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As I travelled to nearby villages during the lockdown due to unavoidable work, I interacted with some of the migrant labour that had returned from big cities back to their homes in north Bihar. What struck me the most was their simplicity and their positive attitude towards life despite most already having pronounced doomsday in terms of the overall outlook, growth of the economy, job prospects etc. Kapil Mahto, 41-year-old labourer, who worked in Pune for 15 years in a ball and bearings factory, may not be able to put his acquired skills to good use in his village, yet he appeared willing to start all over again. My father, who is no more, was of the view that we should not depend on farming and he forced us to go to cities for a better livelihood. Though my father used to work hard but the uncertainty of the monsoon always kept him in debt. Now I will have to relearn the techniques of farming or poultry and depend on groundwater for crops. Rambhukhan Sahu, 49-year-old farmer from Sitamarhi said, We wont let our own people starve. When the cities are locked down, we are working hard to ensure that India overcomes this unforeseen crisis. We dont know much about GDP, but Bihar will definitely contribute to bringing back things on track.

The Nitish Kumar led government had been a forerunner in mapping the skills of returning migrant labourers. The state government has also been making announcements that job opportunities are being created for them. The government claims to have created 3.5 crore man-days through various government schemes, but these claims will run into rough weather when seen together with reports of nearly 17 lakh migrants returning to Bihar. The unemployed youth remains unsure about the governments claims, especially with assembly elections just a few months away. Rewind to 2005 when Nitish Kumar had just assumed power, he claimed that Bihari youth would not have to migrate for jobs. But in 2020, the situation doesnt seem to have changed much. Adding to the governments woes is a recent CMIE survey which has pegged the unemployment rate for April at 46.6%.

Even as the state government faces a daunting task of being able to provide employment, many migrants I met were willing to face the challenges ahead. A 37-year-old migrant labourer Dukhi Mandal from Keoti village of Darbhanga said, The wage per day is definitely low in my village compared to what I earned in Delhi per day, but here in my village at least I will survive for some more months without a job, because I dont need to pay rent and through PDS my family gets enough to eat. Maybe things get better next year because I have decided not to go back to Delhi and work in the fields. Biltu Sadah, a 46-year-old Scheduled Caste migrant labourer said, I dont have a sizeable land for producing grains, but I have enough land to produce cash crops like vegetables. I have bought a goat and a hen. I am hopeful that from next year I will be able to earn at least half of that I used to earn in cities as a labourer.

With nearly half of the youth population still being jobless, the employment pliability in the conventional agriculture sector of Bihar is almost negative. The government needs to tweak policies promoting agro-based food industries to change the dynamics of demand and supply chain. The workforce can be provided with employment by utilizing land banks to establish industries and providing infrastructure and logistic connectivity to the Bay of Bengal for maintaining the global supply chain. Fixing the economy does appear a big challenge for the state government, but this return of migrants also offers a silver lining for Nitish Kumar to herald what could be termed a remarkable turnaround.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Migrant labour: Can Nitish Kumar convert the Covid crisis into a golden opportunity? - The Times of India Blog

The COVID-19 pandemic has further worsened Indias hunger and malnutrition woes, more so for the millions of informal workers, on their way back home or struggling to meet two ends in their urban and rural homes. Their embedded informality over labour, land and housing tenure has uprooted and shaken them with loss of income, occupation and habitat, multiplying their already entrenched nutrition vulnerability.

Given the already acknowledged multidimensionality of the nutritional problem and its significant connection to immunity, further oversight or negligence, implicates a heavy toll on these de-facto nation builders, either through COVID-19 infestation, poised now for community spread or en-route the lockdown hunger and its chronic accompaniment, the hidden hunger, often used to denote micronutrient malnutrition.

India ranks low at 102 in the 2019 Global Hunger Index, below its neighbours, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with documented poorer malnutrition level among the rural poor, agriculture labourers and migrant workers, pregnant and lactating mothers and children.

Without urgent, timely and integrated nourishment through supplemental nutrition, special care and institutional rehabilitation, the infestation of this cohort will be rampant while their malnutrition will translate to a heavy toll on the future GDP. With the relevant loss to GDP, estimated between 4% to 8%, it may undo the impetus intended via post-COVID revival and reform packages.

The COVID-19 associated lockdown has suddenly made visible the poverty and vulnerability of the millions of migrant workers. Their informality is not limited to their urban workplaces; back in their rural homes, where they are headed now, they are also informal labourers and farmers.

The lockdown made visible the poverty and vulnerability of migrant workers in India. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Indrajit Das

These landless agriculture labourers, tenants and small farmers are the rural food producers, city-makers, urban manufacturers and service providers, who feed the nation, take care of the citizens in their homes and nurture its health and nutrition. Together constituting more than half of Indias population, this group, however, remains ultra-vulnerable to hunger and hidden hunger, thanks to their informal and insecure tenure. They are the hardest hit with their women and children during the pandemic.

The declaration of extra allocation of cereal and pulses for the next three months to about 810 million people under the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana with ration cards reflects the appreciation of this hunger by the government. With studies indicating exclusion and inclusion errors as well as leakage in Public Distribution System (PDS) and estimating a low share of PDS grains reaching the intended, most of these vulnerable groups, however, run the risk of being excluded.

Also read: With No Clarity on Number of Migrant Workers, Food Grain Distribution in a Mess

To overcome the ration card limitation, the government has now announced two months of free food to an additional 80 million migrant workers, without a card. Though temporary and not well-balanced, it should at least improve the outreach of pandemic-response food ration better than the 86%, that is reported by a recent survey. Adequate caution and leakage-plugging, however, is called for, with the participation of local governance institutions and civil society members.

The exclusion challenge, unfortunately, also plague the acclaimed Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme, PM KISAN. The finance minister announced 91.3 million farmers to have received the instalment related to COVID-19.

An ongoing survey by Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University, shows the outreach to just 24%. Considering the number of farmers as per Agriculture Census, 2015-16, the PM KISAN net still excludes 4 out of every 10 farmers. Also not included are the 144 million agriculture labourers (Census, 2011) and about 25 million tenants (NITI Aayog, 2016) in the absence of land records, an eligibility criteria of the scheme.

The nature, outreach and performance of the food and cash transfer schemes and the persistent hunger and malnutrition of the vulnerable, call for a more holistic nutritional response. And the expanding COVID-crisis hitting harder on these informal workers, demands these measures to be expeditious and inclusive.

Also read: How Have the Centres Food Distribution Schemes Performed So Far?

The target population is converged in rural India, where the unfinished land reform agenda and changed farming imperatives and agrarian relations have increased informal tenancy along with fallowing of land. With about 25 million hectares fallow land available and efficiency of small farms well documented in terms of higher production and net income, formalisation of tenancy focusing on small farmers can be a big first leap forward.

This lockdown hunger is not the only worry. Post-COVID, access to safe and nutritious foods would be a question mark if adequate policy measures are not taken in ensuring satisfactory production, aggregation and marketing while also making the food available to the vulnerable population.

Land leasing reforms to promote smallholder farming

Evidence suggests that small farms, remain the most adaptive, demonstrating higher efficiency in terms of income and production than larger farms. However, the highly pervasive and increasing tenancy has weakened Indian agriculture, reducing total production, by depriving tenants access to credit and other entitlements.

Implementation of the Model Land leasing Act, 2016, developed by the NITI Aayog, can offer the security of tenure to existing rural tenants as well as to the returnee migrants willing to farm. This would potentially trigger productive utilisation of land and labour and augment farm and food production, by enhancing access to formal credit and farm-entitlements.

Gram Panchayats can be empowered to lead village-wise listing of potential tenants and enumeration fallow lands, as demonstrated in Kudumbashree in Kerala and AP. Legitimately, they can also facilitate the convergence of MGNREGS for land development and create opportunities of women groups around farm value chain through livelihoods missions, augmenting rural income and local availability of farm-inputs and processed nutritious food.

Strengthening small-farm diversification and local food value chains

Small family farms, globally and in India are known to absorb more labour while intensifying and diversifying production system in small areas. They can easily shoot up production of pulses, millets, tubers, vegetables, fruits, and livestock-products viz. egg, milk and meat. Availability of this food, rich in micronutrients locally is critical to boosting the nutritional status of women and children already suffering hidden hunger due to constrained production and the supply chain disruption of such foods during COVID-19.

Post-COVID agriculture package announced by the government can be made nutrition enabled, with such steps while also promoting local production and value chain development around nutritious foods, thereby generating more formal employments and income locally for farmers, women and their collectives: self-help groups and Farmer Producer Organisations.

Supporting non-timber forest produce collection, value addition and marketing through livelihood missions and ongoing forestry projects, by the tribal women collectives, is critical to increasing cash flow among the vulnerable tribal communities. Allowing forest-foraging visits by women can increase collection and consumption nutritious forest foods at free of cost, through sustainable biodiversity utilisation and conservation.

Also read: Prometheus Unbound: India Must Look to the Farmer for Way Forward

With a nutrition-orientation, micro, small and medium enterprises can boost up productions along local nutrition value chains in rural India and thereby improve access to safe and nutritious diets, while also creating local avenues for employment.

Leveraging ongoing pandemic management for a malnutrition-free India

Along with increasing production and availability, enhanced nutritious food absorption esp. by the women and children is critical to address hunger and malnutrition. In this direction, POSHAN Abhiyaan, with its mandate for reducing stunting, under-nutrition, low birth weight and anaemia by 2022, can help in addressing malnutrition management while also assisting in pandemic infection management.

Grassroots public health, nutrition and agriculture functionaries can be deployed with essential health supplies, behaviour change communication materials, home visit planners, advisories on nutritious food production, processing and consumptions with messages epidemics. Peoples movement, already envisaged in the Abhiyan, can be reoriented to focus on infant and young child and pregnant and lactating women feeding through a campaign engaging women volunteers. Engaged on wages, these women can also help in nutrition sensitisation and monitoring of informal-worker families at local quarantine centres and their rural homes.

Managing food waste and food loss

Approximately one-third of the food produced is lost or wasted in the value chain. During the ongoing crisis, such food loss or wastage across the value chain must be minimised.

The lockdown has drastically affected the marketing of the food produced by the smallholder farmers. Central and state governments can introduce local procurement and distribution using channels of mid-day meals (MDM) and integrated child development services (ICDS) supplementary nutrition programs, engaging the surplus workforce, women and men, now converged in the villages.

IT-enabled monitoring for evidence-based policy

Data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and the latest Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) reveal that malnutrition is the leading inhibiting factor for a healthier India. Morbidity and mortality arising from infectious diseases hamper the countrys GDP and economy and subsistence living of the poor. It is time to coordinate building a robust IT platform to collect and consolidate relevant data, with a focus on these vulnerable groups, for informed decision making and inert-sectoral synergy.

At a time when hunger and malnutrition are already sitting pretty on the ultra-vulnerable informal workers; the COVID pandemic has compounded their burden. Like the one-health approach, a holistic approach spanning land-agriculture-nutrition is what required to nourish these undernourished and accordingly the policy incentives must be repurposed.

Post-COVID, access to safe and nutritious foods for many of the migrant workers is important as part of the revival plan. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Indrajit Das

There is an urgent need to go beyond the cash and food transfers imperatives and invest in building nutrition-resilience pathways for coping with COVID19. Formalising land and labour relations in rural areas and localising production and value chain development of nutritious food through small farming and women-collectives can be a dignified way to add assets, incomes and food in the hand of informal workers. This would also help the nation builders now converging in rural India to trigger a rural revival, as Gandhi would have dreamt.

Pranab R. Choudhury, the primary author of the commentary, is the founder and coordinator of NRMC Center for Land Governance. Basanta K. Kar is a recipient of the Global Nutrition Leadership Award 2019. Arabinda K Padhee is the country directorIndia of ICRISAT.

This article was originally published on Mongabay.

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The Lockdown Revealed the Extent of Poverty and Misery Faced by Migrant Workers - The Wire

KABUL:With the launch of a new $224 million aid package to tackle the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, Afghans told Arab News on Sunday that they feared corruption, and demanded stricter monitoring of resources.

It follows President Ashraf Ghani launching the initiative on Saturday, to provide basic food and essentials to 4 million families, by covering 90 percent of the population in the war-torn country.

It is going to be implemented by thousands of local members of Misaq Sharwandi (Citizenship Charter) council all civil society entities are responsible for monitoring. It is a citizens-based approach,Ghanis chief spokesman, Seddiq Sediqqi, told Arab News on Sunday, adding that the new project was a partnership between the Afghan government and the World Bank.

Afghan citizens, however, are not convinced.

I am a war widow and breadwinner for my family of four, and deserved to have been on the list of beneficiaries in the last round, but got nothing, Jamila, a 46-year-old Kabul resident, told Arab News, referring to a government bread distribution program for families affected by weeks of lockdown to limit the spread of COVID-19.

There should be a monitoring system to make sure that this time, too, the aid is not misused and looted, she said.

It is a sentiment shared by lawmakers who said that the government under fire at home and abroad for not doing enough to tackle corruption had not consulted or informed them about the new program.Some politicians are skeptical that the aid may be embezzled.

The aid hardly reaches the needy and deserving people, Hamida Wardak, an MP from Maidan-Wardak province, told Arab News.

I think the resources will be wasted again. There should be tight monitoring of the process, and we in the parliament will have to be part of the monitoring, she added.

Atta Mohammad Dehqanpur, a legislator from Ghor province, agreed, and said that the parliament was mostly weak, with no power to check government spending.

He feared that the new resources would be misused by some in the government, while many in his impoverished province would not benefit from it.

Others on social media spoke about their mistrust of the government and its ability to deliver the new aid package.

As a citizen, I have no belief in the transparency of this process, Hasiba Efat, a former provincial council member from Parwan province, tweeted on Sunday.

This could be a plan for corruption within the government from those who could not squander resources in previous programs, she added.

Another lawmaker said instead of spending $224 million on the new aid package, Kabul needed to rebuild roads, upgrade urban areas and construct a hydroelectric dam, which would ensure long-term benefits for the public and provide jobs for thousands of people.

In recent months, international institutions and donors had pledged to provide hundreds of millions of dollars for Afghanistan to combat the COVID-19 crisis. In contrast, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had said it would offer Kabul $229 million as a free loan.

Since March, however, there have been complaints of mismanagement and embezzlement by government officials in Kabul and elsewhere, with an Afghan daily reporting that $11 million alone was misused from the bread distribution program.

Other accusations include the disappearance of ventilators, delayed payment of doctors salaries, a shortage of protective gear for medical staff, and a lack of oxygen, sanitizers and surgical masks at hospitals dealing with the pandemic.

Amid complaints of corruption involving COVID-19, Ghani said his government will act against those who have misused the resources in fighting coronavirus.

But locals say they have not seen any significant progress, even as Ghani reiterated on Saturday that his government would prevent corruption in the new program.

Torek Farhadi, a former government and IMF adviser, told Arab news that Kabul was using World Bank package first and foremost for its propaganda and popularity, adding: Afghanistan has become addicted to international aid. The trouble is, international aid does not reach the needy it ends up in private real estate projects and financing armored cars for the powerful.

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Captain to face trial in first Italy 'migrant pushback' case - Arab News

No country in the EU has suffered more from the coronavirus than Italy.

Although Spain has surpassed it in total number of cases, Italy has had the highest death toll. Its economy is projected to shrink 11 percent this year compared to 8.3 percent for the EU as a whole.

The EU needs to help. And it has.

Italy has been the largest recipient of disinfectants, masks, medical gowns and ventilators donated by EU member states.

Germany, Poland and Slovenia have sent doctors. Austria and Germany took in coronavirus patients when Italian hospitals were overwhelmed.

Dutch researchers processed lung echos to quickly diagnose patients. The European Commission has suspended rules on state aid to allow the Italian government to underwrite up to 200bn in business loans.

The European Central Bank is pumping more than 1 trillion into the European economy in order to lower borrowing costs for businesses and governments.

This has provided immediate relief to Italy's banks, which are saddled with excessive levels of non-performing loans and government debt.

But when it comes to Italy's longer-term recovery, it's not unreasonable to ask it to make some changes to qualify for aid from a proposed 750bn EU fund.

Italy's economic problems didn't start with COVID-19.

The European Commission has advised it for years to invest more in education, improve the efficiency of its judicial system and simplify the tax code.

Year-after-year, Italy rejected that advice. It spends less on tertiary education than its neighbours. Only 27 percent of Italians in their thirties have a higher degree, the second-lowest rate in the eurozone, where the average is 40 percent. Tax evasion is between two and three times higher in Italy than in France, Germany and Spain.

Italy is one of the worst rich-countries to start and run a business in, and the time and effort it takes to enforce contracts and resolve bankruptcies in Italy's slow courts, where cases can drag on for years, is a major reason.

Poor availability of credit and excessive licensing requirements are two more.

For young Italians, it's almost impossible to start a career as a lawyer, notary, pharmacist or even a taxi driver unless they inherit a license from their parents or can buy one from a family friend.

These factors conspire to drive a lot of economic activity into the informal sector and deny young Italians job security. Just 45 percent of Italians under the age of 30 had a job before the pandemic, compared to a eurozone average of 63 percent. Nearly eight-out-of-ten of those could only find part-time work.

The current government, led by Giuseppe Conte, hasn't helped by passing a 20bn tax-evasion amnesty and overturning the labour reforms of the last centre-left government, which introduced a new type of permanent contract to close the gap between insecure part-time work without social benefits and impossible-to-break full-time contracts with generous benefits.

Even those reforms did not apply to anyone in work. At the insistence of the trade unions, they only applied to new contracts. Hence their short-term effect was limited, which Conte's government used as an excuse to cancel them.

Rather than tackle these problems, which would mean taking away some of the security and wealth of incumbents and the well-connected to give younger and entrepreneurial Italians a chance, Italy's politicians blame outsiders.

They accuse Europe of "abandoning" Italy in its hour of need and call on the EU to "take responsibility".

They said the same thing during the migrant crisis. And during the euro crisis. Italy is always the victim. Northern Europe, which would rather Italy took some responsibility for its problems before asking for help, is always at fault.

Conte insists he will not accept a "weak compromise" on the recovery fund. He argues conditions would "stigmatise" recipients and warns that, if Italy doesn't get what it wants, it would "destroy the common market."

But his government can't even tell what it would spend the money on.

One of the two ruling parties, the Democrats, wants to invest in infrastructure. The other, the Five Star Movement, argues for tax cuts.

Little wonder the leaders of Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden are unwilling to sign off: they're not going to give money so the Italians can fund a tax cut in the middle of an economic crisis.

Yet it's them Italians blame, not their own leaders.

Years of blaming Brussels have turned Italians into one of the most Eurosceptic people in Europe. Just 38 percent told Eurobarometer last year they had faith in the EU.

Only the British, French and Greeks trusted the EU less. Italians were more likely than most to cite unemployment as the reason, even though that is still largely the preserve of national governments. 28-percent supported leaving the euro, the highest rate among eurozone nations. Italy is the only country in the EU where the young are more Eurosceptic than the old.

Italy's politicians are failing the next generation of Italians. They need to stop demonising the only countries that can - and will - help Italy and resist the temptation to enact more stop-gap measures that only perpetuate the inequalities and inefficiencies that hold the country back.

The rest is here:
Italy has a responsibility, too - EUobserver

Photojournalists are pivotal in telling a news story. Photos allow the reader to experience thefeelings a situation evokes first-hand. However,with the majority popularion equipped with asmartphone camera, professionals face a threat. Metrolife spoke to a range of photojournalists to discuss their relevance in a changing world.

Most people see life as a video, we see it as a collection of freeze frames, says Anantha Subramaniam, a photojournalist with 25 years of experience.

Approaching every event with the same level of curiosity and passion is important. You are there to capture interesting moments and pictures that hold the attention of the viewers, he says.

Samyukta Lakshmi, a freelance photojournalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times and Bloomberg, says authenticity is important. We dont just click a picture of whats happening; we inquire about the situation and try to understand why something is happening, she says.

Vaishnavi Suresh, documentary photographer and photojournalist, works with NGOs.

The focus is on documenting an event, area or situation for a long period of time and then working towards getting it published to bring attention to a certain cause, she says.

Subramaniam adds that intuition is a must. One never knows what will happen. But its our job to know, to anticipate situations and be ready with our finger on the shutter. I was once in Sri Lanka to cover a cricket match, but on the way to the stadium there was a bomb blast in front of me. I was able to stay focused and deliver the pictures, he explains.

Are journalistic ethics alwaysfollowed?There is a certain pressure from above that you cant ignore, but for certain things you have to put your foot down, says Subramaniam.

He explains how photojournalists are often asked to document the family of students who have died by suicide. We are asked to take pictures that capture their grief and sometimes even inquire for happy pictures of the student. That is something I refuse to do as I feel its disrespectful to the family, he says.

Samyukta says they can always take a photo and help the person after, but their consent is always important.

I know of photojournalists covering the migrant crisis who go up to the people and help them afterwards, either by providing them with more information or food and money. Most times you can do more by just getting their story out, she says.

Vaishnavi says she is aware of the gaze of the camera and the effect it has. I always try to take pictures of individuals at the eye-level, so as to not portray them as lesser than or greater than the viewer, she explains.

Cracking the field

For the past few years, newspapers have been asking for journalists with a certain educational qualification and a portfolio.

They should be able to write small reports, so courses that teach this are an added advantage. But with that being said, nothing can beat experience, I have no qualifications above Class 10, Subramaniam says.

He says that the field has become extremely competitive with smartphones coming into the picture.

Reporters, nowadays, feel like an image they click with a smartphone will suffice for their story. For us to survive, we constantly have to innovate and train the eye to see beyond the usual frames, he adds.

Vaishnavi does not think it is an easy field to break into; she doesnt think she has completely cracked it either. There are stories of people who slog for months and years as unpaid interns, but still dont get a job. Its even more difficult for women, she says.

Freelancing opportunities galore

Samyukta says being a freelancer does not mean you are less successful. One constantly has to hustle, but she enjoys it more than being a staff photographer. While there is a higher risk in terms of income, its more fulfilling to be able to work for different publications, she says.

Vaishnavi works freelance and in the NGO space, which she says can be a double-edged sword. I dont have to censor my work to fit a certain ideal, but I do wish I had guidance since Ive barely been in the field for the five years, she says.

A woman in the field

Samyukta says that being a woman can have its pros and cons. Safety is a prime issue: The best way to combat it is to research and prepare. You should know where youre going, who will be there, who your fixers are. Vaishnavi adds that sometimes even if they are prepared, there is always reluctance to send a woman photographer to a charged situation.

Samyukta says that her gender helps when trying to get people more comfortable. Women photographers definitely have an edge when covering women: they always open up to us more comfortably, she explains.

Vaishnavi adds, Im young and five feet tall, which makes me more accessible to the people I shoot. They dont see me as a towering figure.

Mental health

Samyukta says that when she is on the field she concentrates solely on getting the best pictures. In a way, I am detached until my day ends, thats when all the physical and mental exhaustion hits. To deal with this, Ive turned towards activities like yoga that help me relax, she says. Vaishnavi says the kind of attachment you have to a project and how long you spend with it changes the way it affects you. I have been covering various protests, but since they are short-term I dont really have the time to interact with people and empathise, she says.

On the other hand, her longest project, the movement against mining at Hasdeo, had a significant impact on her.

On my first visit, I had taken a picture of a father and son and on my next visit, I found out that they had passed away. That took a great toll on my mental health. Its an inexplicable feeling to think that your photograph of someone might be the last reminder of their life, she says.

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Pro ways to capture emotions - Deccan Herald