Hard Times: After the lockdown, a newspaper vendor in Mumbai is losing clients to online media

In 2019, Scroll.in’s Hard Times series sought to explain and illustrate how India’s slowest economic growth in a decade was affecting ordinary people. This followed reporting by Scroll.in in 2016 and 2017 on the effects that demonetisation had on the lives of Indians around the country.

As the world continues to grapple with the Covid-19 crisis, Hard Times now takes a look at the impact of India’s draconian lockdown on individuals and firms from all corners of the economy. Read all of the pieces in the Lockdown Hard Times series here.

After two months of lockdown in gave way to a gradual re-opening, Rajesh Mule went back to work too. But there is no hope in his heart. Instead, as he leaves the house at dawn every day, carrying within him the weight of dreadful knowledge: This is likely to be the beginning of the end of his business, and there is little he can do about it.

Mule is a newspaper vendor in Mumbai’s Andheri West suburb, where he delivers papers to residents of 15 middle and upper-middle class housing societies. He inherited the business from his father-in-law 20 years ago, and watched it flourish as new print media publications launched and expanded in the city.

Less than a decade ago, he served as many as 700 homes...

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