UK: Information service for migrants affected by COVID-19 – InfoMigrants

The IOM is offering an information service for migrants who may be particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Be that because their jobs have disappeared, they can't pay their rent or they find themselves homeless or ill. The information service is currently available in eight languages with one more coming soon.

"We are here to support the many migrants who are facing increasedchallenges due to the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Info on supportin key areas, including housing employment and benefits are availablein many languages," reads a tweet on the IOM UK Twitter feed.

"Almost every aspect of life for people living in the UK haschanged," reads a press statement from the InternationalOrganization for Migration (IOM). And those changes affect the largemigrant and refugee community in the country too.

'Migrantsat greater risk in the crisis'

"Migrantslivelihoods are often at greater risk in this crisis for severalreasons," says Dipti Pardeshi, chief of IOM's UK office. Thatsbecause they are "more likely to be working in sectors mostaffected by the crisis, such as hospitality and retail." Many alsowork as carers or in the health sector or as bus drivers, taxidrivers or couriers, which might mean their jobs are still there butthey are even more at risk of catching COVID-19 than the generalpopulation because they could be more exposed to a greater viralload.

Often,the jobs that migrants do "are likely to be self-employed or intemporary sectors," which means that it's possible they won'thave access, or it may be difficult to access the furlough schemesthat have been provided by the UK government, which offer to pay upto 80% of an employees wages until at least the end of August until a time when their employer can take them back to work again.

Anadditional risk for migrants, says Pardeshi, is that they tend to beliving in rented accommodation, "which puts them at additional riskof eviction if they have lost their income due to the crisis."

Thereis lots of official information from the UK government about how youcan access the job retention schemes mentioned above. However, some migrants have "difficulty navigating thesupport systems that have been put in place,"Pardeshi says.Some may alsostruggle to access or understand the UK government information.That's why IOM have produced advice in seven different languages totry and overcome this barrier.

'Hardship and destitution'

Some migrants' visa stipulations may prevent them from accessing the social welfare available in the UK. This could mean that migrants are then at "greater risk of hardship and destitution." IOM provides a website and freephone service on the following five subjects: "Health, work, benefits, visas and immigration, housing and homelessness."

On theIOM siteyou can find a "comprehensive overview" listingwhich government help schemes are available to migrants.

The websiteis availabe in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Albanian,Romanian, Vietnamese and Arabic. Polish is about to be added. Thefreephone telephone service is available in any language (0800 464 3380).

Employment and COVID-19

On the topic of employment, the website provides links for migrants if they are not ableto work, whether they are an employee or self-employed. It also liststhe rights you are entitled to if you are worried about workingduring the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thereis also a section for those who may be working without papers in theUK. In that situation, the IOM writes, it can be difficult to accessyour rights, if you essentially have no official right to work.However, there are still some things you can do, like visit aCitizens Advice Bureau or talk to Migrants Rights Charities like the Migrants' Rights Network.

Healthand COVID-19

Thereis lots of information on recognizing the symptoms of COVID-19 andgetting tested, as well as a list of what those who dont havepapers can do if they fear they may have contracted the virus.

Thewebsite reassures migrants without papers that free NHS (NationalHealth Service) treatment is available to everyone and that noimmigration checks will be carried out and that treatment and testingfor COVID-19 would be free. However, if you were to have a negativetest result but still needed treatment for another unrelated illnessthen you would be charged for that, unless it was another exemptcondition like Turburculosis (TB).

Thewebsite advises if you are worried about your eligibility fortreatment you should check on the Doctors of the World websiteto see how they might be able to help.

Accommodationand COVID-19

Interms of housing and homelessness, IOM advises that there might behelp available to you if you are struggling to pay your rent becauseyour working hours have been reduced due to the restrictions. It saysthat as of March 29 all landlords in the UK were instructed not toevict anyone for five months. In Scotland this lasts for six months.That means that even if you receive an eviction notice from yourlandlord during this period, you have a legal right to stay in yourhome.

If youdo become homeless during this period, for whatever reason, or arealready living on the streets you should turn to your localauthority. All local authorities across the UK "have beeninstructed to find suitable accommodation for street homeless duringthe pandemic."

However,they say as soon as the pandemic is over, you will likely be asked toleave whatever emergency accommodation was provided.

Thereare various phone numbers and websites listed in this sectionincluding to an organization called Street Link for those findingthemselves homeless in England. Shelter Cymru helps those homeless inWales and the Simon Community Scotland will help those in Scotland.

Project17 also helps migrant families who may find themselves homelessduring this time.

Youcan access the free telephone service by dialing this number fromwithin the UK: 0800 464 3380

You can access the website via this link: https://covid19uk.iom.int/

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UK: Information service for migrants affected by COVID-19 - InfoMigrants

$10B needed to avert COVID-19 hunger crisis, experts say | Cornell Chronicle – Cornell Chronicle

Due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, an additional $10 billion is urgently needed to prevent millions more people becoming food insecure, according to a new report by Cornell, the International Food Policy Research Institute and the International Institute for Sustainable Development as part of the Ceres2030 project. Half that amount must come from donor governments as aid, with the rest provided by developing countries.

The analysis uses data from and is published alongside the United Nations State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, which forecasts how many people will be pushed into hunger as a result of the pandemic unless action is taken. Modeling conducted by Ceres2030 found that $10 billion must be spent this year on top of existing social protection programs and government efforts to address the hunger and nutrition impacts of COVID-19.

The warning signs are coming left, right and center, said Carin Smaller, director of agriculture, trade and investment at the International Institute for Sustainable Development and co-director of the Ceres2030 project. Without action now, decades of progress will be undone and the chance of meeting the U.N. target to end hunger by 2030 could be pushed out of reach. Governments must urgently increase spending on social protection programs to get people the money and food they need to survive the crisis, alongside long-term investments to build more sustainable and resilient food systems.

The main factor contributing to increased hunger is that the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn have left millions of people across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia without work and unable to buy food. Ceres2030 modeling predicts that the number of people in extreme poverty and hunger will increase by about 100 million this year, returning to levels not seen in almost two decades. Addressing such complex challenges requires a systemic approach to food security through more and better investments in both rural development and social protection, according to the report.

Even before COVID-19, global efforts to end hunger were falling far short of what was needed, said David Laborde, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute and co-director of the Ceres2030 project. The number of hungry people had been rising for three years in a row. The pandemic has exacerbated an already dire situation: Governments need to act quickly to prevent disaster and put the building blocks in place for a more secure future.

Supply disruptions such as problems transporting food to market, trade restrictions, and labor shortages due to restrictions on migrant workers and COVID-19 outbreaks in factories are also contributing to a rise in hunger. These problems require cooperative, evidence-based policymaking, according to the report. So far, 22 countries have introduced or announced food export restrictions in response to COVID-19, affecting 5% of the global supply of calories.

Social protection is needed not just as an emergency response to COVID-19, but also as a long-term investment in people boosting their productivity and ensuring they have the means to buy nutritious food, send children to school and get the health care they need, said Jaron Porciello, associate director for research data engagement in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Global Development and co-director of the Ceres2030 project. Governments must ensure safety nets work effectively for everyone, particularly women, girls and other vulnerable groups, Porciello said. This means listening to those most in need and ensuring programs are informed by good quality evidence and data.

Ceres2030 is a cutting-edge research project on the public investments needed to end hunger sustainably, led by Cornell, IFPRI and IISD and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project was set up to provide donor governments with the tools they need to increase the amount and effectiveness of their investments to end hunger sustainably, in line with the U.N.s goal to end hunger by 2030.

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$10B needed to avert COVID-19 hunger crisis, experts say | Cornell Chronicle - Cornell Chronicle

The Greek Crisis: How the European Union Got the Euro Wrong – International Policy Digest

Although Greeces problems may have begun at home, that doesnt mean they end there. After decades of widespread fraud, extensive corruption, and reckless fiscal mismanagement, Greece belatedly joined the euro in 2001 in need of a lifeline. With the help of Goldman Sachs, Greeces government masked its climbing deficits and sovereign debt through currency swaps to meet the newly-formed European Central Banks strict requirements, hoping the transition would spur economic growth in the country. The belief was that the new monetary union, referred to as the Eurozone, would dampen inflation, help to lower nominal interest rates, encourage private investment, and remove transaction costs, all of which would allow Greece to better itself.

At the time, it was a glimmer of hope for a country whose government was in a free fall, but instead, Greeces membership in the Eurozone plunged the country into financial ruin. The country has suffered one of the worst economic crises in modern history and the longest recession of any capitalist economy to date, even overtaking the Great Depression. Greece may have provided the foundation for its hardships, but ultimately, the euro and therefore the Eurozone and European Union, are responsible for its economic collapse.

The necessary aspects of a single interdependent market operating under a standard system of laws and regulations across such varied national economies was not taken seriously when the euro was introduced. The largest flaw with the Eurozones inherent infrastructure is that the European Central Bank strictly dictates monetary policy for the entire currency while allowing countries to decide their individual fiscal policies. As a result, it has failed to be an institution flexible and democratic enough to cope, and the lack of flexibility in monetary policy has severely diminished financial oversight and prevented Greeces stability.

The economic straitjackets imposed on Greece were so blatantly inconsistent with its own financial and political goals as, in comparison to other European nations, the 2008 recession disproportionately affected Greeces economy. At the start of the Greek crisis, as their fiscal deficits surged, interest rates on debt increased significantly, but the country was unable to reduce them or devalue its currency to stimulate economic growth. The European Central Bank had handcuffed Greece and the countrys membership in the Eurozone acted as a lock on its system. Greece found itself without an adjustment mechanism that could have alleviated the impact of the crisis. Essentially, the Greek crisis was unnecessary, preventable, and could have easily been avoided if the Eurozones policies were more suited to support the economic diversity within it.

As the overarching financial entity responsible for a multinational currency and its monetary limitations, the European Central Banks main aim has been to maintain the stability of the euro and to keep inflation under control. It has no direct mandate individually concerning the Greek economy that cannot function as efficiently as the rest, and this is also one of its fundamental problems that have revealed the immense flaws in the Eurozones economic structure.

By definition, at least from a financial point of view, a successful monetary union is most responsible for the health of its currency, not for its members economies. However, that doesnt mean it should ignore or aggravate them at the cost of it. Despite bailouts from the ECB totaling more than 300 billion euros, one of them being the largest sovereign debt restructuring in history, the money went towards paying off Greeces international loans and quelling market fears that the Eurozone itself could be dismantled. Thus, the Eurozone has made it clear that the assurance of the euros health has occurred at the cost of the well-being of Greece.

As a result, Greeces real GDP contracted by more than 25%, and the country eventually defaulted in 2015 on a 1.6 billion debt payment to the IMF, making it the first and only developed country to do so. These bailouts only bought time for other European countries and their banks to distance themselves from Greeces financial problems, which had been displayed by their ensuing actions, as they refused to help the country during the humanitarian crisis that followed. This is a prime example of the issue with the priorities of a non-sovereign, transnational currency it does nothing to stabilize and support individual members that are struggling but everything to assure and assuage those that are thriving.

Furthermore, Greece has exposed significant fault lines in the Eurozones conduct of economic policy and performance. Greece has been a victim of political carelessness and economic negligence at its hands and has been financially drained at the cost of maintaining the euro and in the name of providing the appearance of a united European front in all aspects to the rest of the global community. The euro wants to be a transnational currency that fortifies Europe as an economically strong continent. But, as per the New York Times, the Greek crisis has raised serious questions about whether the euro is the instrument that shatters the European Union rather than enhances it as it should. The Greek crisis should never have occurred, but the euro and its governing bodies made it inevitable.

Having a currency that is dictated by centralized, non-sovereign institutions while also attempting to be independent within separate nations is destined to have more failures than successes. Similarly, having a universal monetary policy combined with so-called pick-and-choose fiscal management across such varied national economies is fated to present more issues than solutions. While it seems great when the economy is doing well, financial markets cannot be controlled to the extent of ensuring one currency, in this case the euro, supports all of its members.

The euros goal was to display to the world that Europe could flourish as the model for a truly united, interdependent continent after the barbarism and devastation caused by World War II. So, it may be true that the idea of the euro had been developed with good intentions. However, it is wrong to subject a country to such terrible economic circumstances, which have led to an unbelievable humanitarian and migrant crisis, simply in the name of supposed unity. It is also impossible to expect such economically different countries to share an abnormally regulated currency if they dont share anything except for geography. The lengths that the ECB and the Eurozone have gone to in order to stabilize themselves at the cost of Greece should be unacceptable. Furthermore, at a time when the global economy has come to a standstill, and the financial markets are the most unpredictable theyve ever been, if the Greek debt crisis and Europes severe mishandling of it act as anything, it should be taken as a dire warning for what may come in the future.

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The Greek Crisis: How the European Union Got the Euro Wrong - International Policy Digest

Nearly 10% of migrant children in district quit schooling – The Hindu

Nearly 10% of migrant children enrolled in public schools across Ernakulam had to leave their education unfinished after uncertainties triggered by the outbreak of COVID-19 forced their parents to return to their native States.

Children from 92 migrant families left the State following the crisis. As many as 1,222 migrant children belonging to 922 families were enrolled in lower primary and upper primary classes in 37 public schools under the district administrations Roshni project, according to official estimates. The project aims at enhancing the academic performance of migrant children through improved language proficiency.

However, a majority of families stayed back just for the sake of their childrens education despite the odds faced by migrant workers these times. Our volunteers were successful in constantly engaging with parents and ensuring that their children did not lose out on the opportunity to learn, said C.K. Prakash, general coordinator, Roshni.

A survey showed that as many as 38 migrant families had no access to television and smartphone. As many as 325 of the 922 families surveyed owned televisions with cable connection, while 421 had no television but owned smartphones with WhatsApp to receive notes and assignments.

Thirty-five families were found staying near schools and libraries where the authorities had made arrangements for online classes. Eleven families were found sharing a television set to attend classes. Four families that left for their home towns informed Roshni volunteers that they had smartphones to access digital classes.

Mr. Prakash said online learning facilities had been made available at common centres set up at the Government Girls Higher Secondary School and at an anganwadi at Perumbavoor, which has large concentration of migrant families. Trained volunteers have also taken steps to translate classes held in Malayalam and aired through Victers channel, he said.

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COVID-19, government payments, and international remittances | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal – voxeu.org

Getting funds to those in need and enabling access to money during COVID-19, part 2: Government payments and international remittances

In the context of the policy response to the current Covid-19 crisis, a special role is played by Government-to-Person (G2P) payments and international remittances (IRs). The accessibility and reliability of both services is especially crucial at times of crisis such as Covid-19, when immediate response is necessary to support people and businesses in need (Furman 2020). G2P payments permit the timely delivery of state salaries, pensions, and social insurance as well as expanding government cash transfers beyond the current recipients to households in need and informal workers. IRs are vitally important for most developing countries, where they matter even more than foreign direct investment or overseas development aid.

National authorities should make sure that such services continue to be provided as regularly and conveniently as possible, also to provide relief to those many people who cannot afford basic necessities during crises (Mides 2020).

In the Covid-19 context, G2P payments are being used by governments across the world to help vulnerable populations meet their needs. As of early April, at least 70 countries are scaling up their schemes by increasing benefit levels or coverage, or both1, and the World Bank is supporting several developing countries in this regard.

Digitising G2P payments and promoting choice and interoperability is more important now than ever, given governments urgency to provide cash assistance quickly, transparently, and responsibly. In addition, this process provides a crucial opportunity to catalyse necessary reforms. Countries with advanced G2P payment ecosystems can push transfers out rapidly and roll out new programs with relative ease. In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, scaling up G2P payments and the provision of continued access to financial services is proving more difficult. Countries with less developed payment infrastructures, digital financial services regulations, and digital identity (ID) systems have a harder time deploying G2P payments rapidly.

In face of the crisis, immediate and short-term targeted measures can be implemented to enable vulnerable populations to receive assistance in the fastest and safest way possible.

Figure 1Key considerations for G2P in COVID-19 context

In doing so, countries will face two separate, but related challenges:

1. Expanding the list of eligible beneficiaries. Most countries are trying to provide social assistance not only to the current social program beneficiaries but also to a broader set of individuals and families affected by the crisis, many of which are in the informal sector. Identifying and targeting these individuals will be challenging for countries with ID systems that have low coverage or quality.2

2. Making payments safely and securely in the context of the pandemic. Countries are trying to solve how to get money to people safely, minimising contact and queues, while effectively reaching vulnerable populations. Importantly, changes to systems are required if new beneficiaries are included since the pre-crisis payment processes were not designed to minimise crowding or physical contact.

Scaling up G2P payments in a pandemic should not lead to further exclusion of vulnerable populations, particularly those without access to technology, the elderly, the disabled, and people living in remote areas. The positive externalities of more efficient payments are now much greater.3

What is feasible within a short period of time depends on the starting point in each country. Yet, decisions made in the height of the crisis will have long-term implications on the social protection and financial sectors.

There are two main types of payment mechanisms: account and non-account-based solutions. Account-based solutions, which include bank accounts, general purpose prepaid cards, and mobile money accounts, require onboarding beneficiariesideally remotelyand leveraging payment systems to transfer their benefits. These solutions provide the biggest potential benefits to beneficiaries such as financial inclusion and convenience and to governments, in the form of cost-savings, leakage reduction, and efficiency gains. After eligibility is verified against the social security register, those who are eligible can either provide an existing account number or are given the option to open a basic account at any of the providers or at any of the empanelled providers.

However, account-based solutions might not be the most feasible option for some countries given their payment ecosystem, financial infrastructure, and regulatory framework. In these cases, a non-account-based solution might be a more realistic option. Non-account-based solutions include limited purpose pre-paid cards, one-time passwords (OTP), vouchers, and cash, and range from being electronic-based to paper-based. But what they all have in common is that opening an account is not required. Although these solutions eliminate the challenge of opening accounts in countries with a less developed financial sector, they require physical delivery of the instrument creating logistical challenges during the pandemic.

Regardless of the payment delivery mechanism chosen, enabling beneficiaries to cash-out easily and safely is very important. Ideally all transactions should be conducted electronically during the pandemic, but the reality is that few payment ecosystems in developing countries are able to support such digitalisation, especially considering that many beneficiaries operate in the informal economy, with lower levels of electronic payments acceptance. Authorities must therefore ensure sufficient access to the existing cash-out points by designating agents and bank infrastructure as essential services and should also make an effort to expand the number of cash-out points especially in areas where beneficiaries reside, for example groceries, pharmacies, and postal office agents. Liquidity in cash-out points must also be monitored and addressed by the authorities. Finally, protocols to avoid overcrowding, including spacing out disbursements, and sanitary protocols should be established.4

According to World Bank data released last May, in 2020 remittance flows to lowincome and middleincome countries are expected to drop by around 20% to $445 billion, from $554 billion in 2019. In this sharp decline, the relative importance of remittance flows as a source of external financing for lowincome and middleincome countries is expected to rise.5

The contagion effects of Covid-19 have reflected negatively on the IR markets, adversely affecting migrant workers and their families back home. Service sector jobs have been hard hit by the lockdown in some of the largest remittance-sending countries the US, Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy and travel restrictions have constrained many migrant workers from leaving their host countries. At the same time, the forced closure of small businesses in destination countries has led to the closure of agents and branches of remittance service providers. Similar restrictions have been imposed in remittance-receiving countries, further constraining the sending and receiving of IR. While sending IR via digital channels would not typically be affected by the closure of agents, it is being adversely impacted by the loss of migrant jobs.6Also, the cost of sending IR rises as the volatility in the financial markets and crisis causes foreign exchange margins to increase. Finally, most migrants lack immigration status, unemployment insurance, or health insurance.

Figure 2International remittances: Policy actions

A number of actions can be taken to support the IR sector. In the near term, national authorities should treat IR as essential services, mitigate any operational impacts to their functioning, and support the IR industry with appropriate instruments to manage their credit and liquidity risks effectively. In the medium term, they should act to reduce IR prices and respond to the challenges of the migrant communities in host countries by:

Continuing its pivotal role in reforming IR markets worldwide, the World Bank will keep on monitoring and reporting on the availability of remittance services worldwide and work with stakeholders to improve the transparency and efficiency of the remittances market guided by the CPMI-World Bank collaborative effort.7

Provision of safe and efficient G2P and IR services must be supported by strategic actions involving communication, consumer protection, and payment ecosystem maintenance. Proper communication of all actions throughout the implementation process is critical to avoid implementation setbacks which can create greater health risks. Several countries have already had bad experiences due to flaws in their communication strategy.8

The authorities should devote special attention to protecting users of digital payment services by providing them with assistance tools to deal and resolve issues involving frauds, operational incidents, breaches of data integrity, and disputes with providers.

Finally, maintaining and strengthening the payments ecosystem is critical to successful payment service provision. Connectivity and business continuity must be ensured for transaction, clearing and settlement systems involved, and the payments system must be able to support the higher volume of payments and ideally should provide operational availability in a schedule as extensive as possible.

Authors Note: Part II of this column builds on contributions from World Bank Group experts: Jose Antonio Garcia, Ugo Gentilini, Georgina Marin, Peter McConaghy, Jonathan Marskell, Robert Palacios, Doug Randall, Luz Rodriguez, Emil Tesliuc, Veronica Trujillo, Fiorella Risso, Guillermo Galicia, and Mahesh Uttamchandani, and from CGAP experts: Silvia Baur-Yazbeck and Gregory.

CPMI-World Bank (2007), General principles for international remittance services, joint report by the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and The World Bank, January.

Furman, J (2020), Protecting people now, helping the economy rebound later, VoxEU.org, 31 May.

Mides, C (2020), Millions of Europeans could not endure a two-month income shock without generous, targeted, government policies, VoxEU.org, 25 May.

World Bank (2020), COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens, Migration and Development Brief 32, World Bank: Washington DC, April.

1 A third of the 418 social protection programs world-wide responding to Covid-19 are government-funded, non-contributory cash transfer programs.

2 While some will be able to leverage administrative databases (social insurance, social assistance, income tax, auto registry etc.), others are determining to target practically everyone, and some are seeking alternative identification sources (e.g. databases of mobile network operators).

3 For example, enabling customer choice a system where payments are made to the provider that is most convenient to the beneficiary and depositing cash transfers into a transactional account that can be linked to a mobile account or a debit card would significantly reduce congestion and the need to travel. In many cases, regulatory changes that would have been recommended before the crisis such as allowing remote or simplified know-your-customer (KYC) for basic accounts could now be fast-tracked.

4 In addition, electronic payments should be promoted to minimise cashing-out and to maintain social distance as much as possible. Fees for beneficiaries to access their benefits should be waived or subsidised as much as possible. Expanding digital payment acceptance points is also key to promoting electronic payment usage. Deploying temporary POS terminals (or QR-code based solutions where available) to essential service merchants could increase use of electronic payments. Merchant CDD for electronic payments acceptance onboarding could also be simplifies to enable a rapid expansion.

5 See World Bank (2020).

6 Even in the best of times, sending and receiving remittances is not straightforward. For many, it requires a ride to the service provider at specific times of the day. During the mobility restrictions of a pandemic, sending cash remittances can become an impossible mission when digital alternatives are lacking, or people are unfamiliar with them. In many countries, agents are closed without any specific provisions recognising them as essential services. Where they have been deemed essential services, this information has not fully percolated to local authorities. Clients often face long queues, due to the lower number of agents and the shorter operating hours. Where sending digitally is an option, other barriers may exist for senders and receivers. For example, account ownership and usage of digital payments is not yet widespread among the biggest receiving countries, which limits options, and most developing economies that rely on remittances do not have a combination of high ownership of transaction accounts and high usage of digital payments.

7 See CPMI-World Bank (2007) The World Bank sponsors and participates in a wide range of global initiatives. Central is its role in supporting countries achieve Social Development Goal 10.c to reduce the transaction costs of migrant remittances to less than 3% and to eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5% by 2030. In 2008, the World Bank began to survey and publish the prices of remittance services worldwide through the Remittance Prices Worldwide (RPW) database. RPW monitors the cost incurred by remittance senders along major remittances corridors and serves as a reference for measuring progress towards global cost reduction objectives. The RPW covers 365 remittance corridors, 48 remittance-sending countries, and 105 remittance-receiving countries.

8 In El Salvador, for example, a website to confirm eligibility with ID number instructed individuals to go to a government office if they didnt show up as eligible and wanted to contest the decision. This led to overcrowded public offices, followed by their closure which resulting in riots. Timing is also critical. In Thailand, when the government announced an emergency cash-transfer program they didnt specify how it would be delivered and people rushed to state banks to open accounts (other social programs are only disbursed through state banks). It wasnt until after crowds gathered that the government clarified that the transfer could be received both in state and commercial bank accounts which could be opened online, as well as a domestic mobile transfer system.

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COVID-19, government payments, and international remittances | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal - voxeu.org

Bradford sees rise in referrals for migrant victims of domestic abuse and honour-based violence – Bradford Telegraph and Argus

THERE has been an increase in the number of referrals for migrant victims of domestic abuse and honour-based violence during the Covid-19 crisis, a Bradford Council report says.

Councillors on Health and Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee are due to meet next Tuesday to discuss the Councils response in helping vulnerable people during the pandemic.

A report to the committee outlines the work of the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) team.

This is a condition applied to people in the country with a temporary immigration status to protect public funds.

Amnesty International says this applies to people who are undocumented, but also to people who have the right to live and work in the UK, and who may have been living and working in the UK for many years.

In looking at the work of the team, the report says: Since the beginning of the pandemic the NRPF Team has seen the number of referrals per week increase by 100 per cent.

The service has seen cases that would not normally be referred to them such as individuals and families with NRPF who have lost their jobs due to non-essential businesses closing.

Most single adults with no recourse to public funds presenting as destitute are not in need of care and support, so the Care Act powers and duty will not usually apply.

It says the team has provided support with accommodation and subsistence to all individuals who have become destitute as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

It adds: The team has also seen an increase in the number of referrals for victims of domestic abuse and honour-based violence.

The report also gives an update on care homes.

It says that of June 26, four care homes were reporting either a confirmed or suspected outbreak of Covid-19 - down from 32 homes on May 14.

The report says: A rolling programme of re-testing of all staff within care homes regardless of whether they display symptoms or not is now offered to all care homes across the district and is being actively accessed. Since the establishment of local testing arrangements, over 6,000 tests have been undertaken via this arrangement with 95 per cent being within adult and learning disability care homes and an average of 200 swabs per day are now being routinely performed.

It also says: A number of measures were put in place to support providers on financial challenges arising from Covid-19, which ranged from rising costs, around PPE and staffing, to managing the reductions in placements, also known as voids, as a result of reductions in placements and mortality.

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Bradford sees rise in referrals for migrant victims of domestic abuse and honour-based violence - Bradford Telegraph and Argus

Modi Shouldnt Be Attacked: Why Congress Has Knives Out for Rahul – The Quint

The real issue that the Congress party must urgently address is to revive party institutions from booth level to the All India Congress Committee. Unless these institutions are activated, made vibrant and meet regularly, there cannot even be an accountable discussion of the partys performance. Where will Congressmen air their opinions when the AICC does not meet regularlythe party Constitution mandates six monthly meetings but there is often not even an annual meeting?

The Congress Working Committee meets sporadically and Pradesh Congress Committees and the Block level units exist virtually on paper. Like the Old Guard is doing today, they will be forced to speak through proxies in the media.

It is in these forums that the plans for the partys revitalisation have to be discussed and new talent identified to counter cronyism. How good or bad Rahul Gandhi is as a general will depend on how good his army is. The Old Guard wants to keep all the command positions with no army, no weapons and no ammunition. And it seems keen to block anyone else from trying to put together the required wherewithal either.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the authors own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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Modi Shouldnt Be Attacked: Why Congress Has Knives Out for Rahul - The Quint

While everyone was rushing home, many migrants stayed back in Kerala because of a school programme – Scroll.in

When millions of jobless migrant workers across India started returning to their hometowns in May, Pratima and Rajesh Singh decided against heading back to their village in Ballia district in Easternmost Uttar Pradesh. Rajesh, who had worked as a welder in Keralas central Ernakulam district for 17 years, was among the 120 million Indians left unemployed by the Covid-19-induced lockdown.

The Singh family had a reason for remaining in Ernakulam through the crisis: They did not wish to interrupt their childrens education. Their sons, Amrith, 7, and Anshuman, 9, are enrolled in a school supported by the districts Roshni programme that helps children of migrant families become proficient in Malayalam. The three-year-old scheme has been successful in ensuring that these children stayed on in the states education system, as IndiaSpend reported in August 2019.

When classes moved to video/online platforms at the start of the school session in June, Roshni too was revived. Volunteers began participating in these remote classes, explaining the lessons in the childrens mother tongues and also involving the parents in the process, said teachers.

Of the 922 students families in Ernakulam covered by Roshni, 90% or 830 families had stayed back, as of May 10 46 days after the lockdown was announced according to the data generated by the programme and accessed by IndiaSpend.

We stayed on because of our childrens education. Changing school will be an issue and it will also mentally impact them, said Pratima, echoing a view held by the other migrant worker families we interviewed.

Although the exact number of migrants in Kerala is unknown, as much as 11% of the population now could be migrant, according to a 2017 study by Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development, an Ernakulam-based non-profit.

Hit by the lockdown, Indias unemployment rate for April was pegged at 23.5%, nearly thrice the level in March. In June, the Kerala government submitted to the Supreme Court that 153,000 workers have left for their homes on 100 special trains for returning migrants and 120,000 workers were still waiting to return.

Like the Singhs, most migrant families in Ernakulam that decided to stay back for their childrens education had little or no work/ income during the lockdown: They either lived on their savings or were supported by relatives back home.

Some families went home for the vacations [declared in March before the lockdown] and have not been able to come back, and at least 50% want to come back, said Jayashree K, academic coordinator of Roshni. I think the support [language proficiency] we are offering is useful.

School closures in India have impacted 247 million children more than the population of Brazil enrolled in elementary and secondary education, and 28 million children who were attending pre-school education in anganwadis, noted a June 23 UNICEF press release on its report on the impact of Covid-19 on children in South Asia. This is in addition to the more than six million girls and boys who were already out of school prior to the Covid-19 crisis, it said.

Kerala trialled online classes First Bell for two weeks from June 1 for all classes except class 11, and made these available on KITE Victers channel run by the general education department and online. Classes are scheduled for two hours for Class 12, 90 minutes for Class 10, and 30 minutes for lower and upper primary students.

The digital classroom sessions include Roshni volunteers, as we mentioned earlier. The videos are edited down to small capsules and shared with students and parents and are followed with instructions for educational activities. The children complete their activities, take a photo and video of their work and share it in the group with the help of parents. Some children are able to watch the videos as and when they are broadcast on TV or online but many students have trouble accessing a device.

If there are more than two children [to a device], it becomes difficult to watch the videos and complete activities, said Jayashree. The volunteers review the activities and share feedback.If we have doubts, the volunteer helps me out in Hindi and sometimes sits up late [to help], said Pratima.

The number of migrant students in Ernakulams government and government-aided schools increased 44% to 3,985 over a year to 2019-20, IndiaSpend reported in August 2019. Online classes [digital class] are in no way a substitute for classroom teaching but with online classes, we want [students] to make use of the time without pressuring them, Jeevan Babu, director, general education department, told IndiaSpend.

The Singhs currently have one smartphone that the children use for their lessons. Rajesh is out of a job and takes on occasional assignments. The family is managing with his sparse earnings, savings and the support of relatives in Uttar Pradesh. We do not even have a TV so a laptop [for the children] is out of the question, said Pratima.

The state government had conducted a survey in May before the start of online classes and found that there were 280,000 students who would not be able to access online classes. Our aim was to ensure that the child watches the class, probably the same day or within the week, depending on the availability of electricity and internet connectivity, said Babu. In places without such facilities, we have ensured that classes were downloaded and viewed on laptops or TV.

Most migrant families have access to at least a phone, said Roshnis Jayashree. For those who do not have any device, schools telecast classes at facility centres such as libraries, anganwadis and Kudumbashree [state womens collective] centres.

In June, a 14-year-old Dalit girl in Northern Keralas Malappuram district died by suicide reportedly over not having access to internet or a TV.

Ankit Kumar, a class 7 student, studies in a Roshni-supported school and is taking online classes now. He misses school and friends and finds classroom teaching better. I can understand Malayalam, but reading is difficult, he said.

Ankits parents are from Siwan in Bihar and run a home-based footwear business in Ernakulam, which supported nearly 20 other migrant workers till the lockdown. We shifted here with children nearly four years ago because back home the education system was not good and my husband was worried about their future, said Anita Kumar, Ankits mother. Clients have not been placing orders and business has been dull. We do not have any income but do not want to go back home as it will disrupt his classes, she said.

Muthu [she uses only one name], a single parent who works in a mall in Ernakulam, came back from her village in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, in early June soon after classes began. I did not want my daughter to miss classes, and also had to get back to work as the mall had reopened, she said. Although they have a TV, the governments 30-minute classes are viewed on a mobile.

Roshni volunteers collect daily data on how many students have been able to watch video, and participate in activities. Even among families that returned to their hometowns, 55 students have been watching classes, noted Roshni data as on July 1.

Hasina Khatun, a Roshni volunteer and a migrant from West Bengals Murshidabad district, helps children ease into Malayalam using Bengali and Assamese. She downloads online classes on a pen drive and plays it on TV for around 25 children at two anganwadis. There are children till upper primary, she said. Although online classes are only for 30 minutes, children are split into multiple batches and often these classes extend into the evening. Due to Covid, we cant go to their homes to help. Although most children understand Malayalam, they face problems writing or reading it.

During the lockdown, with schools closed, Hasina and other Roshni volunteers worked at the district administration call-centre set up to support migrant workers who needed essentials and travel needs. Hasinas husband, a driver, had met with an accident before the lockdown and she relied on her savings and daily wages of Rs 500 from the call centre to see her family through. I have stopped work at the call-centre because the classes started, she said.

Another volunteer, Supriya Debnath from Odisha, supports students at an on-site facility provided by a concrete block-making factory where many of the parents, mostly from Odisha, work. Class starts by 11 am, and we have created batches based on the number of children, maintaining social distancing, she said.

These classes have added more work for volunteers who now have to also engage with every child online for almost all subjects. They have to keep abreast with the latest classes and ensure that they understand it before they are able to explain it to the children. Doing all this online is difficult although the school support is available, said Jayashree.

Roshnis success found mention in the governors address in the State Assembly in January, noting that it would be expanded across the state. However, the model can be replicated only if there are a large number of students justifying the investment in resources, said Babu, director of general education. And unlike Ernakulam, in most districts, migrant workers live without their families, he added.

The immediate requirement will be to to find out the numbers who have come back after the lockdown was eased. Some of them may not come back with their families, said Babu.

This article first appeared on IndiaSpend, a data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit.

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While everyone was rushing home, many migrants stayed back in Kerala because of a school programme - Scroll.in

Venezuela: UN releases report on criminal control of mining area and wider justice issues – Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) – ReliefWeb

GENEVA (15 July 2020) People working in the Arco Minero del Orinoco region in Venezuela are caught up in a context of labour exploitation and high levels of violence by criminal groups that control the mines in the area, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The High Commissioners report, which is being presented to the 47 member states of the Human Rights Council, describes how the criminal groups known locally as sindicatos exercise control over a large number of mining operations in Arco Minero del Orinoco.

They determine who enters and leaves the area, impose rules, inflict harsh punishment on those who break them, and gain economic benefit from all activity within the mining area, including through extortion in exchange for protection, the report says. It details how the groups maintain their presence and illegal activities in the mines via a system of corruption and bribery that includes paying off military commanders.

Due to the economic crisis and lack of labour opportunities in Venezuela, internal migration to the mining area has increased dramatically in the last few years, with workers engaging in informal labour in order to make ends meet for themselves and their families.

Miners work 12-hour shifts, descending deep pits without any protection. They are required to pay about 10-20 per cent of what they earn to the criminal groups who control the mines, and an additional 15-30 percent to the owner of the mill where rocks are crushed to extract gold and other minerals.

Women are also performing both mining and other related jobs. A number of people interviewed for the report suggest that since 2016 there has been a sharp increase in prostitution, sexual exploitation and trafficking in mining areas, including of teenagers. The UN Human Rights Office also received reports that children as young as nine are working in the mines.

Interviewees reported that harsh punishments are inflicted upon those not complying with the rules imposed by the criminal groups: in addition to severe beatings, such punishments include being shot in the hands, or having a hand cut off, as well as killings. Witness accounts describe how bodies of miners are often thrown into old mining pits. Violence also stems from disputes over control of the mines. Based on open-source analysis, the UN Human Rights Office identified 16 such disputes in the last four years, which reportedly resulted in some 149 deaths. Allegedly, security forces were involved in some of these incidents.

Despite the considerable presence of security and military forces in the region, and the efforts undertaken to address criminal activity, the authorities have failed to investigate and prosecute human rights violations, and abuses and crimes linked to mining, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.

Authorities should take immediate steps to end labour and sexual exploitation, child labour and human trafficking, and should dismantle criminal groups controlling mining activities. They must also investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible for human rights violations, abuses and crimes, she added.

Living conditions in the mining areas are appalling, with no running water, electricity or sanitation. Pools of stagnant and polluted water resulting from mining are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, leading to a rise of malaria cases in the region, affecting not only migrant workers but also indigenous communities.

Both these groups are also badly affected by mercury poisoning. Mercury is widely used in the region to separate gold from other minerals, and toxic fumes created during the process are breathed in by workers and people living in the area. It is also poured onto the ground and seeps into the rivers.

Illegal mining also affects the enjoyment of the individual and collective rights of indigenous people, due to the destruction of their habitat and the lack of control over their traditional territories and natural resources.

The report also examines broader justice issues in Venezuela and describes how the independence of the justice system has been considerably undermined by the insecurity of tenure of judges and prosecutors; the lack of transparency in the process of designation; precarious working conditions; and political interference. Decisions of the Supreme Court related to the opposition-controlled National Assembly have consistently given rise to concerns about political considerations prevailing over legal determinations.

This situation has gravely affected the judiciarys capacity to act independently to protect human rights, and is contributing to impunity. Despite recent efforts made by the Office of the Attorney General to investigate human rights violations committed by security forces, the lack of accountability is especially significant in cases of killings in the context of protests and during security operations, as well as allegations of torture and ill-treatment and gender-based violence.

Victims of human rights violations and abuses continue to face persistent legal, political and socio-economic barriers in accessing justice, with women experiencing gender-specific challenges.

I call on the Venezuelan Government to undertake and complete the announced reforms to the justice system to guarantee its independence and impartiality, to halt the use of the military justice to try civilians, and to carry out their obligation to investigate any allegation of torture and ill-treatment, Bachelet said.

I also urge an immediate halt to all acts of intimidation, threats and reprisals by members of the security forces against relatives of victims of human rights violations who seek justice, she added. Victims and their families have the right to know the truth and to obtain justice and reparations, and not to be harassed and re-victimized by those whose job should be to protect them.

To read the report click here

ENDS

For more information and media requests, please contact: Rupert Colville - + 41 22 917 9767 rcolville@ohchr.org or Liz Throssell - + 41 22 917 9296 / ethrossell@ohchr.org

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Venezuela: UN releases report on criminal control of mining area and wider justice issues - Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) - ReliefWeb

Fruit pickers trapped in Spain: We have run out of money and need to return to Morocco – EL PAS in English

I came here to pick strawberries, but the season is over and now I cant go home. My family needs me, and the money Id saved for them is being spent on food to survive, says Fatna, a 46-year-old seasonal worker from Morocco with six children waiting for her back home.

Like her, there are around 7,100 Moroccans who arrived in southern Spain in January for the strawberry picking season, but who now find themselves unable to go back because their government has kept its borders sealed since mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

My family needs me, and the money Id saved for them is being spent on food to survive

Although Rabat has announced it will start reopening its borders on Wednesday, travel from Spain will for now only be allowed by air. But airfare is out of reach for these laborers, whose contracts ended between mid-June and July.

Unable to work, almost penniless, far from their children whom they havent seen for over six months, and with nobody to tell them when they might be able to go home, their situation is increasingly desperate.

Their employers, union leaders and non-profit groups are warning that the situation could turn into a humanitarian crisis if the governments of Morocco and Spain do not find a solution soon.

Spanish government sources said that both governments are immersed in intense talks, but neither of the two Spanish ministries most closely involved in the matter, Migration and Foreign Affairs, are taking direct responsibility in the negotiations, nor are they providing any details.

Meanwhile, the regional government of Andalusia has offered the Moroccan workers free PCR coronavirus tests, and the Moroccan consul in Seville has been negotiating for weeks with Spanish government representatives in Huelva to get the group transferred. But so far, the only progress has been the repatriation of around 100 women who were pregnant, had just given birth, or were ill.

What we really care about now is being with our families, because some of us have ill parents or children who also need us

We dont know whose fault it is, but we came here to work and we are willing to take all necessary tests. We listen to the news from Morocco, and there is talk about migrants abroad, but very little talk about us, complains Saidia, a laborer who has been coming to Spain to pick strawberries for 13 years, and who is urging her government to do something about their situation.

We hope that the steps we have been taking with Spanish and Moroccan authorities will soon bear fruit, said Pedro Marn, the manager of Interfresa, a strawberry trade association in Huelva. Theyve been coming to work in Huelva for over a decade, and they are a basic pillar for the companies that they work for.

Najiya has also been crossing the Strait of Gibraltar every winter for over a decade in order to pick strawberries for the same agricultural cooperative. This year, her work ended on June 19. Under the terms of her contract, she and the other seven workers she shares an apartment with did not have to pay any rent, only the utilities. But in light of the situation, their employer has decided to extend their free rent and is also covering the utility expenses even though their contract has expired.

We talk to our families almost every day to see what the situation is back home, and they tell us that things are getting worse every day, says Najiya, who has two children aged eight and 14.

These workers come from small, low-income communities where the money they earn from picking strawberries in Spain is enough to live on for nearly the entire year. So having to spend those earnings on food and other necessities while stuck in Spain represents a serious economic setback for them, not to mention the stress of not knowing how long their plight will last.

Some of us had the possibility of going to work at estates in our own villages when we returned, but now weve lost that opportunity, notes Saidia. But what we really care about now is being with our families, because some of us have ill parents or children who also need us.

Theyve been coming to work in Huelva for over a decade, and they are a basic pillar for the companies that they work for

Many employers have taken on the cost of housing the stranded workers, and some are even paying for their everyday needs while seeking to close a deal with Morocco so the latter country will cover these expenses.

The Human Rights Association of Andalusia wants to see a radical review of the hiring agreement that will improve [the workers'] conditions and guarantee a dignified job. This group also said that the laborers living and repatriation expenses should be shared between Madrid and Rabat.

According to the contract conditions, employers pay for the workers journey from Morocco to the Huelva greenhouses, which includes a ferry trip and a bus ride. But the workers have to pay their own way back, which costs around 45.

The women now feel abandoned. Many of them are living in isolated areas far from village centers, and they have no means of transportation to get there, explains Ana Pinto, a member of the laborers association Jornaleras del Campo. These days, the stranded women can often be seen walking in groups along the paths near the hamlet of El Roco, on their way to or from a bus stop that will take them to the nearest municipality to do some grocery shopping.

They refuse to talk. Many of them do not speak Spanish and they are illiterate, making it difficult for them to establish a direct relationship with the Moroccan consulate or any other authority from their country. Instead, information reaches them through non-profit groups or through advisors at Prelsi, Interfresas ethical and social responsibility project.

Some cooperatives have been trying to help the women find similar work in other parts of Spain. Around 40 have traveled to Segovia to pick strawberries there. But most of them would rather stay closer to Morocco in case they are suddenly allowed to go back, said Fatna. For now, they continue to wait amid the empty greenhouses.

English version by Susana Urra.

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Fruit pickers trapped in Spain: We have run out of money and need to return to Morocco - EL PAS in English

Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan: Will the scheme be of help? – The Financial Express

By Atul Sarma & Shyam Sunder

The Covid-19 lockdown left 45-60 million migrant labourers in the lurch across cities. Faced with lives and livelihood challenges, a large number of them began to leave in hordes to their native places, many on foot; it was a human tragedy. While concerned state governments and several NGOs sought to help them, the Centre took a lot of time to come out with effective measures.

Lately, it has announced an economic package as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. Besides offering a stimulus package to support the economy, the government utilised Covid-19 as an opportunity to attempt at structural reforms covering agriculture, core sectors, MSME and so on; and introduced short-term relief measures for migrants, including free foodgrains for three months, employment under MGNREGA, one-time payment under Jan-Dhan and easy loans under Mudra Yojana to migrants at their native places. Medium-term measures include One Nation, One Ration Card and housing facilities. While these are desirable, the scale falls far short of the requirement this crisis has warranted. Whats more, the operational design of these policy announcements is yet to be articulatedas elsewhere in policymaking, the devil lies in implementation.

As an add on, the Prime Minister, during Mann Ki Baat, announced the setting up of a Migration Commission for the employment of migrant labourers after mapping out their skill matrix. He also emphasised the need for creating opportunities for self-employment and setting up of small-scale industries in villages.

On June 22, the Prime Minister launched a new package of `50,000 crorethe Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan (GKRA). It aims at creating livelihood opportunities for the returned migrants, and while doing so it is expected to create durable infrastructure in rural areas. The GKRA would be implemented in a mission mode to provide jobs and livelihood opportunities for 125 days for more than 6 million migrants, and would cover the ones who returned to 116 districts of six statesBihar (32 districts), Uttar Pradesh (31), Madhya Pradesh (24), Rajasthan (22), Odisha (4) and Jharkhand (3). These 116 districts also include 27 aspirational districts as identified by the NITI Aayog. This is an umbrella scheme that has brought under it 25 different government schemes of 12 ministries/departments. Some employment opportunities offered under the original schemes include building gram panchayat bhawans, anganwadi centres, national highway works, railway works and water conservation projects. This will provide immediate relief to families of migrant workers while creating infrastructure in rural areas, and help generate rural demand. But the government will not spend additional monies on this new scheme. Instead, it will merely aggregate the funds already allocated under the 12 ministries.

Second, to the extent that it would be implemented only in 116 districts of six states, it is discriminatory in that states such as Chhattisgarh and West Bengal are outside its ambit. Further, Odisha and Jharkhand even with large migrant workers got less allocation in terms of the number of districts. Some analysts have highlighted that this scheme will cover only two-thirds of migrant workers who have returned, and one-third fall outside its coverage. This has given a rise to the suspicion that it is politically-driven.

Third, it is not yet clear how different stakeholdersministries/departments, district administrations, banking systemswill coordinate on things such as timely payments to the workers. To that extent, the scheme will face implementation challenges. What could be a way forward is to bring all the stakeholders on a single IT-based platform, especially when the government is facilitating the role of an aggregator.

Ideally, the woes of distressed migrants could have been redressed by giving a basic income, or as the second-best the government could have made a reasonable amount of money transfer (Direct Benefit Transfer, or DBT). But lack of reliable data may have been the hurdle. However, the government should seize this opportunity to build a database of migrant workers that could be used in the future to create a social security system for them.

The bottom line of this crisis is that most of the migrant workers families need immediate relief in terms of cash for survival. Also, existing schemes like MGNREGA should be adequately funded to provide employment to migrants for at least the remaining months of this year.

Several states have attempted to create employment opportunities for the returned migrant workers in their own states. This runs counter to the demographic transition pattern of India: southern states have already reached the peak, i.e. the proportion of ageing population (15-59) has begun to rise, while other states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand have much larger proportion of younger people. States with older population would require younger labour, which states with younger population could supply. In a unified economy it would be growth and welfare enhancing to ensure free movement of labour and capital. In such a situation, what is important is to create an imaginative social protection and security system for migrant labourers. It is here that the Migration Commission could play an important role. It should be given the mandate to prepare an appropriate social protection and welfare system for migrant workers.

Sarma is distinguished professor, CSD, New Delhi, and Sunder works with a leading Indian corporate. Views are personal

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Prime Minister Janez Jana: We have a responsibility and a duty to make the dreams of the founding fathers of the European Union come true – Gov.si

Prime Minister Hana first highlighted that such a discussion was good and important and he welcomed the purpose for which the conference was organised.

Speaking about the key challenges facing the European Union, he first mentioned Brexit. According to him, Brexit was a "strategic disaster". He explained this by saying that a condition for the existence of the European Union was the balance of power, with Brexit establishing a significant change in that balance. The good future of the European Union depends on the answer to the question of when a new balance of power will be established and what it will be like," stressed the Prime Minister.

He went on to say that the time when Slovenia joined the European Union could be described as the golden age of the EU. After fifteen, sixteen years we see the reality, we see a lot of good things, a lot of progress and challenges that have significantly changed the European Union we joined sixteen years ago," said the Prime Minister, adding that during this time we have been faced with a failed attempt to adopt a European constitution, which European leaders have sought to remedy with the Treaty of Lisbon, where problems re-emerged. But all these were administrative challenges," said Jana, who added that the financial and economic crisis followed, showing that there were some unfinished projects within the EU, including the European Monetary Union, the consequences of which are still being felt today.

That was followed by the migrant crisis. As long as Spain was faced with the migrant crisis it seemed like a distant problem, and in 2015 we came up against the reality that it was something big. In my opinion, the wrong approach of the European institutions and the Member States contributed to the final decision of the British who voted for Brexit," said Prime Minister Jana, who when on to say that "of course there were other important things, but I think this situation added a few additional percent of votes to those who voted to exit the European Union."

It does not matter whether we are talking about an unfinished first wave or the beginning of the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic; in the coming weeks we will be facing some similar measures as those taken by the Member States in early March or April," said Prime Minister Janez Jana, who highlighted that, when the epidemic began, "we encountered the mass unresponsiveness of the global institutions we created to prevent such crises and alert us to such crises." Among these institutions, the Prime Minister listed the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the European Union. We were completely unprepared for what followed, Europe with its state of emergency, the seizure of protective equipment, the curfew looked at that time like it was from the Middle Ages," said the Prime Minister, adding that we are now facing a moment of truth. We are not yet in the post-COVID-19 crisis, but we are somewhere in between, at a time when we are trying to remedy the economic consequences of the epidemic," said the Prime Minister, adding that the recovery fund proposed by the European Commission would be a good response to the issues that need to be addressed in relation to the economic situation.

"It is more important to beat the virus. Until an effective drug or vaccine against Covid-19 is found, partial normalisation can only be achieved with an accessible application for tracking the infection," said Prime Minister Janez Jana in connection with the coronavirus crisis. According to him, this is also the only alternative enabling tourism activities to continue "without locking down countries." "We need Europe here, so we have one application for the whole of Europe, because we need to be able to detect the infection," said the Slovenian Prime Minister. "We still don't know what the consequences of the epidemic will be, but we know roughly how to deal with it in order to be effective," he added.

Now is not the time to speak at length about the future of Europe, to propose changes to the treaties or to have big dreams about new European institutions, as this can create divisions, but what we need is stability, said Prime Minister Janez Jana, adding that we need realistic and pragmatic solutions. We have to enlarge the Schengen Area to include Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria, which is not so difficult, but we need political decisions, the Prime Minister went on to say, highlighting the enlargement of the European Union with the Western Balkan countries. This is the strategic answer to the challenge posed by Brexit and this is the fulfilment of our dreams from the very beginning, when we spoke about Europe being whole and free, he emphasised.

In the words of the Prime Minister, ideologically the main threat to the European Union and Europe as such is cultural Marxism. We are all following what is going on and I have to say that it is the same formula that was written in the Communist Manifesto some 200 years ago. To create a new world, according to the Manifesto, you need to dismantle the nation, family, private property, private schools and religion. This is going on now, through the mass media, universities, the cultural industry, multinational institutions and some political parties. One thing that was partially mentioned before is that the fewer votes someone gets in an election, the more he or she preaches about democracy, about values, how to create a new world. There is something going on that is cleverly hidden but anyone who knows history and political concepts can clearly see where we are heading, stressed the Prime Minister, pointing to this being the battle for our way of life, for Western civilization. Much more is at stake in this battle than just the European Union or European institutions, said the Prime Minister.

In addition to the new coronavirus epidemic, we may be faced with unknown threats at any given point in time. For example, cyberattacks. When speaking about the future of the European Union, we must also be better prepared for such threats. Slovenia is now starting the trio presidency of the Council of the European Union together with Germany and Portugal. We proposed priorities to our trio partners, which they agreed with. We believe that first a European plan should be made regarding how to fight against the current epidemic and massive cyberattacks, which could soon become a new reality, explained the Prime Minister.

In his opinion, the most important strategic challenge for the EU now is its demographics. We can do everything and even more, but if there are no people to share the common values, everything is lost, emphasised the Prime Minister, adding that families are the basic cells of society and they must be protected and supported, which is why family friendly policies for ageing societies are of strategic importance. Migration policy, considered by some to be the total solution to the demographic challenges, can only complement the demographic challenges if it is properly managed, and when the social, cultural and economic costs of migration are taken into account. Where this is not the case, we can see the consequences which in some countries are even irreparable, pointed out the Prime Minister.

By way of conclusion, Prime Minister Janez Jana said that the European Union had been created as a union of values. Since the foundation of the European Union, more people have enjoyed peace and a high standard of living, and the vast majority of Europeans have been born into wealth, commented the Prime Minister, adding that the European Union is capable of meeting all the different challenges, provided, of course, that we all return to our values. This is clear. We should rethink our identity and fight for it. We must fight for the people, for Europeans, for our heritage, for our nations, for our freedom, for our way of life, as this is our future, said Prime Minister Janez Jana, concluding that it is our responsibility and duty to fulfil the dream of the founding fathers of the European Union.

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Prime Minister Janez Jana: We have a responsibility and a duty to make the dreams of the founding fathers of the European Union come true - Gov.si

Migration governance during the pandemic: Marginalising the already marginalised? – India Education Diary

Parul Srivastava

The writer is a researcher, pursuing her PhD from the Department of History, University of Hyderabad, India. She can be reached at [emailprotected] or via Twitter on @paroollll

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused turmoil all across the globe. Nearly every country is dealing with a never-seen-before situation, at least since the Spanish Flu of 1918 which resulted in the death of approximately 50 million people worldwide. Today, USA has the largest number of COVID positive cases in the world, followed by Brazil and India. We have witnessed the migrant crisis in India since the onset of lockdown and how it got from bad to worse and therefore, in such a situation, it becomes imperative to ponder over global and regional migration while focusing on the pandemic induced migrations and the vulnerable situation that the migrants are left in.

Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism (GRFDT) along with two important organisations namely Migrant Forum Asia (MFA), and Cross Regional Center for Refugees and Migrants (CCRM) organized a rather beneficial and tremendously insightful discussion on Global and Regional Migration Governance During COVID-19 Pandemic on July 7th 2020. This session was moderated by Shabari Nair, a Labour Migration Specialistfor South Asia, based in the International Labour Organization in New Delhi. This 11th GRFDT virtual panel was attended by policy makers, practitioners and government officials from various numerous countries.

Nicola Piper, Director of Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Centre in Australia spoke about the global level of governance of labour migrations. Although we have come a long way in terms of understanding of what migration entails, in political and institutional terms we still have a dysfunction at global migration systems and this has become more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Talking about the three aspects of the global migration governance, she spoke about the what/how/by whom. Migration management trumps over the rights based approach to migration and this is reflected in the priority given to other types of migrations as opposed to what happens at the workplace. She stressed on the gaps that arises between rights on paper and rights in practice and this is highly relevant in the current pandemic wherein there are many migrants, undocumented workers whore working on contract/ temporarily in essential services and key sectors of the economy but they still dont have residential rights, have little or no access to social security. This pandemic has exposed the fundamental flaws which exist in many bilateral agreements and memorandum of understanding (MoU).

Shahidul Haque, former Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh broadly talked about how this pandemic is reshaping migration and where is it making an impact: remittance, labour flow, return and human rights. He emphasised that inter- State relations will change, international cooperation will change an hence, migration will change which will result in a change of world order. He talked about four new factors that will unfold (which he has termed as New Migration order) namely new economic landscape, development paradigm, power shift and environmental factors. These four forces were functioning but the pandemic has exposed some weaknesses and accelerated few changes in the world of migration and mobility.

This is the first time that the world is facing a migration crisis without the migrants being major stakeholders because this migration crisis is the result of a pandemic. Another issue that this pandemic has created is the problem of return which has resulted due to the fact that around 400 million migrant workers have lost their jobs and hence, they will have to return to their home countries. Interestingly, he talked about the trapped population which has lost its jobs but is unable to return to their native countries and are therefore on the streets in a foreign country.

Pietro Mona, Ambassador for Development, Forced Displacement and Migration (Government of Switzerland) believes that COVID has highlighted the vulnerabilities as well as the weaknesses of the current system at local, national and global levels. This pandemic which is now turning into a micro- economic crisis at the global level has had a great impact on the field of migrations. For a lot of challenges that we are seeing today, there are possible solutions or at least an ideas on how to approach them. The real question of the hour is do we have the political will, the instruments, the actors that can implement what has been discussed so far.

There is also a dire need to focus on the issue of migration is connected with other issues like gender, education, to name a few and find inclusive solutions. One very crucial point that Pietro Mona made was that proposing us and them creates barriers and we need to understand that migrants are very much a part of our society. Horizontal adaptation/ expanding the government structure horizontally which means that all partners should be included at the same table and vertical expansion is also of equal importance which involves the issues of migration with other overarching relevant issues that are interconnected.

William Gois from the Migrant Forum in Asia from Philippines talked about how the transmission isnt as smooth and that there is a fault line between regional and global. This disconnect is also present between capitals and other places which isnt just a bureaucratic process but also a politically affected process. However, migration for politicians isnt a vote worthy topic which is why they wouldnt pick it up from a human right perspective as it wont be received well by the majority.

The current discourse on migration has become extremely polarised, India being a classic example of it which involves prioritising oneself and othering the other. The pandemic has put migrant workers in an extremely difficult position. Otherwise hailed as heroes, theyre now unable to return back to their communities due to fear of community spread (in case they are carriers of the COVID-19 virus). A new political will has to be generated which would ultimately bring people out of situations of crisis such as the ongoing pandemic. Migrants live within the States jurisdiction and hence it is the States responsibility to protect every human being living in its jurisdiction without any discrimination.

Roula Hamati, from the Cross Regional Center for Refuges and Migrant in Lebanon questioned as to how do global frameworks translate at the national and regional level. There are a number of obstacles when we talk about translating them at the ground level and she spoke about it in the Arab context as to how countries that receive refugees have not really ratified the refugee convention.

Charles Obila from IGAD, a membership of 8 of 55 States of Africa. Migration is a means to survival as one cannot live without the options of migrating. For certain African countries, Migration is very dynamic in nature as they cannot really differentiate between refugees and migrants and they have mixed migrations where people belonging to various categories move together, using similar means. This is mostly because theyre all looking for similar things- livelihood and employment opportunities and hence, migration is happening towards the gulf countries, European union as well as Southern African countries. Obila mentioned quite interestingly that the most resilient migrants and refugees are in the urban areas as they are the ones who are able to find employment with limited support and are able to support/ provide for their families.

Migrant returns and deportations was happening from Southern African countries and the Gulf countries and this led to a growth of discussions on how to co-ordinate better and also deal with stranded migrants whore out of employments due to this pandemic. This has further led to a reverse flow of migration where people are looking forward to moving back to rural areas from urban spaces. The political leadership of IGAD countries came together and took a decision of developing regional health response strategy and one unique thing that was specifically mentioned was the integration of vulnerable population including the migrants and the refugees in the health responses. There is a need of multilateralism or international cooperation especially in the recovery and post recovery stages.

Professor Andrew Geddes, Director of Migration Policy Centre in Italy spoke about the governance in Europe buy concentrating on four things, namely crisis, policy, politics and the future. Based on previous crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic would not lead to major changes in the EU and European migration and asylum crisis. Attitudes towards migration are becoming more favourable as opposed to how such issues have been politicized and presented.

The regional negotiations are very important for the regions so we should have a SAARC negotiation with the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries where we are sending our people to. It becomes essential for the sending countries, civil society groups, trade unions, intellectual groups to participate in discussions concerning the migrations that have been induced by the ongoing pandemic. Multilateralism is really the way forward and the dialogue and discourse needs to become very empathetic and the stereotypes that were being practised for so long need to be recognized. Professor Binod Khadria, former faculty at JNU concluded by highlighting EAA (Equitable adversary analysis) wherein one needs to put themselves in the shoes of the adversary and then try to look at the issue from the other side because one cannot pretend that migration is just like an exchange of commodities or like some kind of a trade because its not so. Its a flow of human beings and hence, empathy becomes of primary value here and it is something that COVID-19 is constantly reminding us of.

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Migration governance during the pandemic: Marginalising the already marginalised? - India Education Diary

Pandemic, Migration and the Education Crisis: How Capitalism Aggravated it – NewsClick

The painful pictures of migrants heading home must be haunting many people. The reality is that there is no correct estimation of how many workers migrate internally in India, given the precarity and the unavailability of jobs. According to a World Bank estimate, there are nearly 40 million internal migrants. The figure was echoed in another news report where the government also stated similar figures.

In its data on migrants, the 2011 Census put down 4,14,22,917 persons as migrants for reasons of work or employment. Of these massive approximations, states like Bihar have huge share. A report on Bihar in June said that Government officials estimate that so far, around 32 lakh people have come back to the state. The Uttar Pradesh government calculated that 21.69 lakh workers had returned to the state. One government agency estimated that there were 26 lakh stranded migrants, while the Centre told the Supreme Court that it had transported 97 lakh migrant workers.

In a nutshell, the Indian state has no inkling of the huge, unidentified and invisible workforce that runs the engine of its so-called high growth development model. It is also important to note that this indifference towards the vast mass of this work force is not sudden, but has evolved over a period of time and has been intrinsic to the model of development that Indian capitalism has embraced.

This vast mass of population, which walked thousands of miles and which has been forgotten due to public amnesia generated through war rhetoric and nationalism, has suffered on account of its childrens education as well. The pandemic has compounded their problems, not just because it has left millions without jobs and any bargaining power in the labour market, but also because their children will be deprived of one of the most fundamental requirements of life a good education.

Concerns have been raised about the migrations impact on education because it would lead to dropouts (more among girls than boys), further inaccessibility due to the digital divide and its psychological impact on children due to aggravated poverty, health and learning inaccessibilities. Additionally, in this abnormal situation (which the state and many intellectuals call the new normal), the elimination of a face-to-face interface between the teacher and student will fundamentally alter possibilities of producing a socially just and equitable imagination of society.

For instance, the socio-political, cultural and emotional dynamics that exist between the EWS and the non-EWS, sitting together in schools, would have unravelled. However, it will no longer be a possibility in this virtual classroom. The debate among students in a school inside and outside classrooms, the performative dimensions of students and teachers in the classroom or outside it or the possibilities of subversion through tiny acts of students during the process of schooling, will all be lost. Whatever argument is put forth by the online enthusiasts, dialogic dimensions are lost in apps or through online platforms of teaching and learning.

It is being repeatedly argued that migration has led to educational crisis. This is a fundamentally erroneous conclusion because it does not: firstly, tries to comprehend what creates this precarity in economy and secondly, how this precarity leads to this educational crisis. In other words, the educational crisis cannot be understood in a de-historicised manner that leads to looking at developments as moments and thereby miss its historico-material roots and the systemic nature.

It is the same system that fails to guarantee a decent livelihood, housing, health and social security due to its logic of unabashed and deceitful wealth accumulation, which also denies education to children. This crisis in education could have been reduced to a great extent (not completely) if public education backed by the state would have existed. Indias educational universe is in a mess with tens of different kinds of public schools and a hundred varieties of private schools. The state never took a keen interest in establishing public education at par with best existing schools in terms of infrastructure, pedagogical innovation, or providing the best possible working conditions to its teachers.

There is a general sense of elation among the corporate world and within the government about the online education system. While it opens up new possibilities of accumulation in an area which was not permitted earlier, it carries in its womb the possibility of the diminishing financial obligation of the state. In 2018, the online education market was worth Rs 39 billion, and the number is expected to be Rs 360.3 billion by 2024, as per a report in April 2020.

For an industry which was concerned about different kinds of recognitions and accreditations that might hamper its growth, a pandemic like the present is good news for them, because the state is gradually moving in the direction of online teaching. In any case, our state visionaries had pointed out way back in 2015 that schools, colleges and universities as currently constituted will be redundant in 2035. Instead, we will have institutions of learning that are virtual/meta/open in character.

In fact, unlike my concern above about a socially just and equitable education were tackled by it by saying that there would be no school dropouts. All children would have access to quality and affordable education, independent of social, economic, geographic, physical and even mental constraints.

The only answer to a crisis in education lies in its takeover by the state, which provides the best resources for its development. A child should not be worried about shifting from one place to another because a good school will be present in every nook and corner then. Developments models which do believe in a state-run education or health system are bound to falter in a situation of extreme crisis. However, the Capitalism of our times flourishes through state withdrawal from ensuring equal and just access to basic needs of people from schools (Niti Aayog suggesting PPP models), health centres (National Health Policy, 2017), universities and so on.

The crisis that we have encountered is a systemic crisis of capitalism which has manifested in the education sector. It is a result of its mal-intent to serve private capital at the cost of public welfare. The response of the Indian state and the state governments to avoid the repetition of such a crisis lies in how it answers the initial question of whether they would ensure that all government schools are financed at par with Navodaya Vidyalayas, to ensure equality in access to each and every child.

The writer is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at South Asian University. The views are personal.

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Pandemic, Migration and the Education Crisis: How Capitalism Aggravated it - NewsClick

Rakul Preet Singh: This crisis has taught us that productivity comes from shortage of resources – Hindustan Times

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Rakul Preet Singh: This crisis has taught us that productivity comes from shortage of resources - Hindustan Times

EU focuses on migration and sea rescue in the Mediterranean across several official meetings – InfoMigrants

Migration in the Mediterranean became a focus as Germany took up the rotating presidency of the EU Council in July and the EUs foreign minister, Josep Borrell, visited Malta this week.

Just a week after Germany took up the rotating EU Council presidency, EU interior ministers held an online conference to discuss security and migration in theMediterranean. At the same time, the EUCommissions Vice President and High Representative for ForeignAffairs and Security Josep Borrell visited Malta, one of the first "in-person" vitis since the coronavirus pandemic struck.

Borrell said that the EU is facing severalchallenges in our southern neighborhood and I was glad to discussthem today in Malta" with Maltese ministers; including the foreignminister, the president and the prime minister.

In a press statement, Borrellacknowledged that Malta had been "facing huge pressure" regardingmigration and that the EU fully shared Maltas determination toaddress irregular migration in a comprehensive way.

Increasedcapacity for Libyan coastguard?

Borrellsaid that the starting point for this "comprehensive" policywould be to address the crisis in Libya and support the Libyanauthorities. He said that Libya was the "largest beneficiary inNorth Africa of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa." Much ofthat money has gone to strengthening the Libyan coastguard. Borrellsaid that this work needed to continue, "in order to strengthentheir capacity of intervention to dismantle trafficking networks andconduct rescue operations in their area of responsibility."

At themoment, Borrell said, the work to dismantle these networks was beingdone mainly through the EU naval and air operation Irini and the EUBorder Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM). He added that Maltawanted to increase the capacities of the Libyan coastguard too.

'Shameful' handling of migration by EU, Seehofer

While Borrell was talking to the Maltese government, EU interior ministers were taking part in a two-day online conference todiscuss security and migration. Now that Germany has taken over therotating presidency for the next six months, this meeting was led by the German interior minister, Horst Seehofer.

Seehofer called on his European counterparts to agree on a better and fairer solution for the distribution of migrants rescued at sea. He said it was "shameful" that the EU has still not found a solution five years after the so-called migration crisis.

"Each boat requires painstaking efforts to achieve a distribution (of migrants) among member states," said Seehofer. "And each time, only a small number (of the member states) is ready to do so". He added that the EU cannot leave Italy, Malta, Greece or Spain alone to deal with this issue. "This is a situation that is not worthy of the EU," he said.

Seehofer called for Europe to take a "pragmatic" approach to "those who arrive at the external borders." He once again reiterated the need for "as many member states as possible" taking part in sharing the numbers of migrants who arrive and returning those who have no right to claim protection in the EU.

"Europeis a community of values. Respecting human dignity and human rightsis the most important thing, and preventing deaths in theMediterranean is our shared goal," said Seehofer in a pressstatement at the end of the conference.Migrants on cargo ship taken in by Malta

During the two day meeting it was announced that a group of 50 migrants who were rescued near Lampedusa by an animal cargo vesselhad been allowed on shore in Maltaafter repeated pleas from the ships captain and pro-migrant groups like Alarm Phone and Sea Watch.

Theship had been refused entry in Lampedusa and Malta. Malta, whosesearch and rescue zone the migrants were in when they were rescued,had said that they couldnt dock until other EU countries agreed toan automatic sharing out of migrants who arrive on the island nation.

'Bringing new momentum to the topic of migration'

Aheadof the conference, Seehofer already announced that "bringing newmomentum to the topic of migration," was one of the German EUpresidencys stated aims.

He said he found his counterparts around Europe "very willing tocontinue our focused discussions," and promised "conferences willbe held soon in Europe to agree on concrete steps." A conference in Italy on July 13 was announced where delegates would discuss "closercooperation with North African countries," to fight human smugglingand instigate an effective return policy.

Malta: Agreement for an automatic mechanism

After Borrell's visit, the Maltese government announced that it had reached an agreement with a number of European countries to relocate more than 280 migrants currently in Malta.

Malta has repeatedly asked for this mechanism to becomeautomatic, but so far, despite numerous agreements, the sharing out of new arrivals has been done on an ad-hoc and case-by-case basis.

Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela called EU policy in this area a "failure" as Borrell stood beside him, reported dpa. He said they had received more help from Libya in this period than the EU.According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, Malta received 1,200 migrants in the first four months of 2020. "Hundreds more have disembarked since then," wrote dpa.

Speaking to journalists, Borrell agreed that an automatic mechanismwas what was needed to be able to save people at sea and quicklydisembark them in Malta before sharing them across the EU. He said "solidarity" was needed on this point and that the EU wasworking on that. However, he also noted that "I cannot tell whenand even I cannot tell if the Member States will agree because therole of the Commission is to propose. The Commission proposes and theCouncil and the Parliament decide."

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Will agriculture help twice-returned Saurashtra migrants tide over COVID-19 crisis? – Down To Earth Magazine

Several Saurashtra migrants who had returned to work in Surat in May-end said they have fallen back on land resources for agriculture

The Saurashtra region in western Gujarat has been witnessing a second wave of reverse migration amid the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Labourers employed in the diamond industry in Surat had first migrated back to their villages in Saurashtra when the Union government had first announced nationwide lockdown in March.

They, however, came back to Surat when the lockdown was lifted in May-end. Now, they are once again headed to their villages in the face of spiralling COVID-19 cases in Surat that has led to the closure of several industrial units.

Several migrants said they have fallen back on land resources for agriculture and are determined not to go back till at least Diwali. The good monsoon rainfall has been the silver lining, and most of them are expecting a good groundnut and cotton crop.

Sources on the ground said thousands of workers employed in the diamond sector went back home, again, after units started closing down fearing a surge in COVID-19 cases. Those who own land along with their other family members have taken to tilling while the others have taken to working as agriculture labour since a good rainfall has led to an increase in demand for agriculture this season.

The diamond units closed again and we were left with no choice. They only operated for a week or two after the lockdown was lifted? Why should we pay rents then? It is better to come back to our village and work on the family land, Rajeshbhai Thummar, a labourer from Amreli district, told DTE.

Another labourer Kamleshbhai Patel, who returned to Abrahmpura village in Savarkundla from Surats Varaccha, said, We will go back only after Diwali if things look promising. There are thousands like me who have come back home. We would rather spend time with our families than sitting in expensive hotels.

He added that good rains have assured them of subsistence.

Econmist Hemant Shah, who has been keeping an eye on reverse migration since the first lockdown, explained, The diamond industry is down by at least 60 per cent in terms of demand. It has been witnessing a slowdown for the last two years and does not hold much promise for its workforce.

He added that about 20 per cent of the workforce employed in polishing and finishing had come back to work when the unlockdown was announced, but were compelled to return during the second wave.

He expressed optimism over agricultural returns following a good rainfall.

Even if the groundnut crop is good, will it translate into farmers getting good money? The recent amendments in the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act, with claims that it is farmer-oriented and a tool for development, will not yield results. This is because we all know how companies operate in a cartel with a monopolistic outlook.

Pointing to the cotton produce, he said farmers had to deal with pricing issues last year as well.

He said the government needs to come out with positive interventions and move towards establishing good storage facilities in co-operative sector so that the farmers can hold back their produce till they get proper remuneration.

The government made a budgetary provision of Rs 300 crore for setting up storage facilities, which is just Rs 10,000 for 30,000 farmers. It amounts to nothing. Does it serve the purpose for the over five million farmers in the state, he added.

Suresh Samani, an expert on agricultural economics in Saurashtra, had a different take on the issue. We need to understand the socio-economic dynamics with regards to people from rural Saurashtra who go to work in the diamond industry in Surat. They cannot be equated with migrants from other states who come in search of livelihood to Gujarat.

He added that a majority of workers from Saurashtra belong to the Patel community, which is into farming and owns a large chunk of land. It is often one or two members from a joint family who move to the diamond industry since the remuneration from farming is not ideal and the jobs in the diamond cutting, polishing and finishing sectors pay well.

Then there is also the attraction of a better standard of living in an urban centre, Samani said.

He explained that it is primary the fear of the virus that has driven labourers back to their homes: Since they own land and their roots are strong, they are confident of subsistence. The government interventions have also led to getting reasonable returns for both cotton and groundnut in the last few years, although the cotton prices are nowhere near the Rs 1,600 per bale mark that was there a few years ago.

A good rainfall in these areas may point to an increase in demand for agricultural labour that normally comes from Panchmahals and the adjoining state of Madhya Pradesh. But since the labour is not expected from these places this season, the vacuum will be filled by the returnees from the diamond sector, experts said.

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Let them eat baked beans – The Shift News

The last few months have been tough and the uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has been tortuous. I am not quite sure if we are through the worst of it yet but for the moment we have a reprieve.

Like many families we lost a significant proportion of our income during these past months and, for the duration, our spending has been limited to the bare essentials. This took me back to when our children were young and we used to have Baked Bean Thursday. The very phrase brings a smile to my face.

I used to set myself a budget to spend on food each week, something like 40. I would plan our weekly menu based on seven core foods, Monday was beef mince, Tuesday was sausages, Wednesday was tinned tuna and Thursday was Baked Beans, you get the gist.

It is incredible the variety of dishes you can make with a couple of tins of Baked Beans, which meant that Thursdays offering was always keenly anticipated. I seem to remember that the winner was Baked Bean curry, closely followed by Baked Bean meatballs, but perhaps they were just humouring me. Anyway, they were fed and we got through some tough times with a smile on our faces and a few good stories.

We were fortunate that during this period of austerity we never had to rely on food banks, somehow we muddled through until the good times came.

The parcels distributed by the Foodbank Lifeline Foundation cost 25 for a family parcel which is intended to feed a family of four people for a week, but for me, the humiliation of having to ask a charity for help to feed your family is the greatest cost of all.

The government announced last week that it had racked up a bill of 1.7 million to host 425 migrants on boats during the COVID-19 pandemic; thats 4,000 spent on each individual. Not that thats a bad thing, but some context is necessary.

Please dont think that the boats used in this operation were, for one moment, fit for purpose and dont be fooled into assuming that each guest had an ensuite cabin with fresh sheets and clean towels, which is the very least I would expect on a 4,000 cruise.

The boats used were the Captain Morgan tourist day boats, the same red ones we see each year chugging around Grand Harbour or on their daily excursions to Comino. Only, on this occasion, they were struggling to chug around in circles some 13 nautical miles off the Maltese coastline for days upon end it honestly beggars belief.

Captain Morgan is part of the Zammit Tabona group. Michael Zammit Tabona happened to be Maltas disgraced former ambassador to Finland remember that Facebook post which compared Chancellor Angela Merkel to Hitler? He is also, completely coincidentally, of course, one of the Labour Partys large donors.

So while we were all at home working out how many tins of Baked Beans we could buy with the tatters of our monthly income, Zammit Tabona was reinventing his business model and selling it to the Labour government as a solution to the migrant issue simultaneously making a killing out of his redundant boats since the season was closed.

The boats were then very swiftly recommissioned as soon as there was the sniff of a tourist, so not quite the humanitarian. There is the distinct whiff of corruption and exploitation about this particularly pointless and inhuman exercise.

On a social level, during this same period, the number of people who applied to food banks for relief grew exponentially, with The Malta Trust Foundation feeling compelled to launch its own Food Aid Project in order to deal with the impending crisis that was bypassing the government.

Imagine what the food banks could have done with 1.7 million they could have bought 68,000 parcels and fed 1,250 families for a year and still have change.

The same money could have provided each of the 425 passengers on those boats with a food parcel every week for three years 272,000 meals. Meanwhile, asylum seekers are sleeping at the entrance to the capital city because theyve been kicked out of the open centres. Theres no Labour Party donor who can make money off that.

Whatever your views are on the migrant crisis and the governments attempts to bulldoze the EU (posturing, more than anything else), it can only be surmised from their actions and eagerness to provide Captain Morgan with some business that this was a greater priority to them than the welfare and humiliation of its vulnerable citizens.

Its not only those queuing at food banks who should be peeved at the ease with which this government has frittered away 1.7 million. There is a massive demand for social housing in Malta the price of property, the cost of renting and the opportunity to have your own home is out of reach for many working people.

The so-called Workers Party has promised social housing units in the Budget year after year, since Joseph Muscat had claimed it was a top priority in 2013. But only 10 units were allocated we dont even know if they were actually built. But the money was there all the time just not for social housing.

Maybe Robert Abelas Cabinet would benefit from having a Baked Bean Thursday just to give them a little soupcon of what life is like living on charity. I am assured that Baked Beans are a good match with fine vintage wine but that would perhaps detract from the humility of the meal.

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The Political Fix: Teflon Modis unabating popularity and 7 more takeaways from the middle of 2020 – Scroll.in

Welcome to the Political Fix by Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, a newsletter on Indian politics and policy. To get it in your inbox, sign up here.

If you missed the Friday Links edition, which covered the TikTok ban and brought you a Q&A with Shankkar Aiyar, find it here.

We dont charge anything for this newsletter, but if you would like to support us consider contributing to the Scroll Reporting Fund or, if youre not in India, subscribing to Scroll+.

India begins 2020 in turmoil.

Thats how we started the first Political Fix of this year, offering forecasts from Scroll.ins reporting team and one from me on what readers could expect in 2020 and, indeed, the forthcoming decade in India.

Spoiler alert: The words global pandemic do not turn up in those articles.

This week, as we pass the halfway mark of the year, the mostly unforeseen coronavirus crisis is all-encompassing, dominating every other development.

Five months after it was officially declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the Covid-19 pandemic and its fallout remain wildly unpredictable, with no clarity on how long it will disrupt what we considered normal life.

But even while the full impact of the Covid crisis on politics, on policy, on the economy and on all of our lives cannot yet be ascertained, we can still put down some notes on how the first half of 2020 went.

Key to what follows is the truism that crises like these do not upend the preexisting order, they only accelerate trends like Modis continued popularity, Indias economic struggles, a lacklustre Opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Partys divisive politics. There is, however, one major exception to that too.

Here is what we make of how 2020 has played out so far:

It has been year full of the sort of missteps that might have sunk another government: the economy was dramatically slowing because of economic mismanagement before Covid-19 hit; February saw the worst riots in Delhi in more than 35 years; the governments failure to plan for migrant workers as it went into lockdown resulted in a massive humanitarian disaster and China has managed to change the status quo on the disputed border, leading to the first deaths of Indian soldiers at the Line of Actual Control in more than four decades.

Despite all this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reigns supreme.

It helps that he was re-elected with a massive mandate in 2019, meaning the coronavirus crisis is not an immediate electoral threat. But even if it were, Modi would have been the front-runner. Polls, though rarely reliable, show that the prime minister remains extremely popular, albeit with some ebbing of support from younger Indians. Some of the sustained popularity may be the rally-around-the-flag effect, which sees citizens supporting leaders in a time of crisis. Still, despite the year he has had, few believe Modis political preeminence faces any kind of threat.

In spite of the failure of Indias Covid-19 lockdown to break the transmission of the virus, as was the initial aim, and even though the country this week overtook Russia to record the third-highest number of global cases, there is still a sense that Modi has done better than expected. This is possibly because, unlike the leadership of the two countries above India on the list, Brazil and the United States, Modi never denied the dangers of the virus.

Yet Indias graph still points resolutely upwards, and the pandemic is shifting in intensity towards the east, where health infrastructure is minimal. Horror stories keep turning up from big cities and small towns, and there is no clarity on when India will peak and whether the country has done enough to beef up its systems for that eventuality.

As a consequence, as we enter the second half of the year, we simply do not have good visibility into how this crisis will play out, either from a public health perspective or a political one.

Even before the global pandemic hit, the Indian economy was gasping for air. Estimates for GDP growth in Financial Year 2019-2020 fell from 7% to 5% and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in February triggered an escape clause allowing the government to borrow more than it was otherwise legally permitted. Most worryingly, the government did not seem to have a clear sense of why the numbers were so bad. Even as most commentators pointed to structural problems, Modi supporters insisting it was a cycle that wold turn.

Now India will certainly see a major contraction, by at least 4.5%, in Financial Year 2020-21. Even a quick bounce-back next year will not be enough to put it back on its earlier trajectory, never mind fulfilling the aim of becoming a $5 trillion economy.

The Covid-19 package announced by Modi relied almost entirely on liquidity measures with very little stimulus spending, which is not expected to address the widespread distress, especially as New Delhi has since embarked on an anti-Chinese protectionist effort.

There is talk now of higher fiscal spending later in the year, but the government continues to struggle restart economic activity and to pull in revenue. There is now even less trust that those in charge of the economy have a good handle on what needs to be done to turn the ship around.

Can India afford to deal with China as an adversary? The last few issues of our newsletter have considered this question, following the first fatal conflict between the armies of India and China in more than 40 years. It is one we will undoubtedly return to.

Stronger anti-China sentiment in Delhi may bring with it a closer alliance with the United States, but it will also likely bring hardship to many Indian business owners who had grown used to cheap Chinese goods.

Even as Modi will have to figure out how to deal with the situation on the Line of Actual Control, with or without dramatic visits to Leh, weaning India off of Chinese manufacturing, investment or indeed, entertainment apps may prove to be equally as hard.

Political scientist Suhas Palshikar told us in early May that Modi will get to play saviour while letting the difficult decisions (and the brickbats) go to the states. And indeed, from a political angle it looks likely that a number of chief ministers will face more direct accountability than citizens appear to expect from the prime minister.

Will Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray be seen as the one who was overwhelmed or the one who manage to wrest back control? What does Amit Shahs takeover of Delhis Covid-19 battle mean for Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal? Will Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa still be seen as a saviour now that cases in his state are steadily rising? Has crisis control revived the fortunes of Assams health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma?

The 2015 Bihar election was a massive political event, and would eventually prove that an anti-Modi alliance could win if conditions were favourable. Bihar polls are due again this year, yet despite potentially bigger questions to put to the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies, the elections are already being declared a washout.

The Congress has tried to press Modi, on the Covid-19 crisis, on the migrant worker policy mess, on fuel prices and on China, but seems to have found few takers. Other parties have struggled to maintain a coherent line, not least because of Modis massive dominance of the national security question. Besides, many states will need Central support to just pay their basic commitments, never mind additional expenditure.

As as a result, even if there are enough issues on the table for another party with which to challenge the BJP, the chances of a genuine, national contender continue to remain minimal.

We started this year amidst a national protest movement against the governments Citizenship Act amendments that many see as religiously discriminatory. This was in fact the issue we thought might dominate the first half of the year. For the moment, however, the CAA and its promised follow-up, the National Register of Citizens, have been put on hold.

This, however, hasnt stopped the Centre and the BJP from continuing its efforts to vilify Muslims and divide Indian society on religious lines in pursuit of a pan-Hindu votebank. Early on, the discovery of an Islamic group had flouted guidelines and spread the virus led to a wave of Islamophobic messages amplified by the party and its social media army.

And under the cover of lockdown, the authorities have continued to file cases and jail many of those who have criticised this government. Even if the citizenship initiative takes some time to return to national prominence, there is no doubt that the Centre is continuing to pursue its polarising agenda.

Where Covid-19 may have accelerated pre-existing trends in many cases, the migrant crisis is the exception. It is hard to imagine a scenario that causes millions of Indians to move en masse from urban areas where they migrate seasonally for work to rural areas that they call home.

This huge reverse migration is expected to slowly unwind, as workers return to the parts of the country that have more industrial activity. But the patchy nature of Indias post-lockdown re-opening, efforts by states to employ at least some of the workers at home and a continued awareness that Covid-19 remains a threat at large, mean that not everyone will head back to the cities right away.

The effects of this are potentially far-reaching, from labour shortages and an upending of Modinomics because of a reliance on the rural economy (which we wrote about last week) to a spurt in property disputes and fears of many falling back into poverty.

If India began 2020 in turmoil, it marks the halfway point with despair at a virus that continues to spread, an economy that has fallen off a cliff, a conflict with China that threatens to get worse and a migrant crisis with impacts that cannot be predicted.

Will these be the issues we are discussing at the end of the year? Will some of those that came up at the start of the year return to prominence? Or does 2020 have even more surprises in store?

Tell us what you think. Write to rohan@scroll.in with what has been your takeaway from the first half of 2020 or if you have a suggestion for who we should featuring on our Friday Q&As. Thanks for reading.

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The Political Fix: Teflon Modis unabating popularity and 7 more takeaways from the middle of 2020 - Scroll.in

Standing in solidarity with migrants: Supporting civil society and other stakeholders in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic – World – ReliefWeb

The UN Network on Migration salutes all actors providing vital protection, monitoring, advocacy, information and support to and in collaboration with migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Civil society organizations, migrant and diaspora associations, workers and employers' organizations, national human rights institutions, youth and women-led organizations, local authorities and communities, the private sector and others play a vital role in protecting many of those rendered most vulnerable by the pandemic and responses to it. The Network calls for increased recognition for this work, including through avenues for meaningful participation and greater governmental and financial support.

The challenges many migrants already faced are now exacerbated by responses to COVID-19 that, whether by design or indirectly, lead to discrimination and exclusion. Access to relief measures, government support and national COVID-19 policy responses such as income support and social protection measures have, for many, remained elusive. What has emerged is a picture of a response to a virus that is as unequal in impact as COVID-19 itself, reinforcing patterns of discrimination, alongside heightened racism, xenophobia and intolerance against migrant workers and their families, while also violating their human rights.

As noted by the Secretary-General in his 3 June policy brief on COVID-19 and People on the Move, the exclusion of people on the move is the same reason they are among the most vulnerable to this pandemic today. He further stressed that such exclusion of migrants from policy responses not only undermines their fundamental human rights but also collective public health strategies to control and rollback the pandemic. Inclusion will pay off and is the only way that we can emerge from this crisis and overcome COVID-19.

In the face of these gaps, civil society and other relevant stakeholders have stepped into the breach. They are providing multi-lingual information on COVID-19 adapted to the context migrants are living and working in, hotlines on gender-based violence and harassment, legal services and advice on complaint mechanisms, human rights monitoring, mental health support, training, advocacy and campaign support. They have created solidarity networks and provide support to migrants, including food, water, essential medicine, shelter, personal protective equipment and economic assistance. They have established relief funds for farm workers, domestic workers and others who lost their livelihoods as a result of the pandemic. Workers and employers organizations, including through social dialogue and in coordination with local authorities, are promoting equal treatment, decent work and respect for fundamental principles and rights at work. Civil society organizations and other stakeholders are also facilitating migrants to be included in the planning of policy responses to the pandemic. Concerted action of governments and stakeholders in developing COVID-19 policy responses is key in ensuring that migrants rights and contributions are addressed and fostered.

The UN Network on Migration has actively undertaken a COVID-19 online series of Listening Sessions to hear directly from stakeholders at local, national and global levels providing a platform to exchange information and mutually reinforce responses. Reflections from these individuals and groups on thematic and cross-cutting issues serve as a resource for examples from the ground and recommendations for good practices.

What is clear from these discussions, and other reports, is that in providing this vital assistance, these organizations are acting as a critical safety net when State measures are lacking and where movement restrictions severely limit the ability of others to effectively support migrants. Further, they are performing these roles at the very moment they too face a crisis of capacity brought on both by the scale of the emergency and increasing constraints on their own resources.

The UN Network on Migration calls for greater acknowledgement and support to these actors, particularly for their inclusive participation in planning responses to the pandemic and flexible and fast-tracked funding to civil society organizations and other key stakeholders, to address gaps and needs in response to COVID-19.

Such additional support, however, should complement and not replace the primary obligation for States to provide COVID-19 responses that are non-discriminatory and respect human rights. This must include ensuring access to government relief packages, social protection, healthcare, education and other basic services to all migrants, regardless of status.

The many States and local authorities that have initiated migrant-inclusive COVID-19 responses and support to stakeholders serve as examples of good practices. In a time of dramatically increasing strains on public financing, it is important that all these actors and their work with migrants are acknowledged as essential partners for a truly collective response to COVID-19.

The Network also urges governments to recall their commitments in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), including in their whole-of-society approach. The Network calls on States to also implement these recommendations where they apply to refugees and asylum-seekers and to protect the human rights of all migrants, regardless of status, including the human rights to the highest attainable health of everyone equally.

The Guiding Principles of the GCM recognise that the pursuit of principled migration governance requires the input of all sectors of government and society. Now, more than ever, is the time to ensure that this principle is upheld.

The United Nations established a Network on Migration to support the implementation, follow-up and review of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) as well as ensure effective, timely and coordinated system-wide support to Member States.

In carrying out its mandate, the Network prioritizes the rights and well-being of migrants and their communities of destination, origin, and transit. It places emphasis on those issues where a common UN system approach would add value and from which results and impact can be readily gauged.

Through its Mobility in the Time of Covid-19 briefings1, the Network will continue to support civil society through holding regular Listening Sessions with stakeholders to inform the responses of the UN system, and amplify civil society initiatives including through the use of the GCM.

Media points of contact:

IOMSafa Msehlismsehli@iom.int or media@iom.int

ILOAdam BowersPlanning and Coordination Officer for Communication+41 (0)22 799 63 48newsroom@ilo.org

OHCHRRupert ColvilleSpokesperson / Head of Media. +41 22 917 9767 rcolville@ohchr.org

UNODCMs. Sonya Yee Speechwriter and Spokesperson Office of the Executive DirectorUnited Nations Office on Drugs and Crime sonya.yee@un.org

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Standing in solidarity with migrants: Supporting civil society and other stakeholders in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic - World - ReliefWeb