-The Indian Express A meaningful comparison of India with its largest neighbours — Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — is a much better way to understand the spread of the pandemic and assess the effectiveness of responses to contain it. A comparison of India’s situation with its neighbours is much more meaningful than the comparisons regularly put out by the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, where India is almost always...

-The Hindu A huge challenge is likely to emerge when the swarms flying over 20 districts in Rajasthan start breeding. Jaipur: The threat of locusts, which have invaded vast swathes of land in Rajasthan and entered neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, is bigger this year in comparison with the damage caused to standing crops in a limited area in 2019. The tropical grasshoppers have been crossing over to India via Pakistan’s Sindh province since...

-Hindustan Times After crossing Pakistan, swarms of locusts entered India through Rajasthan on April 11. On Monday, locusts entered some residential areas of the Jaipur city. More parts of India are under locust attack now. The migratory pests have invaded eastern Maharashtra where four to five villages have come under attack from the locusts. The locusts are known for feasting on all sorts of plants and standing crops. The district and agriculture department personnel...

-Down to Earth Attacks by desert locusts are threatening India, Iran and Pakistan, as well as the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region Desert locusts are breeding 400 times than usual due to favourable climatic conditions, according to a report by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). This explosive multiplication may spell disaster for large parts of Asia and Africa. Favourable climatic conditions for the pests have resulted in their multiplication,...

-TheWire.in India implemented a lockdown 14 days after it recorded 50 cases. The relatively higher number of cases recorded in India may partly be the result of the government losing two precious weeks before implementing any serious physical distancing measures. In part one of this three-part series, we presented a picture of the spread of COVID-19 in four South Asian countries. In the second part, we discuss two issues: How prepared –...