-The Hindu Without good data, accurate projections are impossible, making it difficult to gauge the true state of the pandemic India, now home to the world’s worst ongoing coronavirus pandemic, is currently reporting nearly a million new cases and 10,000 deaths every three days, according to data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The true extent of the second wave now ravaging India is likely much worse than official...

-Leaflet.in/ Newsclick.in The Supreme Court, in an order released on Sunday evening, directed the Central Government to ensure that the deficit in the supply of oxygen to the national capital is rectified within two days. It also directed the Centre to prepare, in collaboration with the states, a buffer stock of oxygen for emergency purposes and decentralize the location of the emergency stocks. “The emergency stocks shall be created within the next four...

-PTI/ The New Indian Express The mammoth MISmatch has given credence to claims of massive under-reporting of COVID-19 fatalities in the city. BHOPAL: Crematoriums here claim that the last rites of as many as 2557 coronavirus victims from Bhopal district were performed in April, sharply contradicting the BJP-led state government's data which puts the COVID-19 deaths in the district last month at 104. The mammoth MISmatch has given credence to claims of massive...

-Hindustan Times Earlier this week, the ministry released a user manual for online subMISsion of an undertaking on no increase in pollution load due to expansion, on its Parivesh website. The environment ministry has allowed companies operating in several industries, including some polluting ones, to expand capacities on the basis of a self-certification that this will not “increase the pollution load”, creating the room for potential MISdeclaration (and MISuse), especially in light...

-The Hindu The Health Ministry’s guidelines for managing COVID-19 ignore evidence, pricing, cost-effectiveness and social relevance. The Health Ministry released its first COVID-19 management guidelines about a year ago. The initial treatment guidelines included hydroxychloroquine, which led to panic buying of the drug. Little was known in those initial months. In the last one year, multiple studies have proven the lack of efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. While most practitioners have moved away from...