-The Indian Express Apar Gupta writes: The substance of many of the requirements were never put to public consultation or deliberation by experts. This is particularly the case for the Regulations for online news portals and video streaming platforms. In the polarised environment that we now inhabit, there are few public agreements. One of these rare instances is an agreement that social media is broken. For many commentators, this is an area...

-The Indian Express These rules come even as a Joint Parliamentary Committee is in the final stages of discussion of a privacy Bill that covers aspects such as the role of social media intermediaries and the reach of Big Tech companies, and the privacy accorded to the users on such platforms. The notification of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the Government’s first move to regulate...

-The Hindu The restrictions would have made it impossible for many scientists to participate in online conferences. After a backlash from scientists, the government has withdrawn a controversial order that required scientists and researchers, among others, participating in online, international scientific seminars and conferences, to get prior clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). “In view of the easing of restrictions on travel and assembly of people guidelines issued regarding political clearance...

School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

-The Indian Express Many patients also reported their inability to access public insurance schemes like MPJAY due to lack of co-operation from hospitals, and incurring heavy debt to pay their hospital bills for Covid and other emergency health conditions. Pune: Manisha Palekar from Kolhapur narrated the story of her husband, a public school teacher, who tested positive for Covid-19 and had to be admitted to a private hospital, which charged them Rs...