-The Hindu Council leaves the 5% tax levied on vaccines unchanged. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on Saturday decided to waive the tax levied on two critical drugs against COVID-19 and mucormycosis — tocilizumab and amphotericin B — and reset the tax rate to 5% for 14 major pandemic relief items, till September 30. Non-BJP-ruled States registered a strong dissent, terming the continued imposition of GST on critical COVID supplies and...
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Counting the dead: On measuring excess deaths
-The Hindu Measuring excess deaths is the best possible way to estimate the count of COVID-19 deaths The real time mortality impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is an important statistical measure to guide policy responses. But measuring the actual count is not an easy task. WHO, in January 2021, had estimated, based on excess deaths data in Europe and the American continents, that actual deaths were at least 1.6 times over the...
More »Nobel winner Abhijit Banerjee calls for bigger government cash payments to COVID-hit poor -Paran Balakrishnan
-The Telegraph Poverty research pioneer cites US, UK and EU experience; Niti Aayog vice-chairman disagrees, says there’s no guarantee ‘helicopter money’ will lead to spending Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee has stepped up to the firing line by arguing the government should make bigger direct cash payments under the MGNREGA scheme to help people who have slid into poverty due to the pandemic. The government has already indicated it’s not keen on larger direct...
More »It’s time to protect the poor and the migrants from rising edible oil prices
In his Mann ki Baat address to the nation on 30th May, 2021, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi appreciated the fact that the farmers received "more than the minimum support price (MSP) for mustard" pertaining to the rabi production. One can easily guess from this statement of the PM that the mustard growers in Haryana (and elsewhere) preferred to sell their produce to private traders in the open market instead...
More »Indian family budgets are stretched, they’re borrowing more. Faster vaccination can fix this -Ila Patnaik and Radhika Pandey
-ThePrint.in RBI data shows a sharp increase in households borrowing against gold. Other indicators also show higher borrowing. More credit is fine, but vaccination needs priority. The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown has hit household incomes sharply. Households have survived to a large extent by borrowing. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data shows a sharp increase in households borrowing against gold. In addition to borrowing from the...
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