-The Hindu Contrary to expectations, the BJP’s appeal among backward classes and the rural poor has petered out The phrase ‘subaltern Hindutva’ was bandied about quite a lot in academic and journalistic circles during the recently concluded West Bengal Assembly election. Many journalists and scholars covering stories from the field had a common account, that a large section of rural poor, backward classes, Dalits and Adivasis had firmly shifted towards the Bharatiya...

-The Hindu Delhi High Court pushes back, saying that the government should review its resistance at such a time The Central government should review its resistance to exempting the Goods and Services Tax (GST) levied on oxygen concentrators imported for personal use, the Delhi High Court observed on Thursday after the Finance Ministry conveyed its inability to accept the Court’s order issued on Wednesday. Late on Thursday, the Delhi High Court appointed senior...

-The Hindu Workers in rural Kerala are badly hit. Kochi: Shanthi M., a 53-year-old from a family dependent on dairy farming in the Rayamangalam panchayat along the eastern suburbs of Ernakulam district, has dumped down the drain nearly 17 litres of milk daily ever since two members of her family tested positive for COVID-19. There are no takers for milk from an infected household. Nor is the family at liberty to cut...

In the month of April this year, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in daily new cases and daily new deaths in the country due to Covid-19. States, which reported large increases in daily new cases and daily new deaths, are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, to name but a few.   Data accessed from https://www.covid19india.org/, which is a crowdsourced platform and an independent aggregator of daily Covid-19 figures and...

-The Hindu The news will support the increased production of vaccines globally as countries, including India, continue to reel under the impact of the pandemic. The United States will support an initiative at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to waive Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) protection for COVID-19 vaccines, the Biden administration said on Wednesday. The news will support the increased production of vaccines globally as countries, including India, continue to...