-The Hindu With better governance, northern States can bring their health systems on a par with southern States In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been vociferous demands to strengthen the country’s public health system. Many erudite articles have stressed the need to revamp the system quickly so that we are better prepared to handle such emergencies in the future. Once the present crisis is over, however, public health will...

Large dams that cause environmental degradation and large-scale displacement, among other things, have been opposed in India by civil society organisations (CSOs), such as Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), National Alliance of People's Movement (NAPM) and People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). A recently published study by the United Nations University's Canada-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health along with other partner organisations reveals that tens of thousands of existing large...

-The Hindu States such as Kerala, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat had the highest access to the bare necessities while it was the lowest in Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Tripura. poorer States have reduced the gap with rich States when it comes to in providing their citizens with access to the basics of daily life — housing, water, power, sanitation, cooking gas — according to a new ‘Bare Necessities Index’ (BNI) in...

-The Indian Express Although there has been a lot of public discussion on digital modes of education for school children, online and video classes catered largely to urban or educated elite populations whose children went to private schools. In India, school closures post the spread of the pandemic started as early as March 2020. As months went by, concerns increased: Would learning levels drop, existing inequalities deepen? The Annual Status of Education...

-The Indian Express An Oxfam report, titled ‘The Inequality Virus’, has found that as the pandemic stalled the economy, forcing millions of poor Indians out of jobs, the richest billionaires in India increased their wealth by 35 per cent. A new report by Oxfam has found that the Covid pandemic deeply exacerbated existing inequalities in India and around the world. The report, titled ‘The Inequality Virus’, has found that as the pandemic stalled...