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Future Uncertain: At the Time of Covid 19
Dilip Banerjee
The Corona Virus that hit the world at the fag end of 2019 as a health issue in Wuhan China turned into a full-blown pandemic by January 2020, the beginning of a new decade. A year that will be etched in history as one which made humanity rethink. More than 120 countries across the world have been affected by this virus which has taken a toll of millions of lives across the world. It has spared no one, and has spread like a wild fire across nations, touching and disrupting human lives. What started as a health problem very quickly transformed into an economic one which is now a global humanitarian challenge.
India's story is far more poignant as while we have managed to keep fatalities low thanks to the strictest lockdown in the world, people are now dying due to starvation and loss of livelihoods. According to CMIE data, we have lost 120 million jobs/livelihoods over the last few weeks of the total workforce of 406 million. About 60 million of the workforces are contract labourers who work in our cities building our homes, or roads and bridges for our cars to ply on.
Today these very men and women have been uprooted from their shelters, their lives torn apart, with no certainty of their future.
These pictures are a snap shot of the people (mainly children and mothers) who are stranded waiting and trying to make their way back to the villages.
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