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Pandemic Triggers Reverse Migration from India Cities to Villages

Anjana Pasricha

   NEW DELHI - Rearing cows is not the kind of work Rapani Bhatt was
   accustomed to doing -- like many young people in his village in
   northern India, he quit the traditional occupation of farming to work
   in a city.

   His life took a complete U-turn during the COVID-19 pandemic, though,
   when he lost his job at a call center in the city of Chandigarh. After
   returning to his village in Chamba Valley in the Himalayan state of
   Himachal Pradesh, he built a cattle shed, hoping dairy farming would
   yield a decent income.

   "I am looking on it as a business opportunity because everything is
   shut in the city due to coronavirus. And we feel much safer at home,"
   he said, glancing at the widely separated houses and farms on the
   mountain slopes, where the virus is still not a threat.

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