-The Telegraph If the estimates are correct, it would become the country with the highest death toll, well ahead of around 800,000 deaths so far in the US and 600,000 in Brazil India’s Covid-19 mortality is six to eight times higher than official counts, research released on Wednesday has estimated, reinforcing through a novel methodology earlier suggestions that undercounting had masked the true ferocity of the second wave. The Study has estimated that...

-Down to Earth The state is considering rolling out its own insurance programme for farmers Maharashtra may follow several other big states and opt out Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), the Narendra Modi government’s much-vaunted crop insurance scheme. India’s second-most populous state may replace the central scheme with its own — a step already adopted by states like West Bengal. Farmer groups have already flagged irregularities in PMFBY at a February 1,...

-TheWire.in The budget for the scheme – which reduced from Rs 3 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 2 lakh in 2020-21 – reflected this decline in students availing of the scholarship. New Delhi: The number of students from minority communities availing the pre-matric scholarship scheme in Uttarakhand dropped by over 100 times between 2017-18 and 2020-21, revealed an RTI filed by the Times of India. The scheme, which is run by the minority...

-Leaflet.in/ Newsclick.in In light of the recent PIL filed before the Supreme Court demanding social security for gig/platform workers, it is critical to pay attention to how the recent labor codes, which are paraded as being progressive, are a mere lip service to social security, including for gig/platform workers, writes Namrata. In September last year, the Indian Federation of App Based Transport Workers [IFAT], a workers’ organisation consisting largely of gig transport...

-TheWire.in A bench comprising Justices M.R. Shah and B.V. Nagarathna said that state governments cannot say that fraudulent claims are being made by families of COVID-19 victims. New Delhi: The Supreme Court highlighted that official statistics on COVID-19 deaths, released by states, were “not true” and directed state governments to pay compensation to relatives of deceased people who have applied without rejecting the claims on technical grounds. “Official statistics are not true on...