India’s Government Focuses on Internal Migrants, At Last
A new policy framework is the first attempt to systematically address the many issues that plague India’s internal migrant workers.
By
March 06, 2021
A group of daily wage laborers walk to return to their villages as the city comes under lockdown in Prayagraj, India, Monday, March 30, 2020.
Credit: AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh
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As India imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns a year ago, ordering 1.34 billion people to stay at home for months, thousands of migrant workers scrambled to return to their native villages. Walking along highways or railway tracks, or packed like cattle into trucks and vans, their images on TV and in newspapers shook the nation’s collective conscience.