In the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh which is set to see elections soon, urban youth in the15-29 age range are facing lethal unemployment, with rates above 20% for the past three years

The latest data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy shows that share of families with two working members has fallen drastically. This means people are surviving on much less income

With 7-8% joblessness for the past few years, urban job seekers are helpless and hopeless. An equally alarming trend is the fall of the work participation rate itself in cities and towns

Meanwhile, prices for petrol and diesel have risen by 26% and 31% across the four metros. These hikes are due to the Narendra Modi government’s relentless increasing of the excise duty on petroleum products

In tackling the second wave, India’s Central government led by Narendra Modi has been bumbling and groping for solutions, mostly much delayed and inadequate

In the three months from September 2020 alone, 9 million people lost their jobs. A breakdown of job losses shows that younger people and women have borne the brunt

The right-wing Narendra Modi government used the pandemic and the lockdown to foist more exploitative policies. But the sustained resistance by people has shaken its hubris

These are the latest in a wave of protests against the refusal to increase wages, increasing contractualization of workforce, dilution and dismantling of protective labor laws, price rise and unemployment, and other such policies of the Modi govt.

The pandemic is still raging, with the second highest number of daily cases in the world and an ominous plateauing in the last fortnight, after weeks of fall in cases

The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that the current election cycle will consume some $11 billion, which is way more than any other US election cycle even after adjusting for inflation

The latest data by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy paints a dismal picture of the Indian employment scenario as pre-existing structural issues have been accentuated by the pandemic

A brief timeline of the Narendra Modi Government’s action (and inaction) in India from the time World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 a ‘pandemic’ on March 11