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 ADR analysis finds 71% of winning candidates in Kerala, 60% in T.N., 49% in Bengal have criminal cases Over half of the newly-elected MLAs of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and West Bengal had declared criminal cases against themselves in their election affidavits, the Association for Democratic Reforms said in a report on Wednesday. The recently-held Assembly elections, which concluded with counting of votes on May 2, led to the election...

-The Hindu While national leaders can provide support, the ground work needs to be done by local leaders with a mass base and sustained presence in local politics Even as the nation battles the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Assembly elections have been completed in four States (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and West Bengal) and one Union Territory (Puducherry). Though citizens and governments came to be exposed to the debilitating impact...

-The Hindu Tamil Nadu tops with inducements worth ₹446.28 crore recovered. The Election Commission on Friday said it had seized cash, liquor, drugs, precious metals and other freebies worth ₹1,001.43 crore meant for distribution to voters in the ongoing Assembly elections. “Seizures crossed ₹1,000 crore for the first time in any Assembly electoral process,” the EC said in a statement. Of the total seizures as on Thursday in Assam, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West...

-The Hindu The revival of the NYAY scheme in Congress’s Kerala manifesto is a welcome step The Nyuntam Aay Yojana (NYAY) has become more relevant since it was first proposed two years back. By resurrecting it in its Kerala manifesto, the Congress has an opportunity to make the idea even more robust. Even the best policy proposals find it hard to survive an unsuccessful election campaign. So, it was unexpected to see a...