-Newsclick.in India needs a larger government expenditure on transfers to the working people. For such larger expenditure, resources have to be raised through greatly increased taxation of the rich- a reversal of the perverse fiscal strategy the government has pursued so far. The Indian economy is currently caught in a vicious spiral of inflation, stagnation and a widening of the fiscal deficit. And this spiral is set to become even more vicious...

-The Hindu By closing schools for this long and providing just online education, we have violated children’s rights About three weeks ago, we all wished each other a happy 2022. However, that has remained wishful thinking with the Omicron variant of COVID-19 upending our lives. More than Omicron itself, which is more transmissible than Delta but far milder, the response to the variant in terms of the restrictions that have been imposed...

-The Telegraph The state’s expert advisers assert that the earlier lower counts were not deliberate but the outcome of a lack of clear definition of Covid-19 deaths Bangalore: A paradoxical rise in Kerala’s Covid-19 mortality rate despite a shrinking epidemic ahead of Omicron’s emergence reflects diligent death auditing under political pressure, public demand and good record-keeping lacking in other states, health experts have said. The auditing efforts had till Monday added over 16,900...

-PTI/ News18.com The activists, in the fresh plea, have sought directions to the Centre to file a status report with respect to compliance of the directions given in the judgment delivered in June last year. The Supreme Court Wednesday said it would consider listing for hearing the fresh plea of activists seeking implementation of an earlier order on ensuring food security and other welfare measures for migrant workers who are again in...

-The Telegraph They say the revised testing guidelines that exempt asymptomatic contacts from tests are suited only for Omicron, which is linked to mild disease and rapid spread A mix of narrower targeted Covid-19 testing, home-based self-testing kits and large cities approaching epidemic peaks might explain falling counts of daily new infections nationwide, doctors and health experts said on Tuesday. India’s daily count of new Covid-19 infections fell to around 238,000 for the...