-Citizens for Justice and Peace and The Wire Data suggests that areas in eastern Uttar Pradesh, especially PM Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi, had 60% excess deaths during the pandemic relative to 2019. The Wire is grateful to Murad Banaji for his help with preparing this report. Data collected and analysed by Citizens for Justice and Peace, a human rights organisation, and independent experts shows deaths in the Purvanchal region of eastern...

-The Hindu Its lustre is fading as there are threats from emerging social and environmental risks, but the question is how Kerala has long been recognised to have done many things right. For years the darling of development experts, non-governmental organisations and social activists, the ‘Kerala Model’ seemed to show that impressive levels of human development indicators — in health, education and quality of life, comparable even to some rich countries —...

-Newsclick.in Major budgetary allocation cuts in crucial schemes for women, children and vulnerable sections are indicative of the government’s lopsided priorities. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget has helped reinforce one home truth -- that India is divided into the salaried section and a vast underbelly, including the middle class who have been edged into poverty due to job losses suffered during the COVID pandemic. Coming out of the pandemic’s ‘third wave’, issues of...

-Newsclick.in Speaking to NewsClick in a telephone interview on Friday, the Rajya Sabha leader lamented that the Centre has “not accepted even a single recommendation” that was made to it by Standing Committee on Labour in its different reports over the Labour Codes. New Delhi: Communist Party of India (Marxist) Rajya Sabha MP Elamaram Kareem on Friday introduced a Private Member’s Bill that seeks to repeal the contentious four Labour Codes which...

-The Hindu Negotiations are at a “critical and sensitive” stage in Geneva, say sources India runs the risk of being excluded from a proposal it co-authored at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, in 2020, to “temporarily waive” intellectual property rights (IPR) held, by primarily Western countries, on vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for covid-19. Geneva Health Files, a Switzerland-based newsletter portal that tracks developments in intellectual property, first reported on Friday that “a...