-The Hindu Official secrecy on pandemic policies aggravates a crisis In August 2020, the Modi government constituted the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) as a nodal agency on all matters related to vaccine administration and rollout. Asked under the Right to Information (RTI) Act for details of the NEGVAC’s meetings, the Health Ministry, which anchors the expert group, replied that it does not know where the concerned documents...

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 Indian Express Digital empowerment is the key differentiator. Without that, our MSMEs will not be future ready. A significant major contributor to the India growth story is going to be manufacturing. Manufacturing by small units, cottage units and MSMEs, if effectively facilitated, will be the game changer to accelerate economic growth, employment, income levels and enhance supply chain efficiencies. For MSMEs to be sustainable and effective, the need of the hour...

-The Hindu Draft Model Standing Orders are out New Delhi: The Union Labour and Employment Ministry has sought comments and objections on the draft Model Standing Orders, which are the legally-binding documents that govern service conditions of workers, for the service, manufacturing and mining sectors, a Ministry statement said on Saturday. The Ministry published the drafts on December 31, 2020, inviting comments from stakeholders for 30 days. “Keeping in view the needs of the...

Nearly 24 fatal accidents and 47 serious accidents have happened in various coal mines of the country during this year till 31st August. Likewise, 18 fatal accidents and 13 serious accidents have taken place in non-coal mines during the same time period. The accident figures are low this year in comparison to the previous ones thanks to a lower demand for output from these mines against the backdrop of COVID-19...