-The Telegraph  Jon Wakefield picks holes in Narendra Modi Government’s twin claims Jon Wakefield was disappointed. India’s health ministry had issued a statement decrying the methodology adopted by the World Health Organisation to estimate excess deaths worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The exercise indicated 4.7 million excess deaths in India, 9.8 times the country’s official Covid-19 death toll. The ministry statement itself didn’t surprise Wakefield. Five times since July 2021,...

-The Telegraph The economic impact of heatwaves is steep India is feeling the heat in ways other than the rising prices. The ongoing heatwave, in which temperatures have shot above 45 degree Celsius in many parts of northwest and central India, highlights the rising climate risks and their attendant costs. Heatwaves, beginning earlier than in the past, are part of a changing climate whose defining features, in addition to the gradual rise...

-Newsclick.in The Government asked the ineligible individuals to surrender their ration cards by May 20 or face disciplinary actions. Lucknow: The scheme of free ration distribution is believed to have had a tremendous impact on the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) victory in the recently-concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. Buoyed by its victory, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, in the first decision on the second day of his second consecutive term, declared that his...

-Newsclick.in Experts worry that with the Government aggressively promoting a "singular reductionist corporate-controlled silver bullet solution" like fortified rice, a myriad of diverse local and natural solutions will get neglected and even eroded. Synthetic fortification of rice is not proven to be effective and can be toxic to many Indians, according to a report prepared by the Right to Food Campaign. The report was released following a three-day fact-finding visit to Jharkhand...

-The Hindu Business Line Rather than cut fuel prices, encouraging farmers to step up cultivation of oilseeds and raising LPG subsidy and vegetables will ease food inflation  It is true that a reduction in the prices of petro products will result in a modest fall in the prices of various commodities. However, the reduction in petro prices will happen only when both Central and State Governments forgo a substantial portion of the...