The Long Read: “No safety nets” – debts weigh on grieving Indian families
ROLI SRIVASTAVA AND ANURADHA NAGARAJ, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, report on the dramatic impacts the coronavirus pandemic has has on many living in India…
Postcards: Bolivians forced to get creative as COVID-19 hits cash-in-hand workers
ANASTASIA MOLONEY and WARA VARGAS, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, report on how people in one of South America’s poorest countries are being forced to adapt to make ends meet during the coronavirus pandemic…
Stung by COVID-19, Indian businesses rethink worker benefits
Mumbai, India Thomson Reuters Foundation As Kerala’s industrial heartland cranks back to life post-lockdown, orders are returning to its printing presses, workshops and chemical plants. But to bosses’ dismay, many workers are in no hurry to come back from their villages. “There is a strong reluctance among the workers to return,” said Rajesh Gopalakrishnan, head […]
India plans database to help informal workers access state aid
Mumbai, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation India unveiled plans on Monday to create a database registering hundreds of millions of informal workers, many of whom have struggled to access state aid during the COVID-19 pandemic because they are undocumented. Announcing the annual budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said 1.3 billion rupees ($US20.5 million) would be spent to […]
Fearing loan sharks and slavery, Indian workers ask government for cash aid
Chennai, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation Informal workers in India urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a petition on Tuesday to grant emergency financial aid to protect them from loan sharks and labour traffickers as the pandemic erodes their incomes. India is one of the countries worst affected by coronavirus, and a strict lockdown earlier this year […]
Financial insecurity: Indian street vendors “shattered” as coronavirus wrecks trade
ANNIE BANERJI, writing for Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on the plight of street vendors impacted by the coronavirus pandemic in India…
Essay: Five ways coronavirus is deepening global inequality
In an article first published on The Conversation, KUNAL SEN, director of the World Institute for Development Economics Research at United Nations University, looks at how the coronavirus is widening the gaps between the haves and have-nots…
Essay: How a coronavirus lockdown exposed food insecurity in a small Bangladeshi city
In an article first published on The Conversation, Durham University researchers MOHAMMAD FEISAL RAHMANand HANNA A RUSCZYK look at how a coronavirus lockdown impacted food security in one Bangladeshi community…
India’s poor live on promises in coronavirus
Mumbai, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation No food, no work and no clue when relief will come. That’s life now for millions of informal workers in India, starved of a way to feed themselves or get the help pledged by government to survive a three-week coronavirus lockdown. Migrant workers, who work in textile looms, rest inside a […]
Left jobless by pandemic, Colombia’s informal workers to get government aid
Bogota, ColombiaThomson Reuters Foundation The poorest residents from street vendors to war victims will receive cash and food during the coronavirus lockdown in Colombia, where roughly half the wage earners work off the books with no savings, authorities said. The government said it will spend $US120 million to help about three million informal economy workers […]