Informal Sector

Featured Articles
October 17, 2022 While informal groundwater markets cater significantly to the needs of smallholder farmers in India, they continue to be unacknowledged and understudied.
Groundwater, a finite resource (Image Source: TV Manoj via Wikimedia Commons)
December 7, 2020 The new farm related bills will spell doom for women workers who form the bulk of small and marginal sections of Indian agriculture, warns Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch (MAKAAM).
Farm women, overworked and underpaid (Image Source: India Water Portal)
October 21, 2019 In this interview, Joy talks about his work as an activist working in rural Maharashtra, and how he came to work on water conflicts in India.
KJ Joy speaks at a felicitation for the late Professor Ramaswamy Iyer.
September 24, 2019 Policy matters this week
Despite the ban, manual scavenging continues. (Image courtesy: The Hindu)
September 13, 2019 Arecanut farmers in Karnataka are reeling from dipping groundwater levels and infrequent water supply for irrigation. In this article, some solutions are proposed.
Young arecanut trees grown in drylands of Tumkur region (Gubbi Taluk, Hodalur Village) Pic Credit: Chandana Eswar
Covid-19: The road back home
A rapid study highlights the plight of homebound migrant workers of Mirzapur and Prayagraj districts of Uttar Pradesh after Lockdown 1.0 Posted on 29 Apr, 2020 09:30 AM

Raj Kumar, 32, a daily wager employed at a factory in Delhi had barely a thousand rupees in his wallet when he readied to rush back to his village in Halia block of Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh. On a normal April afternoon, he took the highway that leads to his district hearing about the 21-day lockdown.

Millions of migrants rushed to return to their villages amid the lockdown (Image: Pixabay/balouriarajesh. Pixabay licence)
Covid-19: Oxfam India responding with relief in 14 states
Oxfam India along with its partners is striving to broaden its humanitarian relief response to fight coronavirus. Posted on 27 Apr, 2020 12:58 AM

In the last one week of starting its humanitarian relief response to fight coronavirus, Oxfam India along with its partners have provided dry ration to around 40,000 poor people, cooked meals served to nearly 40,000 migrant labourers, distributed 2660 safety kits to frontline workers and reached 4.5 million people through awareness initiatives in India.

Oxfam India is concerned about the impact Covid-19 could have on the most vulnerable communities (Image: Oxfam India)
Covid-19 and water security in India: Magnifying inequities in an unequal world
The "heal as one" narrative is a false one as the poorest are the most vulnerable to the disease. Posted on 25 Apr, 2020 01:44 PM

 

In the absence of piped water access, poor households will find it exceedingly difficult to practice regular handwashing (Image: UNICEF, Flickr Commons)
Vulnerable, in the time of Covid-19!
Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM), Pune has designed a Covid-19 response programme for vulnerable communities. Posted on 21 Apr, 2020 09:30 AM

The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc worldwide and India continues to be in the line of fire. While cases continue to rise, India is also experiencing a crisis of another kind, that of the lockdown affecting the livelihoods of a large number of workers from the informal sector.

Meeting the basic needs of vulnerable communities during Covid-19 (Image Source: SOPPECOM)
Covid-19 leaves women in the line of fire
While the Covid-19 pandemic has affected both men and women from the informal sector differently, gender analysis is missing from India’s Covid-19 response strategy Posted on 19 Apr, 2020 06:30 AM

The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc worldwide and India continues to be in the line of fire. While cases continue to rise, India also is experiencing a crisis of another kind, that of the lockdown affecting the livelihoods of a large number of workers from the informal sector.

Covid treats women differently (Image Source: Simon Williams/ Ekta Parishad via Wikimedia Commons)
Covid-19: Implications for watershed management
Watershed work needs to be stepped up to ensure that the lockdown does not impact the livelihoods of the rural poor. Posted on 16 Apr, 2020 04:47 PM

Over the last four decades, watershed management has emerged as one of the most decentralised, integrated, persisting, innovative and effective programs to enhance natural resources such as water, soil and the vegetative cover as well as to provide means of livelihood to marginalised sections in rural areas.

COVID-19 has adversely affected this year's watershed management work (Image: ILO South Asia-Pacific; Flickr Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Out of the frying pan into the fire
The Covid pandemic has worsened the condition of migrant women farmers, who have been left with no food, water, shelter and means of subsistence while cities have come to a standstill. Posted on 11 Apr, 2020 06:35 PM

While the Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc worldwide, India continues to be in the line of fire. While cases continue to rise, India also is experiencing a crisis of another kind, that of the lockdown affecting the livelihoods of a huge number of farm migrants working in cities.

Farm women, the worse sufferers of the Covid 19 pandemic (Image Source: Seema Kulkarni)
Combating Covid-19 collectively: DHAN’s way
DHAN Foundation has been responding to the crisis, reaching out to the most vulnerable communities. Posted on 10 Apr, 2020 12:21 PM

As the Covid-19 pandemic reaches new corners of the country, the NGO community in India has been preparing itself to respond to the unexpected needs that the crisis is producing. DHAN Foundation, a professional development organisation working in several states of India with the communities has begun to develop a strategy.

Creating awareness about the pandemic as well as about the measures essential to be safe (Image: DHAN Foundation)
Joining the battle against Covid-19
As corona virus 'travels' to rural areas, PRADAN ramps up its response by training tribals and marginalised women. Posted on 02 Apr, 2020 10:48 AM

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared coronavirus disease a pandemic. Originating from Wuhan in China, it has traversed almost the entire globe, and claimed more than 41,000 lives, while over 8 lakh people are infected already. That’s largely the urban population.

Keeping the communities abreast of best practices for a safe and healthy living (Image: PRADAN)
Jal Jeevan Mission: Will piped water to every household no longer be a pipe dream?
There is a need to focus on the “first mile” i.e. communities across rural India to be able to ensure sustainability and scalability for piped water supply. Posted on 14 Mar, 2020 04:26 PM

Millions of Indian women can take up to six trips a day to gather and transport water, which takes up a major part of their day. During scorching summers when many sources dry up, their drudgery gets even worse.

A school boy from Tilonia in semi-arid region of Rajasthan drinks from a tap from a rainwater harvesting tank that provides clean drinking water. (Image: Barefoot photographers of Tilonia)
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