Prognosis
A Million Frontline Covid Workers Demand India Boost $40 Pay
- Asha workers step up protests over pay and dismal conditions
- Nation’s vaccination drive at risk as new variant sparks scare
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Dressed in pink, the women have gone door to door for months, persuading people to get Covid-19 vaccines in some of India’s remotest corners, hinterlands and crowded urban slums, often risking their own personal safety.
For their trouble, they make about $40 a month, a wage barely enough to make ends meet. More than a million of these frontline healthcare workers across the country -- pivotal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of inoculating the nation’s entire population and reviving the $2.6 trillion economy -- are soon about to snap.