-The Telegraph Remember West Bengal, Punjab, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan rejected you, says TMC MP Derek O’Brien The Opposition attacked the government in the Rajya Sabha on Saturday, accusing it of crossing constitutional boundaries, interfering in the affairs of states, failing to control private hospitals during the coronavirus crisis, and being unable to protect migrant labourers and the poor. Participating in a debate on The epidemic Diseases (Amendment) Bill,...

-TheWire.in Prime Minister Modi uses only the visible – the hardware – to claim India is 'better off because of right decisions at the right time', even though the claim isn't even true. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim on July 27 that India “is in a better position than other countries” even as a slew of successive lockdowns fattened the COVID-19 case-load curve instead of flattening it, reflects his tendency to make...

-The Indian Express At 158, India’s police to population ratio (police staff per 1,00,000 citizens) is one of the worst in the world. It lags well behind its neighbours. A quick glance at the daily news from around the country throws up story after story of police misbehaviour, great and small. Videos uploaded day after day confirm this is no rarity — a horrific double murder in Tamil Nadu, grossly depraved behaviour...

-The Hindu Projects in critical forest habitats are being considered or have been given clearance by the Environment Ministry Few countries are witnessing such severe direct and indirect devastation on account of the COVID-19 pandemic as India. Yet, there is little attention on the roots of our vulnerability. Our challenge is hardly limited to escaping a virus with lockdowns and masks in the short term, and vaccination in the long term. It would...

-The Hindu There is a resonance between Saramago’s literary world and the migrant labour distress in contemporary India The novel, Blindness, by Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago, is strikingly prescient about a sweeping illness. The plot revolves around a mysterious epidemic because of which people suddenly turn blind. The thread It starts with a person driving his car who turns blind while waiting at a traffic signal. He pleads to be taken home and...