The alert from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) follows reports that an airstrike on Sunday in Washhah District, in north-west Hajjah Governorate, killed seven children and two women.

Another two children and two women were reportedly injured and taken to Abs Hospital for treatment Hajjah Governorate in north-west Yemen.

Condemning the development, theUNs Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen,Lise Grande, said in astatementthat it was incomprehensible that in the middle of the COVID pandemic, when options for a ceasefire are on the table, civilians continue being killed in Yemen.

The country has long been a steppingstone for migrants seeking work in the oil-rich Arabian States to the north of Yemen.

But landing points across from the Horn of Africa have become increasingly dangerous since conflict escalated in March 2015, between the forces of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi - supported by a Saudi-led international coalition and mainly Houthi militia, for control of the Arab nation.

Today, widely described as the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, fears that COVID-19 has already gained a strong foothold in Yemen have been compounded by a potential famine alert last week from the World Food Programme (WFP), as some 10 million people face acute food shortages.

For nearly six years, Yemen has been an extremely unsafe place to be a migrant, said IOM spokesperson Paul Dillon. COVID-19 has made this situation worse; migrants are scapegoated as carriers of the virus and as a result, suffer exclusion and violence. In addition to the forced removals, fears about COVID-19 have led to migrants in Yemen experiencing verbal and physical harassment, increased detention and movement restrictions.

COVID-19 restrictions have reduced the number of migrant arrivals in Yemen by 90 per cent in recent months, while also leaving tens of thousands of Ethiopians in limbo, according to IOM.

Transportation through the country has been blocked and at least 14,500 migrants have been forcibly transferred between governorates, it said in a statement, with at least 4,000 people stranded in Aden, 2,500 in Marib, 1,000 in Lahj and 7,000 in Saada governorates.

In 2019, an average of 11,500 per month arrived in Yemen from the East African ports, according to IOMs Displacement Tracking Matrix, in search of work in Saudi Arabia.

In May 2019, 18,904 people made the crossing, while this year, only 1,725 arrivals were recorded.

Although more than 1,460 cases of new coronavirus infection and 418 deaths have been reported in Yemen, the IOM official noted that the agency and the broader humanitarian community in Yemen, are working under the assumption that the virus is widespread.

With most migrants sleeping outdoors or in unsafe abandoned buildings, they are at greater risk of exposure to COVID-19, Mr. Dillon continued.

They have little access to basic services like food, clean water or health care, a worrying situation given how pervasive the virus is believed to be in Yemen.

After being stranded in Yemen, a group of Ethiopian migrants return to Addis Ababa with the support of the International Organization for Migration. (July 2019), by IOM Bole Addis Ababa International Airport

In an appeal for continued access for humanitarians throughout the country, the IOM official highlighted grave concerns about virus transmission in places where migrants are being held.

Prior to the emergence of COVID-19 in Yemen and elsewhere, we know that many of these - many of these detention centres - are not particularly sanitary, Mr. Dillon said. Theres no access to some of the basics that one would need to address public health concerns such as COVID-19.

Last year, IOM reached nearly 60,000 migrants in Yemen with shelter support, health care, voluntary return assistance and psychosocial support.

According to Ms. Grandes Office, nearly 1,000 civilian conflict-related casualties have been reported in Yemen in the first six months of 2020.

Yemen cant take much more, she said. There isnt enough funding, health and water programmes are shutting, famine is stalking the country again, and people all across the country are being hit hard by COVID.

At a pledging event in Riyadh on 2 June, donors pledged only $1.35 billion of the $2.41 billion requested to cover essential humanitarian activities until the year end, leaving a gap of more than $1 billion.

Since mid-April, 31 of 41 of critical UN programmes have been reducing or closing down for lack of funding, Ms. Grandes Office said.

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In Yemen, thousands of Ethiopian migrants stranded, COVID-19 likely widespread - UN News

DUBAI: When Egyptian, Ethiopian and Sudanese officials meet to resolve their differences on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that Addis Ababa is building on the Blue Nile, they instantly run into many thorny issues.

These disputes run deeper than technical matters and the sharing of water, experts and analysts say. Because they are also legal, historical and trust-related, a tripartite agreement has proved elusive. An eventual deal could take longer because major differences persist, mainly between Ethiopia and Egypt.

Officials from the three countries concluded two weeks of talks on July 13, supervised by the African Union (AU) and observed by US and European officials, but came no closer to an agreement. Officials were quoted as saying that the three countries would submit their final reports to the AU and that a mini-African summit would be held on Tuesday.

The talks were the latest in a decade-long effort by the three African countries to resolve differences over the GERD. Ethiopia hopes the 6,000-megawatt dam will turn it into Africas top hydropower supplier. Egypt and Sudan fear the dam being constructed less than 20 km from Ethiopias eastern border with Sudan will substantially reduce their water share and affect development prospects.

While Addis Ababa insists the dam will benefit all Nile river basin states, the three countries are stymied by technical issues on how and when to fill the reservoir and how much water it should release, along with procedures for drought mitigation.

Experts and analysts from Africa and outside say the differences are fundamental and require sincerity. Vital national interests are at stake, particularly on the Egyptian and Ethiopian sides, said William Davison, a senior analyst on Ethiopian affairs with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

Ethiopia considers the project important for development and thus named it the renaissance dam, he said, adding: It is also seen as vital to overcoming injustices from past treaties that excluded the country and denied it water allocations.

Egypt, which relies heavily on the Nile for agriculture, industry and drinking water, worries that such a large dam will reduce water supplies in a problematic way in the future, Davison told Arab News from Addis Ababa.

Satellite images released recently showed water pouring into the reservoir, prompting Seleshi Bekele, the Ethiopian water minister, to assuage Egyptian anxieties by insisting that the process was the product of natural seasonal flooding and not direct action by the government.

Egyptian analysts say Ethiopia is ignoring its neighbors interests. The talks have failed because of continuous Ethiopian obstinacy, said Hani Raslan, an expert on African affairs at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies. Ethiopia has been buying time to impose a new reality on the ground . . . they dont intend to reach an agreement.

INNUMBERS

$4.8 billion Estimated cost of GERD.

15% Cost as share of Ethiopias 2012 GDP.

20,000 People in need of resettlement.

Source: International Rivers Organization

Other experts say that a positive attitude by the parties would help. There is a tendency on each side to see the other in a more threatening manner, which I think is the key issue here, said Mulugetta Ketema, managing director of the US-based Cogent International Solutions, a research and analysis center.

Instead of starting negotiations based on who can dominate over which country or region, I think you should start by saying How can we work together to utilize his river.

Ketema, who is Ethiopian-American, added: I am sure everybody is doing their best, but there is a historical issue also at play here. For centuries Egypt and Sudan didnt have anybody saying they could do this or that . . . they have been using the river for their own advantage.

However, now the basin countries . . . are also growing and saying Hey, we have to use or share something with our brothers and sisters up north and harvest the river. Apparently, this is where the problem starts.

The Nile basin includes Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan, Congo, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and Sudan. Most were not part of the agreements signed during the British colonial years that gave Egypt and Sudan a big share of the Nile waters, Ketema said. Except for Ethiopia, those countries were under British control.

Apart from the legal differences over the term of references consultants use in their reports, drought mitigation remains a major obstacle. Egypt and Sudan seek Ethiopias commitment to a safe minimum release of water in dry seasons.Addis Ababa has been unwilling to do so, according to Davison.

More recently, in the negotiations, there has been a series of legal disputes or disagreements. Sudan and Egypt would like a process of binding third-party arbitration as a last resort to resolve any future dispute (but) the Ethiopians . . . are not willing to sign up to that, he told Arab News.

Ethiopia insists that Africa needs to solve African affairs. Historically, Africans have been solving their own problems and did a better job than outside interference, Ketema said. Europeans and the UN tried to mediate in some issues, but it really never worked. Should the AU fail to reach a solution on the GERD, other developing nations could extend their hands, he said.

To many Egyptian analysts, Ethiopias insistence on African solutions aims to keep the negotiations going in a vicious circle until the dam is completely full and then there will be no meaning for negotiations, Al-Ahram Centers Raslan told Arab News.

A practical solution is available already, he said, referring to a US-drafted agreement that emerged from talks in Washington DC earlier this year. Egypt initialled the document, while Ethiopia declined.

The ministers agreed on a schedule for a staggered filling of the dam and mitigation mechanism, according to the document, but still needed to finalize details on safety and ways of handling future disputes. Praising Egypts readiness to sign the agreement, the US noted that Ethiopia sought internal consultations.

Davison said that the parties need to focus on specific disagreements on hydrological and legal issues without being sidetracked by the current controversy over the act of filling (water) and . . . by the historical and geopolitical disagreements.

If the lawyers and engineers are allowed the space to reach a compromise on these technical issues, that will not solve everything, he said.

But that will allow some sort of agreement (so that) the parties can move on and build trust. Eventually, they will be able to address some of the large issues over water sharing and ultimately this historical rivalry over the river.

__________

Twitter: @jumanaaltamimi

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

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan publicly acknowledged on Friday that community transmission of coronavirus has begun in certain coastal regions of the state. In essence, Pinarayi declassified what must be a top secret at the all-India level. The chief minister has chosen to be upfront on a sensitive issue, when his peer group is playing safe and is in denial mode.

But how can a pandemic be fought when the rulers are in denial mode? The fact of the matter is that community transmission began quite some time ago in our country and has begun appearing lately in Kerala, too. Pinarayi has been personally conducting the daily briefings on the march of the pandemic in his parish to educate the public opinion.

Indeed, how do you fight a pandemic unless the public is aware of the gravity of the crisis? In Kerala, community transmission is limited at present to the fishing villages where social distancing norms are difficult to enforce, as fishermen also happen to be migrant workers who go wherever there is good catch available. So, triple lockdown has become necessary in select coastal areas to prevent the fishermen from travelling to neighbouring states where the pandemic is raging.

Hasnt the time come for PM Modi to announce that community transmission has begun? Of course, it is unpleasant news. But the number of infected people crossed the 1 million mark in India on Thursday.

At this rate, how can one take lightly the prognosis by the hugely prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore that the number of infected cases will exceed 3.5 million by 1st September and could rise as high as 12 million (over 3 million active cases and half a million fatalities) by 1st November?

The IISc study by a group of noted scientists says that by the New Year on 1st January 2021, India would have possibly reached close to 30 million infected cases (over 6 million active cases and 1 million fatalities). The pandemic is not expected to peak before March next year.

This is an apocalyptic scenario. The international community anticipates a massive crisis spiralling out of control and is closely watching India, which accounts for one-sixth of humanity. The Newshour programme yesterday on BBC Radio World Service gave top billing to the pandemic ravaging India. The highlights of the discussion were as follows :

-The rate at which the infection is going up in India is worrisome.

-There are many more infections that are to be counted beyond the official figures.

-Vast cities like Mumbai and Delhi are the worst hit but the pandemic is spreading to other cities and towns too and lockdown is being reimposed in some areas.

-The situation is absolutely bad in Delhi where alongside the pandemic-related issues, there is also the collateral effect on peoples lives. The migrant labourers who are trying to get back to their homes are hard up, as once again the government has stopped the transportation, the trains as well as the bus services.

-The number of migrant workers has only increased in Delhi. Most of them want to go back to their homes. The unemployment rate has drastically increased and many industries are refusing to take back their employees.

-The grim reality in Delhi is that massive unemployment is leading to hunger, and this is posing a graver challenge than the Covid-19 situation. The government has announced huge schemes and everything, but on the ground those schemes are yet to reach. If the help doesnt reach the people within the month, it will become very difficult to handle the situation.

-Overall, there is a sharp increase of cases all over the country and the epidemiologists and scientists are of the opinion that the government needs to take a strong stand and admit there is community transmission so that steps are taken to see that the epidemic can be brought under control.

-Given the number of cases, community transmission is surely happening. The active states are concentrated in a few states and although there is a steady increase of cases all over the country, the alarming increase is happening at present in a few states and there too, confined to a few districts. Perhaps, the government does not want to scare the public by admitting there is community transmission and this could be one of the reasons behind this denial mode.

-The fatality rate has not been high compared to other countries. But this is changing, as more tests are being conducted and more cases come to light and there is also an incidence of acute cases. Plus, the hospitals are getting flooded and are increasingly unable to handle the severe cases. Therefore, the fatality rates are going up.

-Proportionately, the number of infected cases is relatively low as of now, as compared to the United States and Brazil. But the reality is that India is facing a very precarious situation. Since the infection cases are going up at a very alarming rate, the situation can go out of control at any point from now onward.

-One problem is that people are not taking social distancing seriously in the far-flung regions of India. Therefore, it is small comfort that India is doing relatively better than the US or Brazil as of now. The truth is that India is in a very precarious position and needs to be very, very careful to make sure that the situation does not explode. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better in India.

If this account is anywhere near the truth, our leadership is behaving like an oligarchy twiddling their thumbs, revelling in videoconferences and Twitter exchanges and politicking at a time like this. Who are they kidding? The world community must be aware that the Indian people are grappling with an existential crisis and for a foreseeable future, Indian economy will be in doldrums, and its capacity to perform on the global commons is severely restricted.

To my mind, the leadership needs to put all other government business aside and begin to work on controlling the pandemic and saving human lives. All the resources available with the Central Government must be deployed to this end.

Indias credibility as a democratic country is at stake here. The IISc study becomes a benchmark to judge the performance of the government. Searchlights are going to be held by the world community in the weeks and months ahead as the fatality rate starts shooting up and people die like flies.

Cover Photograph Reuters

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Exponential Covid Rise In India - To Deal With the Crisis, First Recognise It - The Citizen

Despite legal interventions over the years, India has the largest number of child brides in the world, according to a 2019 report published by UNICEF; one-third of the global total.

Across 10 villages in Rajasthans Udaipur district, for two hours every day, open fields are converted into makeshift classrooms. Rows of young boys and girls, children of returnee migrant labourers, are seated two feet apart. Chart papers have been taped on the side walls to serve as a blackboard for the class. It has been nearly four months since government-run schools shut down and turned into quarantine centres. Ever since the lockdown was announced, the children, particularly the girls, have been largely home-bound,said Yogesh Vaishnav from Vikalp Sansthan, an NGO that has been running these open-air learning centres in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With schools shut down and very poor access to technology [to avail of online classes], we fear that most of these girls will permanently drop out of the education system. Coupled with the economic downturn, loss of livelihoods and reduced access to childcare protection and social support, the district has also been recording a steep increase in cases of violence against girls and women, as well as early and child marriages.

Vaishnav is among the 41 signatories of a pan-India memorandum submitted last week to the task force constituted by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development to examine and provide recommendations on issues including age of motherhood, maternal health and child mortality in India. The formation of the task force is in line with the statement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during the Budget Speech in February, where she recalled that womens age of marriage was increased from 15 to 18 years in 1978 by amending the Sharda Act of 1929. Thus, as a potential solution to tackling poor maternal health outcomes and child mortality, the 10-member task force is examining whether to raise the legal age of marriage for females from 18 to 21 years. The report is expected to be submitted at the end of this month.

While the government's age-centred move is publicly being lauded as empowering and progressive, frontline workers, child rights activists and advocates (signatories of the memorandum) have advised strict caution against this move, particularly at a time when various state officials and activists have been reporting a spike in child marriages amid the lockdown. How can this be a moment to add further to the burdens of families struggling for their very survival? questions the memorandum. Poverty, not early marriage, is the main cause for the ill-health of mothers and their children. On 9 July, an additional submission was also put forward by members of the National Coalition Advocating for Adolescent Concerns (NCAAC), a group of civil society organisations, academics and activists in the country. In response, on Friday, the task force participated in an online exchange titled Youth Voices with 20 adolescent girls and young women leaders from various states to listen to their first-hand experiences.

Despite legal interventions over the years, India has the largest number of child brides in the world, according to a 2019 report published by the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF); one-third of the global total. While the National Family Health Survey 4 data indicates a 20 percent decline in the prevalence of the practice in the past decade, the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to reverse the gains made over the years. And the revision of age at marriage, activists believe, could sound the death knell for the girls and young wives.

All images via REUTERS

The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 (PCMA), which mandates the minimum age at marriage, for instance, was framed to replace the Child Marriage Restraint Act to forbid child or underage marriages, appoint Child Marriage Protection Officers to implement the law and penalise those that participate in the act including the adult party to such marriages. Yet, several field-based studies have pointed out the ways in which the Act is used punitively against girls who marry against parental wishes, rather than protecting girls from forced marriage. While it is true that the law must be aspirational, it wont mean too much on the ground considering very few child marriage cases actually get reported. Even when they do, most of the success that we have achieved is when we stop the wedding before it actually takes place, said Nicole Rangel Menezes, co-founder of Leher, a child protection organisation working closely with women and girls in Bihars Madhubani district. Those who marry off their children underage, traffic child brides are well under the radar of the law enforcement.

In fact, the use of PCMA by parents often leads to the girl being put in shelter homes, and the boy being imprisoned or sent to juvenile homes. The strict lockdown measures, closure of schools and the inability to access mobile phones, have made it additionally difficult for girls trying to prevent or escape a forced marriage. The girls are unable to seek even informal support from their friends, neighbours and school teachers. The accused [a family member], then, is often the girls only access to justice, said Sherin Bosco, co-founder of NGO Nakshatra that provides counselling and legal support to victims of sexual violence and trafficking across Tamil Nadu. At such a time, any legal amendment has to be coupled with adequate psycho-social support and enabling measures to empower the children. In fact, Bosco and her team have been receiving most of their tip-offs over the past few months over missed calls. It is quite challenging for the children to call and lodge complaints, there is also an increased fear of getting caught, said Bosco, adding that based on the missed call, the local team of counsellors find ways to provide support.

Advocate Varsha Deshpande from the Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal (DMVM) said the pandemic has mainly exposed the existing institutional and policy gaps in state responses. In Maharashtras drought affected Marathwada region, where DMVM works with migrant sugarcane cutters and brick kiln workers, child marriage has, for years, been a common practice. When families migrate to the neighbouring states for work, they usually take their sons along for the farm work. The minor girls, who are left behind in the village with the older family members, are at such times, at a very high risk of sexual violence, said Deshpande, adding,Parents also get their daughters married in the fear that she will fall in love with someone of her own choice in their absence. Given the lack of government-run hostels, safe access to schools and adequate child protection schemes, marriage then becomes the only way out to ensure their safety and security.

The memorandum cites field-based evidence to suggest that child marriage is the consequence, and not the cause of girls dropping out of schools. Rather than to raise the legal age of marriage, we must ensure that the right to free and compulsory education is extended beyond 14 years, said Nishit Kumar from the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change Communication. Even national data shows that the reasons for high drop-out rates amongst girls are a combination of demand and supply side factors, primarily the availability, affordability and quality of schooling. While the Right to Education Act 2009 has led to a significant improvement in the enrolment of girls at primary and elementary levels, the drop-rate at the higher secondary levels remains alarming from a net enrolment ratio of 91.58 (elementary) to 31.42 (higher secondary). This figure, reported by the National Institute for Educational Planning and Administration, falls by a further 15 percent for girls from Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste and Muslim communities. Amid the current crisis, Kumar added, To delay girls age of marriage, it will be far more important to improve overall access to education and also invest in better infrastructure. A legal revision alone cannot solve the problem.

Reetika Revathy Subramanian is a journalist and a PhD scholar at the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies, UK. She writes on gender, informality and labour migration.

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COVID-19 crisis risks reversing gains made against c..arriage in India; legal revisions alone arent solution - Firstpost

Migrant worker names welding shop after Sonu Sood  |  Photo Credit: Twitter

Sonu Sood has been hailed on social media as the best 'supporting' actor for his exemplary work of proving relief to hundreds of migrants amid the coronavirus crisis.

The 46-year-old has proved his benevolence through practical solutions time and again. His work has made him the 'Go-to' man at a time when migrants in many parts of the country were finding it difficult to reach home.

The actor has provided food and necessities for the needy and also arranged special buses and flights to send stranded migrants home.

His campaign for the needy started when he replied to a tweet from a worker who shared his plight and asked the actor if he could send him home. Since then, his social media accounts have been flooded with requests.

Now, his good work is being honoured by those he helped.

Prashant Kumar Pradhan is a 32-year-old plumber from Odisha. He was one of the 168 who was airlifted from Kerala during the nationwide lockdown with the help of Sonu Sood.

Now, the plumber has expressed his gratitude towards the actor with a hearty gesture. Hedecided to name his new welding shop after the actor. It's called 'Sonu Sood Welding Shop'.

"I was working as a plumber in a company near Kochi airport. I was earning around Rs 700 per day. After the lockdown, I lost my job and money and started drying up," Prashant told The Times of India.

He added that he tried returning home via Shramik Special train but failed. At that time, even district officials and local leaders couldn't offer much help.

Just when he thought he wouldn't be able to return home, help came from Sonu Sood.

"Sonu Sood appeared as an angel in our lives. He arranged for a special flight to take us home," said Prashant.

Soon after reaching home, Prashant started looking for a job to meet the expenses of his family. Recently, he opened a welding shop at Hatina, which is 140 km from Bhubaneswar. He used Soods name and picture in his workshop but did so by first taking the actors permission.

Responding to the gesture, Sood wished Prashant luck for his new endeavor and said he will visit the shop whenever he comes to Odisha.

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Migrant worker airlifted by Sonu Sood from Kerala names welding workshop after the actor - Times Now

Pradyut Bordoloi and Gaurav Gogoi, members of Parliament from Assam, failed to catch the last flight from Delhi to Guwahati on March 24. Until the previous day, both the Congress MPs were present in the Lok Sabha for the budget session. And neither of them had an inkling that a nationwide lockdown was in the offing, something that came at a four-hour notice.

Fast forward two months later to May 25. As domestic flights resumed operations, both the MPs rushed to their constituencies Nagaon and Kaliabor, respectively. But Covid-19 protocols, as devised by the government of Assam, mandated that they take swab tests and go from the airport to a hotel for institutional quarantine.

When we were all stuck in Delhi during peak lockdown, the chief minister of Assam (Sarbananda Sonowal) sent a chartered flight to bring back the BJP MPs. They all landed in Guwahati and reached their respective constituencies by road. None of them was quarantined. Covid rules are applicable only to the opposition, Bordoloi tells ET Magazine over the phone.

Opposition-only Covid rules, as alleged by Bordoloi, could be an exaggeration, but the pandemic has indeed opened a window of opportunity for the ruling party to consolidate its base even as opposition parties are struggling due to rampant Covid restrictions.

Political rallies and mass protests often considered a lifeline for the Opposition are now forbidden or impossible as the virus has forced everyone to either stay indoors or maintain social distancing in public places. In Kerala, the high court on Wednesday banned political protests in public places until July 31. Even as India has been unlocking in a phased manner, localised lockdowns, weekend stay-at-home orders and night curfews have disrupted the opposition parties political planning.

In contrast, government agencies have been operating from Day 1 of the lockdown. Though the inept handling of the migrant crisis dented the popularity of the ruling BJP at the Centre, the damage can be offset by its concerted pro-poor drive: the distribution of 24 crore food packets, monthly free ration to 80 crore individuals from the Centres coffers as well as a transfer of Rs. 500 a month to every woman who has a Jan Dhan account. Other parties can have advantages in states where they rule. In Kerala, the ruling Left Democratic Front, for instance, has showcased its administrative prowess in containing the pandemic. But even in states the numbers are skewed in favour of the BJP which, with its allies, rule 16 of them. The Congress rules only three and is a partner in the Maharashtra government.

Since March, the Congress has lost Madhya Pradesh after Jyotiraditya Scindia defected to the BJP with 22 loyal MLAs, and now in Rajasthan, the party is practically split after Sachin Pilot revolted and was subsequently sacked as deputy CM and state party president. The only reversal the BJP faced was in Manipur where a coalition government led by N Biren Singh was reduced to a minority one last month. But prompt politicking four recalcitrant MLAs of its ally NPP were brought to Delhi to have a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah resolved the crisis.

The big question now is how will the ruling and opposition parties campaign once the Election Commission announces the polling dates for by-elections in 24 assembly segments in Madhya Pradesh and for the critical assembly election in Bihar, the nomination process for which will likely begin in September.

So far, South Korea has been a role model in conducting a large election during the pandemic. The campaign was largely conducted digitally. In the April 15 elections in the East Asian nation, voters had to mandatorily wear masks, maintain social distancing, and those having a body temperature of over 99.5 degree Fahrenheit were taken to separate booths for voting.

The result? The Left-leaning ruling party, Democratic Party, with a smaller ally, clinched a landslide victory with the biggest majority since 1987, the year the nation transitioned into a democracy.

Former Chief Election Commissioner of India, OP Rawat, says India can follow only a modified form of South Korean model to conduct elections. A digitalonly campaign wont work in India, he says. India needs to ensure a level-playing field for the ruling and opposition parties.

"According to an estimate, about 55 crore out of 90 crore voters in India still don't have mobile connectivity. Let's not go by the number of connections. In digital-only election campaigns, the majority of Indian voters will find it difficult to make an informed choice," he says, adding that the government should buy time slots in private television channels and FM radio stations and allot those to political parties on the basis of their performance in the last elections, so as to make the Covidtime election process fair.

Now, over to Bihar in autumn.

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Pandemic-time politicking: BJP consolidates base even as Opposition loses its sting - Economic Times

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

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.

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Italy has a responsibility, too - EUobserver