-The Hindu Council leaves the 5% tax levied on vaccines unchanged. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on Saturday decided to waive the tax levied on two critical drugs against COVID-19 and mucormycosis — tocilizumab and amphotericin B — and reset the tax rate to 5% for 14 major pandemic relief items, till September 30. Non-BJP-ruled States registered a strong dissent, terming the continued imposition of GST on critical COVID supplies and...
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It’s time to protect the poor and the migrants from rising edible oil prices
In his Mann ki Baat address to the nation on 30th May, 2021, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi appreciated the fact that the farmers received "more than the minimum support price (MSP) for mustard" pertaining to the rabi production. One can easily guess from this statement of the PM that the mustard growers in Haryana (and elsewhere) preferred to sell their produce to private traders in the open market instead...
More »Lessons from COVID-19: Need better demand estimation factors to provide housing for all -Rajneesh Sareen and Mitashi Singh
-Down to Earth Physical distancing as well as home quarantining have changed the housing standardisation game; an overhaul is needed India witnessed a mass exodus of migrant workers in April 2020: Nearly 40 million migrant workers were affected by the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), according to the World Bank. Some estimates pegged the figure at 120-140 million. In April 2021, the country had a deja-vu:...
More »Tracking the pandemic’s rural march -Himanshu
-The Hindu States, especially in the north, are facing the brunt of the second wave, made worse by their poor health infrastructure When the first wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic hit the country, the central government imposed the strictest lockdown for almost two months. For most of the migrants stuck in urban areas without incomes, jobs and food to survive, the only escape was to walk back to the rural areas...
More »Second wave wreaking havoc on rural lives. Will it impact rural livelihoods as well?
With the rise in Covid-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths since March this year, media reports (please click here and here) on migrant workers returning back to their native places (i.e. places of origin) from migration destinations (i.e. workplaces likes cities and large industrial towns to where the informal and low skilled workers from the marginalised sections of the society migrate seasonally, and sometimes for a longer duration,...
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