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 Is the government postponing the use of the Rs 35,000-crore allocated for vaccine development in the current Budget? Has it been shy in using its good offices with the US to intercede on behalf of the country’s vaccine manufacturing companies? This time, last year, India was under a lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a televised address during which he issued several messages of caution. He talked...

-NDTV.com A non-profit, Common Cause, had challenged the retrospective change in the appointment of Enforcement Directorate director Sanjay Kumar Mishra New Delhi: The centre, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) will have to reply to a Supreme Court notice over retrospective change in the appointment of ED director Sanjay Kumar Mishra. A non-profit, Common Cause, had challenged the extension of Mr Mishra from two to three years. Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who...

-The Indian Express Threat from coronavirus is real, demands Vigilance. But responses to it are bordering on paranoia. In The Plague, Albert Camus describes the French town of Oran, which is swept by a plague leading to the death of thousands of inhabitants. Camus’s novel is the story of a community struck by a destructive force, to which it refuses to surrender. The outbreak of the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus epidemic and the...

-The Telegraph 'Finance secretary Rajiv Kumar was eventually not chosen, probably because of stiff opposition' A member of the search committee for the chief Vigilance commissioner (CVC) was also an applicant and he was shortlisted, sources have told The Telegraph. The applicant was eventually not chosen, probably because of stiff opposition, the sources added. The search committee constituted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi included cabinet secretary Rajeev Gauba, finance secretary Rajiv Kumar and secretary...