-Hindustan Times The Centre and states are at war, but India urgently needs a coordinated response. It’s not too late. But soon it will be In an influential paper published over a decade ago, the economist Lant Pritchett described India as a “flailing State” — in which the head, that is the elite institutions at the national level (and, in some cases, state level) remained sound and functional but was no longer...

-The Telegraph The government and its health administrators have bungled the roll out of the Covid vaccine but it's the citizenry that will have to play a huge role in controlling the second killer wave This fight against Covid-19 is admittedly the most unprecedented and unpredictable battle that the human race has ever fought against a common enemy; it is not only invisible but also frustratingly elusive. That is why the strategy...

-The Hindu The second wave has amplified the issue of rent which does not draw much attention as food and income support do As State governments have begun implementing weekend curfews and lockdown-like conditions amid the second wave of COVID, there is another issue that is emerging — rent crises within informal rental housing markets. For example, domestic workers in Jaipur, Rajasthan, have begun reporting to the Rajasthan Mahila Kamgar Union (RMKU)...

-The Hindu Current price negotiated through bulk orders may not be replicable: Finance Secy The first lot of vaccines were procured by the Centre using PM CARES funds at a higher rate than the subsequent rounds paid for by budgetary allocations, The Hindu has learnt from the response to a Right to Information request by a transparency activist. The Health Ministry response said that the initial 5.6 crore doses of Covishield were bought...

India is facing a second and worse wave of Covid-19 pandemic. At this time, the country requires journalism to tell the stories of courage, of loss and grief, of the state of preparedness and about the efforts being made by communities, individuals, civil society and government. Journalists are needed to document with rigour the gaps and lacunae in governance when it appears. At the same time, journalists need to be vigilant about...