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...

-Newslaundry.com The Standing Committee on Health highlighted shortages of medical oxygen and hospital beds. The government seems to have ignored its report. As the second wave of the pandemic rips through the country, the public is asking two big questions. How prepared was the government? Did it anticipate a crisis of this magnitude to hit India? Turns out, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare produced a report in which it...

-The Hindu Glaring gaps in faculty reservations at central educational institutions More than half of the faculty positions reserved for OBCs in central institutions of higher education are vacant, while about 40% of those reserved for Scheduled Castes and Tribes also remain unfilled, Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank told Lok Sabha on Monday in a written response to a question from three Congress MPs. The situation is particularly acute in the elite Indian...

-The Hindu Its analysis says recontesting MLAs’, MPs’ assets went up by 39% An analysis of MLAs who switched parties and recontested elections from 2016 to 2020 has found that the BJP was the biggest gainer, while the Congress accounted for the most MLAs who quit to join another party. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report released on Thursday analysed the election affidavits of 443 MLAs and MPs who switched parties and...

-The Indian Express Party chief J P Nadda and Home Minister Amit Shah met MPs, MLAs and district leaders against the backdrop of a string of mahapanchayats by protesting farm leaders in the sugar belt. WARY over the farmer agitation spreading across the Jat belt, the BJP top brass Tuesday held talks with party leaders from Haryana, Rajasthan and Western Uttar Pradesh, resuming their attempts to find ways to end the stalemate. Party...