-The Indian Express What is disturbing is that in the middle of the current crisis some are now calling for a massive downsizing of the PDS and a shift to cash transfers in place of foodgrains. The Public Distribution System has played an important role in providing relief to people in the aftermath of the national lockdown. With COVID-19 cases increasing and the economy continuing to be in a downturn, some corrective...

-Livemint.com Sen said the main reason why Kerala has done a good job in tackling Covid-19 is because of the giant strides the state has made in the public education and the health sector Ernakulam: Kerala's Covid-19 mitigation efforts were lauded by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and political philosopher Noam Chomsky, in a state-hosted discussion on the post-coronavirus world, which was aired on Friday. The discussion series, ''Kerala Dialogue'', is an effort to...

-The Indian Express That’s the actual liquidity pumped into rural areas by government post lockdown – through grain procurement, PM-Kisan and MGNREGA wages. There are many parallels one can draw between the novel coronavirus-induced lockdown (gharbandi) and demonetisation (notebandi), in terms of their impact on India’s farm economy. Both resulted in the same thing – demand destruction – albeit through different routes. Notebandi caused a haemorrhaging of liquidity from the predominantly cash-based farm...

-The Hindu Business Line While a cross section of the industry says the chemical has reported no toxic effect so far, planters say they’ve no other option Bengaluru: At a time when the Indian farmers are increasingly relying on weedicides to protect their crop yields and keep costs under control, Bayer’s $10.9-billion settlement with the Roundup plaintiffs in the United States could possibly see the demand for ban on glyphosate gain momentum...

-ThePrint.in The ICMR task force on Covid-19 hasn’t met in over two weeks, while the daily official statement now mentions only good news, not new cases or deaths. New Delhi: The last meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on Covid-19, headed by Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, was held on 9 June. The last health ministry briefing on the coronavirus crisis took place two days later, on 11 June. The...