-The Hindu In Madhya Pradesh, COVID-19 health priorities lead to 18.6% drop in institutional deliveries in April. Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh recorded a fall of 18.6% in institutional deliveries in April, the first month of the COVID-19 lockdown, casting a shadow on an improving trend, National Health Mission (NHM) data show. Private and government-run health centres recorded 97,881 births in April 2019, around 18.1% more than the previous year. However, the count dipped to...

-The Hindu The lockdown period saw the state abdicating its responsibilities towards the welfare of pregnant women In a shocking incident earlier this month, a pregnant woman died in an ambulance in Noida after being turned away from a number of private and government hospitals. This raises a chilling question for all of us: if this can happen somewhere so close to the nation’s capital, what is happening in the corners of...

-The Indian Express A meaningful comparison of India with its largest neighbours — Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — is a much better way to understand the spread of the pandemic and assess the effectiveness of responses to contain it. A comparison of India’s situation with its neighbours is much more meaningful than the comparisons regularly put out by the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, where India is almost always...

A recent survey conducted by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) -- a Delhi-based non-profit organisation -- shows how persons with disabilities in the country were disproportionately affected by the COVID–19 crisis. The report by NCPEDP has observed that persons with disabilities, particularly those from economically deprived sections, went through severe hardship during the lockdown. Without sufficient access to food or money, many of them faced hunger...

These days a lot many articles, reports, documents, etc. are appearing in the public domain on Coronavirus infection and related issues. An attempt has been made in the present news alert to put together in one place some of the best articles, reports, blogs, webinars, podcasts, etc., which can be useful for our readers. We have divided the resources under various themes for the convenience of our readers and social media...