-The Hindu Vaccination is important to prevent a second wave Several people have questioned the emergency approval given to the indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine. They have demanded efficacy data and cast aspersions on the regulatory Machinery. Such views will only increase vaccine hesitancy. It is not the case that the vaccine developed indigenously is being pushed by vested interests, while the international vaccines are great. Questions have been raised about the Moderna and...

-The Indian Express Recognition of care work in the public sphere could also help in unsettling the gendered and unequal division of house work and unpaid care burden. COVID-19 has given visibility to Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers — women “volunteers” attached to a government scheme or employed on a mission mode — who are frontline warriors in the battle against the pandemic. In India, there are about a...

-Hindustan Times The anti-CAA protests, the defiance of migrants, and now the farmers’ stir show that the everyday practice of democracy is a powerful corrective in the face of arbitrary and unilateral State decisions Three events defined India’s political landscape in 2020. The protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the migrant labour crisis that unfolded as workers defied lockdown orders and asserted their rights, choosing to walk home in the face...

-The Hindu Long shifts and failure to resolve payment and overtime issues allegedly led to the violence by the workers in an iPhone factory in Narasapura earlier this month. Sharath S. Srivatsa reports on the night of the unrest and the many violations of labour rules by Wistron Anxiety writ large on their faces, Abhishek and Sunil walk into a small playground littered with garbage. Their attentive eyes scan the area to...

-Down to Earth Power supply in villages still uncertain, they say Farmers in Bihar have questioned the state government’s decision December 21, 2020, to end subsidy to them for diesel, which has been around for almost a decade, on the grounds that rural areas of the state are receiving sufficient power. Farmers in the state told this reporter that the reasons given by the government for rescinding the subsidy did not make sense....