-The Hindu India raises objections to methodology used by WHO to compute excess deaths “Inaccurate,” is how a scientist, part of a World Health Organisation (WHO) team computing the global death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, described India’s objections to the method used. A forthcoming WHO analysis reportedly computes India’s true toll to be much higher than official estimates. The Union Health Ministry on Saturday, in response to article, “India is Stalling the...

-The Hindu The increase in cases threatens to impact physical classes that resumed on April 1. With the number of COVID-19 cases witnessing an upward trend, students going back to school on April 18 after a four-day weekend will be met with schools enforcing stringent protocols to contain the spread of the virus if there is a breakout. Private schools have been advised to close the entire school or a concerned wing...

-Down to Earth Gujarat, Maharashtra also affected, prices to come down in a fortnight, say experts Lime prices may be burning holes in middle-class pockets, but has that translated into super profits for farmers? Cultivators in Andhra Pradesh, the largest supplier of the citrus, are not exactly a happy lot. Their experience is another case study of how extreme weather can add to farm worries. Lime is cultivated in the state over an area...

-Scroll.in Entrepreneurs from the Scheduled Caste category own 6.8% of these enterprises, while those in the Scheduled Tribe category own just 2.1% of them. People belonging to the general category own 61.8% of all the micro, small and medium enterprises in India, The Hindu reported on Wednesday, citing government data. The Mandal Commission, which looked into the question of Other Backward Class reservation, has defined general category as groups that are “socially and...

-TheWire.in The MoEFCC's recent decision to exclude new-gen GM plants from the ambit of existing biosafety rules endangers our food system, food exports, farmers' rights over their crops and the country's biological heritage for the sake of corporate profits. Christmas came early for Big Biotech companies and their allied seeds multipliers as the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has recently, through an office memorandum, excluded the new generation genetically...