-Countercurrents.org More than half of rural households in India are landless, or almost so. This deprives them of the most obvious asset needed for sustainable livelihoods and food security in villages–farmland. After  agriculture the next most important source of rural livelihood in India is dairy farming but here too the household with farmland has free access to crop residues which is increasingly not available to landless households who  have to incur extra...

-The Indian Express Maharashtra is staring at a shortage of both beds and vaccines. With the state estimated to record around 60,000 new cases daily for next few days, a bed shortage may just be 7-10 days away. Ahead of the Prime Minister’s meeting with Chief Ministers on managing the Covid-19 surge, a look at some states, their issues with beds and vaccines, and their demands of the Centre. Odisha Odisha only has three...

-The Hindu In the post-pandemic world, addressing inequality is key to sustaining growth and well-being COVID-19 in the last one year has once again reminded us of the growing inequalities in India. A recent Pew Research Report shows that India’s middle class may have shrunk by a third due to the novel coronavirus pandemic while the number of poor people earning less than ₹150 per day more than doubled. The Pew report...

-The Hindu PM chairs meeting; number of new cases crosses 1 lakh. The Russia-made Sputnik V vaccine may be cleared for emergency use in India within 10 days, a highly placed official confirmed to The Hindu on condition of anonymity. The possible approval for a third vaccine candidate comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a high-level meeting on Sunday to review the situation and the on-going vaccination programme with the number of...

-The Indian Express In Mumbai, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, in an address to the state, stopped short of announcing a lockdown, but warned that a decision may have to be taken in the next two days after consultations with experts and political leaders. On the day the Centre categorised 11 States/UTs as “States of grave concern” on account of their high and rising daily cases and deaths, several states moved Friday to...