-The Hindu Kerala’s rationale for revising its COVID-19 testing Guidelines could prove counterproductive Even as the World Health Organization has been urging countries that have reported many laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases to become more aggressive in testing, India continues to have among the lowest testing rates in the world. In India, only those people with a travel history to high-risk COVID-19 affected countries or with close contacts to laboratory confirmed COVID-19 cases and...

-The Indian Express Govt has issued Guidelines on home quarantine for people who have been exposed to novel coronavirus. What are these Guidelines, and how is this regime different from being quarantined in an Army facility? In India’s fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID 2019), the Union Health Ministry has issued elaborate Guidelines on how to enforce “home quarantine” for a fortnight. While less stringent than being quarantined in an Army...

-The Telegraph Experts slam Delhi police response New Delhi: Neutrality, prevention, prompt containment, confidence-building, protection of religious places, accountability of officials and prosecution of rioters — the Amit Shah-headed Union home ministry’s Guidelines on tackling communal violence cover it all. But the Delhi police, who report directly to Shah, flouted most of these “Guidelines on Communal Harmony” during last week’s rioting that killed at least 48 people, according to eyewitnesses, security experts including...

-TheWire.in Making crop insurance mandatory for loanee farmers provided an attractive deal for insurance companies. Without this, will the business still be viable? This is the first in a two-part series about the changes made to the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. On February 19, 2020, the Union Cabinet approved major modifications to the two crop insurance schemes, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS). While...

  The Union Budget 2020-21, which was presented by the Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman on 1st February, 2020 has failed to impress civil society activists and farmers' rights groups (click here  and here). Through their press releases and notes, members of CSOs were demanding as well as suggesting the Union Government for hiking the budgetary allocation for schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and Pradhan Mantri...