-ThePrint.in On 15 April, Yogi govt's health bulletin said UP recorded 104 Covid deaths in 24 hrs. But Lucknow alone saw 108 funerals that day, and this is just at crematoriums & not cemeteries. Lucknow: “Humne (kabhie) itni dead bodies to dekhi hi nahin hai… wo ghat par platform Bane hain, woh khali pade rahte the, (par) aaj pair rakhne ki jagah nahin hai, charon aur lashein hi lashein.” Amar Singh, 29, who...

-The Hindu Admitting that annuities now fetch paltry pensions, regulator says investors can withdraw the corpus The National Pension System (NPS) will no longer compel investors to convert 40% of their accumulated retirement corpus into an annuity, as poor yields on annuities and high inflation are translating into negative returns, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) Chairman, Supratim Bandyopadhyay, said on Thursday. The regulator will issue fresh rules to soon allow...

-The Hindu Election Commission also Banned BJP leader Rahul Sinha from campaigning for 48 hours for his statement on the Sitalkuchi firing incident The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday issued a notice to West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh for violating provisions of the Model Code of Conduct and Indian Penal Code for making an “inflammatory statement” threatening the people of Bengal during a public rally in Barangar, North 24 Parganas. The EC...

-Outlook India If talks of lockdown turn into reality and if it gets implemented for a month or more, then a reverse migration of daily wage labourers can be expected from impacted cities, say experts Mixed signals from some of the states like Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka among others is giving rise to concern that a repeat of last year’s exodus of migrant labourers during the extended lockdown would once again impact operations...

-TheThirdPole.net Even if global warming is contained at 1.5 degrees Celsius, deadly heatwaves are likely to become more common in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. On the cusp of spring, residents of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest metropolis, braced themselves for the year’s first heatwave. Mercury levels rose to 44 degrees Celsius on April 3 – the highest temperature recorded in April since 1947 – foreshadowing a brutal summer ahead. As dry heat settled across the...