Gautam Bachute works for the Marathi daily Pudhari. He gets a 16 percent commission per ad.
âCan I meet you in the evening?â Mahadev Kale, 45, a journalist with the Marathi paper
Dainik
Loknayak in Maharashtraâs Beed district, replied when we asked to speak with him one early June morning. âI am out at the farm with my goats.â
Herding goats is Mahadevâs âside jobâ. He takes out his flock in the morning and gathers news from Beedâs Kaij taluka through the day, thatâs how he provides for his wife and three daughters aged 18, 15 and 13. Or did, until a year and half ago when the pandemic hit and his irregular income from the reporting job almost dried up. His precarious situation has only worsened this year: since Beed was locked down on March 24 to contain the spiralling pandemic, he has not been able to sell any of his 12 goats.
A report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has revealed that rural districts accounted for 52 per cent of all Covid-19 deaths and 53 per cent of all new cases recorded in the country in May of this year.
As Covid-19 strikes rural southern Rajasthan, a shortage of medical staff hampers battle
In addition, inadequate testing and infrastructure treatment is a problem. A healthworker in southern Rajasthan. | Basic HealthCare Services
Since March, a second Covid-19 wave, driven by a more infectious variant of the coronavirus, has led to an unprecedented crisis in India. With over 25 million cases and over 2.78 lakh reported deaths, India’s healthcare infrastructure is proving inadequate. Medical personnel are overworked and overwhelmed, medicines and oxygen cylinders are scarce, crematoriums and cemeteries have been running out of space for funerals.
While urban India struggles, another worrying development has begun to unfold: Covid-19 has now spread in rural areas.