-The Hindu Technological changes in education and health are worsening inequities Virginia Eubanks’ widely acclaimed book, Automating Inequality, alerted us to the ways that automated decision-making tools exacerbated inequalities, especially by raising the barrier for people to receive services they are entitled to. The novel coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of digital technologies in India, even for essential services such as health and education, where access to them might be poor. Economic...

In the month of April this year, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in daily new cases and daily new deaths in the country due to Covid-19. States, which reported large increases in daily new cases and daily new deaths, are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, to name but a few.   Data accessed from https://www.covid19india.org/, which is a crowdsourced platform and an independent aggregator of daily Covid-19 figures and...

-Outlook India Justice Madan B Lokur cited a recent incident in UP involving a man who tweeted for help-seeking oxygen for his 88-year-old grandfather and the Amethi police booked him. Former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B Lokur on Friday said that sedition cases against people seeking help during the pandemic, and blocking of news and social media channels reporting failure of authorities, is curtailment of freedom of speech and expression. Speaking at...

-The Telegraph The Centre had last November announced a Rs 900-crore project but none of this money went to either Covishield or Covaxin India’s shortage of Covid-19 vaccines that precludes immediate inoculation for all adults is rooted in the Narendra Modi government’s lack of funding for key vaccines under development and evaluation, experts have said. The experts, who have tracked global vaccine efforts, said the Indian government’s lack of investments contrasted with the...

-TheWire.in A number of indicators have shown that India is still reeling under the adverse impact of lockdowns and job losses necessitated by the pandemic. Any cut in food subsidies will push millions into starvation. On February 28, 2021, it was widely reported that Niti Aayog put out a paper arguing for lowering coverage in food security law in order to cut the subsidy bill. The paper prescribes curtailment of food subsidy...