Mahanirban Calcutta Research group

JOURNAL : REFUGEE WATCH, Issue No. 55
 
A South Asian Journal on Forced Migration is a peer-reviewed and refereed flagship journal brought out biannually by the critically recognized Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group in June and December, on a regular basis in both printed and electronic formats. It publishes original research papers that broadly engage with issues of forced displacement and migration, refugees, statelessness, internally displaced people, development related displacement, climate change and demography, borders and border conflicts, citizenship, human rights, peace and conflict resolution, women’s dignity and myriad other themes relevant to democracy. Refugee Watch is being published since 1998 with the ISSN number 2347-405X and an index of the journal is available online.

BURDENS OF AN EPIDEMIC: A POLICY PERSPECTIVE ON COVID-19 AND MIGRANT LABOUR
 
Burdens of an Epidemic: A Policy Perspective on Covid-19 and Migrant Workers comes out close on the heels of Borders of an Epidemic. Borders of an Epidemic was documentary in nature. Burdens of an Epidemic analyses the issue of migrant labour from several dimensions of the epidemic. The purpose of this tract is to present a policy perspective of the contemporary situation and to draw out in the open the policy contexts of the reports published in the earlier book. This perspective on the policy world compels us to face the question: Who bears the burden of the epidemic and epidemic control measures? Who pays – finally in terms of life and livelihood? The question takes us to the heart of the rights framework, namely the issue of justice. The analysis points out how an epidemic control policy seen purely in terms of the mechanism of lock down and other administrative measures becomes deaf to the call for justice. The crisis of Covid-19 raises the question of life to be protected and renewed by a different vision of public health. The issue is one of life itself.

BORDERS OF AN EPIDEMIC: COVID 19 AND MIGRANT WORKERS
 
Migrant workers from different parts of India trekked back hundreds of kilometres carrying their scanty belongings and dragging their hungry and thirsty children in the scorching heat of the plains of India to reach home in the wake of the sudden announcement by the government of a complete lockdown of the country amid the spectre of Corona virus. Yet while scenes of migrant workers walking in long processions caught the attention of the journalists, it still requires to be asked: What lay behind these long marches? How do caste, race, gender, and other fault lines operate in governmental strategies to cope with a virus epidemic? If the fight against an epidemic has been compared with a war, what are the forces of power at play in this war against the pandemic? What indeed explains the sudden visibility of the migrant workers in the time of a public health crisis? What measures could have been taken and need to be taken now? This online publication by Calcutta Research Group highlights the ethical and political implications of the epidemic – particularly for India’s migrant workers. This book is written as the crisis unfolds with no end in sight.

JOURNAL : REFUGEE WATCH, Issue No. 54
 
A South Asian Journal on Forced Migration is a peer-reviewed and refereed flagship journal brought out biannually by the critically recognized Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group in June and December, on a regular basis in both printed and electronic formats. It publishes original research papers that broadly engage with issues of forced displacement and migration, refugees, statelessness, internally displaced people, development related displacement, climate change and demography, borders and border conflicts, citizenship, human rights, peace and conflict resolution, women’s dignity and myriad other themes relevant to democracy. Refugee Watch is being published since 1998 with the ISSN number 2347-405X and an index of the journal is available online.

MEDIA FACTSHEET ON ISSUES OF CITIZENSHIP IN THE NORTHEAST
 
This compendium on National register of Citizens (NRC) seeks to understand the NRC process, along with the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) through a collection of published articles in the media space, both in India and abroad. Much has been written on this issue in the last few years, especially in recent months. We have tried to include articles we thought would bring out the manifold dimensions of the NRC exercise – political, humanitarian, legal, social and much more. If media is the fourth estate and one of the strongest pillars of democracy, it will always be subjected to public glare on how it has covered contentious issues like citizenship and the agitation over proposed changes to the laws that regulate it. This compendium is not only relevant for social scientists looking at the great Indian citizenship controversy or students of media studies on how the media performed its tasks and whether it succeeded or failed to uphold the professional values of free media and those critical to the ethos of India’s post-colonial democracy. It is relevant for the Indian people as a whole because this covers a critical moment in the life of the Republic and because it throws a mirror on the citizenry’s performance in upholding the core values of the Indian polity and the Constitution that holds it together. The debate is far from over.