Reform for the next generation

The dire outlook for an economy that was languishing before the pandemic suggests that India can no longer rely on business-as-normal paradigms

Kanika Datta 

Kanika Datta

One of the striking points about the crowds of migrant labourers making the long trek home, thronging bus terminals and crowding the Bandra suburban station in Mumbai and in Surat, Gujarat, is their relative youth.

Forcibly idled, and out of home in contrast to their working-from-home middle class counterparts, they are the biggest non-medical victims of the pandemic even though they fall within the infection's low-risk age cohort. Ironically, their future depends heavily on the owners and managers of big capital and the policy-makers who fall squarely within the high-risk age ...

First Published: Thu, April 16 2020. 01:47 IST