Lack of awareness, lack of availability of non-farm activities, lack of nutritional facilities, inadequate health infrastructure, restricted movement to forest areas, and reliance on herbal medicines are some of the worst conditions that the indigenous population had to face worldwide, during the pandemic. Around 10.45 crore (10.45 million) indigenous population that resides in India are at stake because of economic inequality and social stigma. Lack of developmental measures in India has always led the tribal population to dwell at the margins without proper resources of economic sustenance. The announcements of lockdown and proposals for industrial projects approved during the lockdown period further aggravated their conditions. With the help of secondary data, news reports, and international agency reports, the article tries to critically review the conditions of the tribal population in India, the measures taken by the government, and the role of local organizations in helping tribal people to sustain the pandemic.

Rural employment generation was initiated in India through the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005 and related NREGS schemes, to provide better social and food security to socially and economically depressed rural workers. By now, the implementation of this scheme is known to be not equally satisfactory throughout India, with significant variations in different states and localities. This article, based on intensive fieldwork over 1 year in remote villages of Deogarh and Bhim blocks of Rajasamand district, explores the functioning of the scheme in rural Rajasthan. It identifies three important roadblocks to effective NREGA implementation and analyses their impact: persistence of caste-based inequalities and social interactions among different groups of rural people, differential occupational interests of potential workers and lack of initiative of the respective panchayats.

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