-Hindustan Times Those sympathetic to the establishment argue that had it not been for the second wave, the economy would have been in a much better shape. Those who disagree claim that even the sequential recovery which was achieved was profit-led and inequality-generating in nature On June 28, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an economic package to deal with the adverse effects of the second wave of the pandemic. The contours of...

-The Hindu Pratichi Trust report highlights the massive impact on the teaching-learning process About 40% primary school students could not attend online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic owing to the digital divide, a report published by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s Pratichi (India) Trust found. The study was compiled on the basis of experiences shared by hundreds of teachers across 21 State-run primary schools in Kolkata. The 72-page report highlights the issues faced by...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-CBGAIndia.in India’s response to the pandemic has depended heavily on the exploited labour of women workers, most of them from marginalised backgrounds. These are ASHAs or Accredited Social Health Activists, the cadre of frontline health workers that has been mobilised for everything from door-to-door surveys, distributing medicine kits, measuring oxygen saturation, monitoring containment zones and spreading awareness about vaccines. 70,000 such women recently went on strike in Maharashtra demanding higher pay,...

-Firstpost.com For many deafblind people, their paths and lived experiences are steeped in inaccessibility and hurdles — worsening in the times of COVID-19. What is normal, anyway? In this monthly column, Srinidhi Raghavan explores the understanding of bodies-minds and navigating spaces as disabled, chronically ill and sick people. Read more from the series here. For many of us in society, we often see disabled people as either ‘helpless’ or ‘inspirational’. For the longest...