-Newsclick.in Modi government has been mercilessly hiking up taxes on petrol and diesel to take money from the people and boost its resources. Since the prices of petroleum products were deregulated some years back and supposedly “linked” to markets, the central government has weaponised this to simply impose an indirect tax burden on the people. Take the four big metros: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. On an average, petrol prices have increased from...
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Excess deaths in Hyderabad are 10 times the official COVID-19 toll for Telangana -Srinivasan Ramani and Vignesh Radhakrishnan
-The Hindu Figures corroborate Telangana High Court’s concerns with drastic undercounting of COVID deaths. Hyderabad: The number of “excess deaths” registered in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) ever since COVID-19 hit (from April 2020 to May 2021), is over 10 times the officially recorded figure of 3,275 deaths for the corresponding period in the entire State of Telangana. There were an estimated 32,752 “excess deaths” — 18,420 between April and December...
More »Counting the dead: On measuring excess deaths
-The Hindu Measuring excess deaths is the best possible way to estimate the count of COVID-19 deaths The real time mortality impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is an important statistical measure to guide policy responses. But measuring the actual count is not an easy task. WHO, in January 2021, had estimated, based on excess deaths data in Europe and the American continents, that actual deaths were at least 1.6 times over the...
More »Eminent individuals oppose the appointment of Justice Arun Mishra as Chairperson of NHRC
-Press release by People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) dated 2nd June, 2021 We, the members of various Human Rights Organisations and Concerned individuals, condemn the appointment of former SC Judge, Shri Arun Kumar Mishra, as the next Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India by the selection Committee headed by the Prime Minister. What is troubling is that the decision to appoint Justice Arun Kumar Mishra as NHRC...
More »Sundarban Farmers Need a Rice Variety That Is Salt-Tolerant But Also Marketable -Snigdhendu Bhattacharya
-TheWire.in The increasing frequency of cyclones means growing high-yielding varieties – which do not grow well on saline soil – is no longer an option. Kolkata: Cyclone Aila of 2009 had triggered a wave of migration from the Sundarbans region, after the storm surges associated with the cyclone inundated thousands of acres of land with saline water from the rivers and the seas and left them uncultivable for years to come. It...
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