JOIN USThe Supreme Court takes notice of the migrant crisis, Karnataka reports 115 new cases and Amulya speaks to Maitreyi Krishnan from AICCTU about the suspension of several labour laws.
The daily update with Suraksha Pinnu.
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Hello. This the daily Covid update from Deccan Herald.
On the bulletin today:
The Supreme Court takes notice of the plight of the migrant workers...Karnataka reports 115 new cases…And later in the bulletin, we speak to Maitreyi Krishnan from AICCTU about the suspension of several labour laws during the pandemic and its impact on India’s labour force.
But first, a look at the daily figures...
At the time of this recording, India has over 87,000 active cases in the country and has recorded over 4500 deaths. Numbers from high caseload states like Maharashtra and gujarat are awaited. Delhi which usually releases its numbers in the morning, is yet to make them public.
The ICMR has tested more than 33 lakh samples for the novel coronavirus so far and more than 1 lakh samples in the last 24 hours.
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The Supreme Court has finally cracked the whip against the lapses in the arrangements made for travel and food for migrant workers, two months after the Lockdown was announced.
It has directed the state governments to provide food to the stranded labourers, till the time that they return to their native places.
It has also directed that migrant workers will not be charged fares on either buses or trains.
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As India prepares to enter Lockdown 5.0, it is now among the top 10 nations with Covid spread.
The next phase of the lockdown is likely to see an emphasis on micro planning. The District Magistrates and Municipal Commissioners from 13 cities that have a high caseload, have been asked to define geographical zones after mapping cases and ramping up tests.
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Moving on to the numbers from Karnataka…
115 new cases were reported from the state today of which 96 cases have an interstate travel history. Bengaluru Urban has reported cases from the UAE and Qatar.
The source of transmission for 6 new cases in Hassan is unknown and is being investigated.
Raichur and Bengaluru have reported one case each with SARI.
The other cases are contacts of previously diagnosed patients.
Udupi has reported 29 cases today, the highest in the state. 26 of these are those who have returned from Maharashtra, 2 have returned from Telangana and 1 from Kerala.
All of Dakshina Kannada’s 24 new cases and 12 from Bidar, are among those who have returned from Maharashtra. The state has not reported any deaths in the last 24 hours.
Karnataka has recorded 2,533 cases of the novel coronavirus this year, and has successfully treated 834 patients. The state currently has 1,650 active cases of which 13 are in the ICU.
47 people have died to the virus, while 2 have committed suicide after testing positive and have not been added to the state’s death tally. The state has tested 10,470 samples in the last 24 hours.
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An epidemiological analysis of Karnataka's cases suggests that each Covid-19 patient in Karnataka now infects less than one person now. An advisory team has found that the ‘Ro’ - which is a metric used to describe the contagiousness of infectious agents - has decreased from 1.5 to 0.85 from March 28th to May 27th.
The value of the Ro is key to understanding the spread of infection. According to Dr Giridhar Babu, if the Ro is above one, each patient is expected to infect one other person, if it is less than one, further spread is less likely. The team has also found that the doubling time of infection has increased from 9 days to 17 days in the state.
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Karnataka has once again made changes to the quarantine procedures for international travellers.
According to the new guidelines, once a traveller completes 7 days in institutional quarantine, he is not required to undergo a mandatory Covid-19 test, if he is found to be asymptomatic, and if the thermal screening and pulse oximetry are normal. If the medical check up is found normal, the traveler can be released to home quarantine.
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The Karnataka government has temporarily suspended flights from five states - Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan due to a high case load from these states.
Additionally, restrictions on arrival by roads from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, will also continue until further orders.
The government will relax travel norms once the batch of returnees from these states leave mandatory quarantine for their homes.
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Moving on, the lockdown has had a disastrous impact on the Indian economy and has wiped out the livelihoods of many. Several states have recently suspended key labour laws, in an attempt to re-start the economy. Several Indian trade unions have petitioned the International Labour Organisation. In our series of conversations looking at the post-Covid word, my colleague Amulya spoke to Maitryi Krishnan from AICCTU, about the impact of these decisions on a labour force that is already among those who are the worst-hit.
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(What is the impact that these suspension of laws are going to have on labourers?
Let’s just take one thing: if we take the idea of increasing work hours, something that’s everybody is saying - that we need to have increased working hours - right now we have 8 hour work day, we need to have 10 or 12 hour work day. The whole idea is how do you understand a worker. What is gonna happen by this? A worker is reduced to the work he does. It is as if he has no personality outside of that. He has no life outside of that. He has no family - he has nothing outside what he can produce for you. And that is what you’re reducing the worker to. Two, what it does is that it makes the employer a dictator in the work place, which is not what the constitution envisages. Three, these kinds of things are going to increase unemployment, and four, it is going to increase number of people in the unorganised sector, which means there are going to be more people without savings, more people without social security, more vulnerable people who are there, as opposed to people with some social security.
When we are dealing with a crisis like coronavirus, why labour laws are being pushed at this point in time?
That’s the question we really must be asking. What we have seen in last month-and-a-half and two months, the conditions of workers is very vulnerable. People have been put in such a difficult state now - they have not been paid wages, several of them have lost jobs, and if we really try and understand, why is it that workers were in this state in the first place, we will actually see, the reason that this happened, was because your labour laws were not strong enough. Because your labour laws were not implemented, enforced enough. So for example, we have seen- we have been hearing about migrant workers not having food to eat, walking back home, because they don’t have money for trains and their lives have been completely destroyed over last two months. Why did that take place? It took place because you did not give them any social security, because the policies of the state pushed them into unorganised sector, pushed them into a place where you have no social security, no savings. The interstate migrant workers act which is meant to protect their rights is the least implemented law. Any right thinking government, any right thinking person would see the need of the day is actually to strengthen these labour laws.
In the new lockdown 4.0 notification, the employers are no longer obligated to pay wages to employees? Can they really do that?
There are two parts to this, I would like to say. The first is the payment due during the first lockdown itself. From March 24th to May 17th or 18th - the payment for that period. There was an order that was issued,by the Minsitry of Home Affairs, saying that you must make payment. And that order, even though it was there, it was never enforced. So we know that lakhs and lakhs of people have not been paid those wages and the government has done nothing to enforce it, nothing to implement it. Instead what they have done is the management lobby has managed to convince them that from 18 onwards, when the new lockdown notification, like you said, came about, that clause is not there. It doesn’t mandate. But, the existing laws in force themselves require that the wages have to be paid. So it’s not like - I don’t go to duty, the govt. doesn’t allow me to go - I can’t be blamed for it. If I don’t go because I don’t want to go, then that’s a different matter. But, if the govt. Says you can’t go to work, and then I don’t go to work, how can I be denied wages? And the payment of wages act, the industrial disputes act, all mandate that wages have to be paid. Even for this period. Even for the lockdown 4.0 as well, wages will have to be paid, under existing law. The whole question is whether govt. Is interested in enforcing and implementing its own orders and its own laws that protect workers or is it not interested in implementing. That’s the question. So legally yes we are entitled.
How is labour (rights) going to look like in a post-covid world?
Going forward, it all depends on how states decide to frame policy. Whether the states are going to take the sides, saying that they will protect workers or whether they are going to say they will protect big businesses and allow exploitation of workers. So, the future as we look forward, is about whose side the government is going to stand on.)
That's all from us today. For the latest updates, log on to deccanherald.com. Stay safe and we’ll see you tomorrow.