-The Hindu Mortality estimates, not officially reported deaths, have the potential to strengthen the pandemic response In India, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, around 85% of all deaths were registered and only one-fourth of the registered deaths were medically certified for the causes of death. There have been wide variations among States and within them, in rural and urban areas. Understanding the causes of death is essential for health sector planning and...

-Livemint.com As of 31 March, the total outstanding term deposits with banks in rural India contracted by 1.05% to ₹6.99 trillion from a year earlier Every three months, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) declares region wise data for term deposits. As of 31 March, the total term deposits of commercial banks in India rose 8.42% to ₹86.4 trillion from a year earlier. Term deposits are money that depositors keep in a bank...

-IndiaSpend.com The government has said that the economic impact from the second Covid-19 wave will be less than that of the first. But economists point to signs of a growing rural economic crisis, and call for urgent relief measures to ward off long-term damage. Siolim, Goa: Ramesh Ram, 31, is listed as a textile industry staff worker in the administration's database of migrant workers in south west Bihar's Kaimur district. But for...

-The Hindu The court quoted from a National Statistics Office survey of 2018 which said that around four per cent of the rural households and 23% of the urban households possessed a computer Taking a dig at the Centre’s argument that the poor and marginalised can lean on friends to register online for vaccination, the Supreme Court has said even the digitally literate are finding it hard to get vaccine slots on...

-The Hindu In the U.S., India and Brazil, messianic populism, polarisation and insularity have made the pandemic that much worse A year and counting into the greatest health crisis the world has faced in over a century we can identify one overwhelming factor that separates the countries that have done relatively well from those that have been complete disasters:Autocrcy elected autocrats. By any measure the most dismal performers in the democratic world...