India

On 24 March 2020, the central government declared a nationwide lockdown to deal with the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which caused the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in India. The lockdown, implemented without the necessary social and economic support by the state, represented a harsh ‘tradeoff’ in favour of public health. The country’s already sluggish economy took a massive hit due to the global pandemic and the near complete closure of international and domestic trade of goods and commodities. However, when the government began its unlocking efforts, it relied on incentivising highly environmentally damaging extractive projects to stimulate the economy. This article analyses the environmental and mining sector reforms and the key legal amendments proposed by the government as part of its post-COVID-19 economic recovery plans. The process, timing and content of these legal changes show that the government used the COVID-19 lockdown as an opportunity to push through undemocratic legal changes that would result in more long term environmental and social costs to society.

The current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has led thousands of youth, mostly migrant workers from the Northeast region, to return home facing uncertainties regarding their future in terms of jobs and careers, and their livelihood. Hence, there is a need to engage with them and explore some strategic paths to address this issue and find some directions. For this article, information from 20 returnees from the eight states of the region has been gathered through digital communication. The returnees include those who were working in hotel industry, restaurants, food courts, retails, malls and business processing outsourcing (BPO) firms. This article looks at the challenges faced by these returnees and comes up with some concrete observations and recommendations regarding their possible livelihood activities for the government, including the state governments of the respective Northeast states, for the general public and for non-governmental organisations.