-The Hindu Less than 30% government schools had computers: Education Ministry data. In the academic year that ended with school closures due to COVID-19, only 22% of schools in India had Internet facilities, according to Education Ministry data released on Thursday. Among government schools, less than 12% had Internet in 2019-20, while less than 30% had functional computer facilities. This affected the kind of digital education options available to schools during the...

-The Hindu We need to address inequality, and social and gender discrimination, says Poonam Muttreja, Population Foundation of India In the recent past, States like Uttar Pradesh and Assam, and and Union Territories like Lakshadweep, have proposed to implement a two-child norm as a pre-condition for getting government jobs or to get nominated or elected to Panchayat elections. What has been the impact of such policies so far? Jagriti Chandra interviewed executive...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-CBGAIndia.in India’s response to the pandemic has depended heavily on the exploited labour of women workers, most of them from marginalised backgrounds. These are ASHAs or Accredited Social Health Activists, the cadre of frontline health workers that has been mobilised for everything from door-to-door surveys, distributing medicine kits, measuring oxygen saturation, monitoring containment zones and spreading awareness about vaccines. 70,000 such women recently went on strike in Maharashtra demanding higher pay,...

-The Hindu More than 2 lakh such beneficiaries vaccinated so far. The Union Health Ministry has said that ownership of a mobile phone is not a prerequisite for COVID-19 vaccination and production of address proof for availing vaccination is not mandatory. In a release issued on Wednesday, the Ministry said it was also not mandatory to pre-register online on Co-WIN for availing vaccination. “For easy understanding of users, Co-Win is now available in 12...