2020

On a national highway migrants
overcrowding a truck were speeding.
Destinations: their homes
hundreds of miles away
from the jobless, moneyless,
shelterless Covid lockdown.
There were two young friends
in the standing space
at the back of the open truck.
Suddenly one of them fell sick,
giving out a suspicious symptom.
That alerted the other migrants
who forced him to get down.
The other friend refusing
to leave him alone jumped
off the truck to stay with him.
He held the (…)

MUSINGS
May 20, 2020
Those shots of our mazdoors and migrant workers going through the worst possible tragedies, hit. Continue to hit. Something or everything snaps within, makes one wonder what’s become of us, what are we getting reduced to, if the crying mazdoors pleading for food and water, get the cops’ lathis!
Mind you, all these inhuman tactics heaped on our mazdoors in their own country, by their own sarkar —that is, the sarkar of the day! There couldn’t a bigger tragedy. (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Two things worry me. Deeply. Feeling patriotic, I sat glued to the television set for the Prime Minister’s "address to the nation." After two minutes I felt hungry and moved to the dining table. Like me the majority of people in the south must have lost interest in the Hindi prabhashan. I don’t feel good about my lack of interest in Hindi. But I don’t feel guilty either.
The second thing that sent me off to the dining table was the nothing-new feeling created by (…)

by Dr. Atanu Sengupta and Dr. Asish Kumar Pal
Abstract:
India is rural based economy. Several workers of several sectors live in rural India. These different workers are basically in unorganized sectors. They are neglected and backward in the society. During the lockdown period announced by both central as well as state government to combat the spread of COVOD- 19 throughout the country, such type of workers are jobless. They are hopeless not to earn any income by which they can (…)

by Annapurna and Navneet Sharma
“Which scientist or doctor is not secretly praying for a miracle? Which priest is not – secretly, at least – submitting to science?” — Arundhati Roy
The covid -19 and ensuing crisis, in all domains of human life whether social, political or economic is going to be a juncture where the life, empathy, development and harmony will also be studied in pre and post covid phases. This humongous crisis will also have its impact on the basic requirements for (…)

by Suranjita Ray
It is perturbing that it took a pandemic to realise that ‘right to life’ and ‘right to livelihood’ are not dichotomous. Though policy makers are struggling to balance the priorities of public health and economic well-being during a pandemic and nationwide lockdown, reports across the country reveal extreme hardships for a large segment of society whose survival is under threat. A big challenge unparalleled in several decades is the loss of resources of livelihood in the (…)

by Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, Arjun Kumar, Simi Mehta
The impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic have already laid bare the shortcomings of Indian cities in addressing urban densification and inadequate provision of urban basic services including drinking water and sanitation. This pandemic has affected the urban poor more than anyone else. Health experts have opined that the citizens need to think in terms of living with this virus for at least two years. With the inevitable easing of the (…)

by Debtanu Majee
Introduction
The outbreak of COVID-19 in December at the Wuhan province of China escalated a new crisis of human security. Being a communicable disease it has spread globally and was termed as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation. With no exceptions, the people of Bangladesh are also infected by COVID-19. As a result, the country was shut down from 26th March 2020. In this article, it is argued that the occurrence of COVID-19 in Bangladesh will enhance the (…)

by R.G.Gidadhubli
Russia occupies second place behind the United States in the world, in terms of total infections due to Covid-19 virus with confirmed cases numbering 272,043 on 17th May 2020 and death toll of 2,537. Hence from sixth rank in March, Russia emerged as second rank in May 2020. Moreover, Russia has also hit the headlines since several high ranking political leaders have been infected by Covid -19, which has been a matter of great concern for Russia. There were reports in the (…)