varanasi District of Uttar Pradesh was blessed to be born in a lower middle class Other Backward Caste family. She is studying in 9th standard in the village high school. Since the family is engaged in agriculture and milk sale, she has enough to eat and carry on her studies. During[Read More...]
Co-Written by Sarbeswar Padhan and Pankaj K. Naik The ongoing episodic lockdown against the novel coronavirus has unfolded migration crisis in the country. One would hardly disagree with the fact that it is the migrant workers who have suffered the most due to the prevailing economic and political turmoil conditioned by the pandemic. The pandemic has made the invisible visible[Read More...]
The freedom of press comes from the Right to Speech which is guaranteed to all the citizens by the constitution of India vide article 19 (1) (a). The media has been recognised as the fourth pillar of democracy, four in row to save and to strengthen it. In the last seventy years of independence, we have seen exponential growth in[Read More...]
