-The New Indian Express Kerala continues to report the highest daily death count in the country, with the total toll touching 18,280. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the number of people dying of Covid increasing steadily, serious questions are being raised about the state’s strategy on containment, testing and vaccination. Kerala continues to report the highest daily death count in the country, with the total toll touching 18,280. More than 3,000 people died in the last 28...

The recently released quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data broadly confirms the dip in employment and jobs during the countrywide lockdown period, followed by a certain degree of recovery in the post-lockdown months last year as have been indicated by various survey-based studies and research papers. The quarterly bulletin on PLFS provides data on key employment and unemployment indicators i.e. Unemployment Rate (UR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Labour...

-The Hindu Malappuram, the most densely populated district of Kerala, epitomises the challenges the State faces in controlling the rising number of COVID-19 infections. Abdul Latheef Naha and C. Maya explain how the State, which seemed to have a grip on the pandemic, has been faltering “Two people have died. Please come and pack the bodies,” a nurse tells the cleaning staff who are on a break. Within a few minutes, cleaning...

-HindustanTimes.com Contrary to conventional wisdom, a comparative study of elections since 1980 indicates that verdicts are, if anything, getting less decisive and election wins are becoming narrower Are Indian voters empowering governments with more decisive mandates? This is the emerging wisdom among many experts and observers of Indian politics. For instance, pollster Pradeep Gupta, in his book, How India Votes: And What It Means, has argued that new forms of technology are enabling...

-The Hindu 40% belong to SC/ST communities; 88% of IIT Guwahati dropouts, 76% of IIT Delhi from reserved categories. Almost 63% of the undergraduate dropouts at the top seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) over the last five years are from the reserved categories, according to Education Ministry data given in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha today. Almost 40% were from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities. In...