A high-profile Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) survey of civil society organizations (CSOs) has complained that government indifference despite the “felt need” to continue with the relief work to the poorer sections society amidst Covid-19 crisis was a major reason why more than 36% of CSOs were forced to stop doing the work, while another 54% said they had plans to stop it in a month’s time.

  Returned migrants being tested at an entry point in Uttarakhand A telephonic survey, conducted among 323 returned migrant workers in hill districts of Uttarakhand, has revealed that even though they have returned from the places they worked – mainly Mumbai, Delhi NCR, other districts of the state and Rajasthan – majority of the respondent (68%) would like go back to their destination places in the absence of employment opportunities in their native places of the state.

  A top multinational NGO, with presence in several developed and developing countries, has taken strong exception to the World Bank part-funding Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS) project in six Indian states – Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha – for its emphasis on information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled approaches for teacher development, student assessment and digital platform for early childhood education. 

  The Working Peoples’ Charter (WPC), a civil society network claiming to represent more than 150 provincial and local organizations of informal workers, has asked workers’ organizations across the country to identify industries, establishments and enterprises, as also their geographical location, where wage workers “are not paid wages" or where wages have been "withheld.”

State sector's better performance vis-a-vis private firms (in % points)  A major study, released by the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), first of its kind on “heightened uncertainty in product markets, business operations, and financing plans” of Indian firms during the Covid-19 crisis, has found that “the government-owned firms have outperformed the private counterparts.”

  A study conducted by the Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation (KSCF) titled ‘Extent of child labour and prosecution of cases under Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, in India’ has revealed that the percentage of total number of victims rescued during 2016-18 is only a meagre 0.02% of the total number of child labourers in the country.

Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro with Modi A new report, prepared by a top Swedish institute studying liberal democracy, has observed that there has been a sharp “dive in press freedom along with increasing repression of civil society in India associated with the current Hindu-nationalist regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.” The report places India among the top 10 countries that “have autocratized the most”. Other countries that have been identified for rolling towards autocracy are -- Hungary, Turkey, Poland, Serbia, Brazil, Mali, Thailand, Nicaragua and Zambia.

Dr Sapan Desai A top American doctor, Sapan Sharankishor Desai,  born and raised  in the “affluent” North Shore (Chicago) region of Illinois by Indian parents, at one point of time involved in NGO activity through  dedicated to “improving” the lives of the impoverished in Gujarat, is in the eyes of a major international storm following his  paper  (retracted) in a “Lancet” questioning Donald Trump-promoted drug hydroxychloroquine.

  Commenting on India’s January-March 2019 GDP growth, which "surprised sharply to the downside, printing at a 5-year low of 5.8%", JP Morgan, the American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in New York City, has said that it has not just "dragged down full-year growth also to a five-year low of 6.8%". It underlines, "The GDP undershoot reinforces the discernable slowdown that is currently underway. Growth has largely been flying on one engine in recent years – private consumption – and that has gotten progressively exhausted." Worse, in its commentary, authored by Sajjid Z Chinoy and Toshi Jain, who are with the top MNC's Emerging Markets Asia Economic and Policy Research wing, say, even this is "buffeted by sustained rural distress and a significant tightening of financial conditions amongst the Non Bank Financial Companies (NBFC), which have largely been financing consumption." Continue the JP Morgan...

Amitabh Kant Was the Government of India serious when it  asked  92,000 civil society organizations (CSOs) in early April to “assist” state governments and district administrations in taking care of food, shelter and other needs of migrant workers, known to have been affected by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’ sudden 21-day lockdown in order to “combat” the spread of Covid-19 virus, announced on March 24?