-Scroll.in During the coronavirus pandemic, India needs a free press more than ever. These intimidation tactics do not help. Publishing news based on information from credible, unidentified sources is a global journalistic practice. This allows critical facts to surface even if sourcexsce afraid of repercussions. In India, though, the government is creating an atmosphere in which journalists will be afraid of publishing such material. On Sunday, the Delhi Police summoned an Indian Express...

-TheWire.in India implemented a lockdown 14 days after it recorded 50 cases. The relatively higher number of cases recorded in India may partly be the result of the government losing two precious weeks before implementing any serious physical distancing measures. In part one of this three-part series, we presented a picture of the spread of COVID-19 in four South Asian countries. In the second part, we discuss two issues: How prepared –...

-The Hindu Kerala and Karnataka have shown how democratic decentralisation has worked in their favour Mahatma Gandhi envisioned that a free India would rest on a foundation of gram panchayats, village republics that governed locally and epitomised Swaraj in practice. B.R. Ambedkar was sceptical; he described the caste-ridden, unequal village society as a cesspool. Yet, he was not unequivocally against decentralisation. Locally relevant initiatives The 73rd Constitutional Amendment mandates the constitution of panchayats at...

-The Indian Express Cash is easy to carry and widely accepted. But, our analysis of nationally representative survey data, described below, suggests that these transfers will exclude many of India’s poorest and, for others, come too late. The vast majority of India’s poor rely on daily wage labour for sustenance. With the current lockdown and its likely extension, millions of daily labourers and their families can no longer earn the money they...

-The Hindu Administration denies allegations, says there is an audit panel of doctors that probes and reports every death The total number of COVID-19-related deaths in the city reported by the Delhi government is less than the number of deaths reported by just two city hospitals. While the government’s statement says 68 virus-related deaths have occurred in the Capital till Friday, the number of such deaths in just two city hospitals that The...