Lockdown in the wake of coronavirus threat has seriously affected the livelihood options for the migrant workers and daily wage earners. While the government has announced that they will be given free ration, even if they are not linked with local Fair Price Shop part of the Public Distribution System, which is the case with most migrant workers across India including the brick kiln workers in Kanpur and other places, the ground reality is very different. Families with ration cards are discovering that several units from their ration cards have been struck off reducing their quota of ration, those without ration cards are finding it very difficult to get ration cards made and those who are fortunate enough to get ration cards made are being told by the FPS owners that they will start getting their ration only after three months, the period during which 5 kg. free ration is going to be distributed per person. Even after two months of the unprecedented lockdown, there are no arrangements for the benefit of stranded migrant workers in the country. With no means to go back to their respective villages due to the loss of jobs in the informal sectors and no means of earning a livelihood, the migrant workers along with their families, including very young children, have been forced to walk on the highways travelling from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi to their homes in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The Prime Minister had little idea of the impending problems going to be faced by migrant workers when he asked people to stay inside, which started being parrotted by anybody who was somebody and clap from their balconies for frontline workers including of medical profession who were dealing with the emergency situation created due to coronavirus. He asked owners of private enterprises to continue paying salaries during the period of lockdown. That most business persons, who would have participated in the clapping and switching off their lights gesture on a call given by the PM, didn’t pay salaries to their employees is quite obvious from the mass exodus from cities and…