-The Hindu RLD chief Jayant has chosen the wrong house, he says and hints that BJP is open to post-poll alliance.  The BJP on Wednesday launched its big outreach programme to the Jat community of western Uttar pradesh with Union Home Minister Amit Shah promising to “keep in mind” demands from the community for timely payment of sugar cane dues and reservation in jobs, but more importantly, keeping a door open for...

-The Telegraph The state’s expert advisers assert that the earlier lower counts were not deliberate but the outcome of a lack of clear definition of Covid-19 deaths Bangalore: A paradoxical rise in Kerala’s Covid-19 mortality rate despite a shrinking epidemic ahead of omicron’s emergence reflects diligent death auditing under political pressure, public demand and good record-keeping lacking in other states, health experts have said. The auditing efforts had till Monday added over 16,900...

-TheWire.in One report suggests that Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Uttar pradesh are also underreporting deaths due to COVID-19 Bengaluru: In a strange turn of events, the Gujarat state government informed the Supreme Court on January 16 that it has approved 68,370 claims for ex gratia for COVID-19 victims – while the state’s official cumulative death toll was only 10,094 until then. According to Times of India, the state wrote in its compliance report...

-Financial Express The state desperately needs a strategy for labour-intensive manufacturing; the attacks on cattle-trade have knocked down its once-thriving leather industry In 1955, the share of population below the poverty line (NSS 1955) in Uttar pradesh was 64%, not too different from that in the Madras State (present-day Tamil Nadu), at 73.6%, or in West Bengal, at 53.6%. Four decades later, in 1993-94, while India’s poverty rate was 45.3%, UP’s was...

In the previous news alert, we looked at the under-nutrition problem in the Bundelkhand region in terms of 3 indicators -- proportion of children under 5 years who are stunted (height-for-age); proportion of children under 5 years who are wasted (weight-for-height); and proportion of children under 5 years who are underweight (weight-for-age). However, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data also indicates that severe under-nutrition like severe wasting and anaemia among...