-Hindustan Times Among those who died by suicide, students and small entrepreneurs saw the biggest jump, supporting anecdotal accounts of stress How did the Covid-19 pandemic affect accidental deaths and suicides in India? The 2020 National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report released on October 28 confirms intuitive wisdom on this question. While the number of road accidents and associated deaths fell sharply, suicides saw a large increase. Among those who died by...

-Newslaundry.com India figures on the Global Impunity Index 2021 alongside Somalia, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. On August 8 this year, Chennakesavulu, a journalist with a local news channel EV-5 in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool, was stabbed to death with a screwdriver. He was allegedly killed by a police constable and his brother for exposing the constable’s illegal activities on a show aired on the news channel. The state police ordered an...

-The Hindu States creating artificial demand, says official; workers pushed into ‘forced labour’ by delayed payments, say activists The Centre’s flagship rural employment scheme has run out of funds halfway through the financial year, and supplementary budgetary allocations will not come to the rescue for at least another month when the next Parliamentary session begins. According to its own financial statement, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme shows...

-The Hindu Keen to be parallel repository of data, along with States The Centre has proposed amendments to a 1969 law that will enable it to “maintain the database of registered birth and deaths at the national level”. The database may be used to update the Population Register and the electoral register, and Aadhaar, ration card, passport and driving licence databases, says the proposed amendment to the Registration of Births and Deaths Act...

-Hindustan Times According to the Delhi Police, while the blockades were being removed, there was still no confirmation on when exactly the movement of vehicles may resume. The process of removing blockades put up along the Tikri border on the Delhi side was reportedly underway to resume vehicular movement. The border has remained blocked for almost a year now since farmers launched their protest in the area against three centrally passed agri...