-The Hindu There is a resonance between Saramago’s literary world and the migrant labour distress in contemporary India The novel, Blindness, by Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago, is strikingly prescient about a sweeping illness. The plot revolves around a mysterious epidemic because of which people suddenly turn blind. The thread It stARTs with a person driving his car who turns blind while waiting at a traffic signal. He pleads to be taken home and...

-The Indian Express The order came even as the Patna High Court and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) took suo motu cognisance of The Indian Express report. Bhagalpur: IN THE STAFF room of the Primary School in Shahabad, Principal Devendra Kumar Singh and teacher Juhi Kumari squinted into the smARTphone to read the latest state government order on mid-day meals. Parents of at least three children from Badbilla who study in...

-The Hindu Business Line Despite the lockdown, India’s trade balance in April and May turned positive. This has been achieved by a sharper decline in imports, pointing towards a contraction of demand in the real economy The RBI has released India’s balance of payments data for the fourth quARTer (January-March) of 2019-20. It shows that during this quARTer, India has managed a small current account surplus which is around 0.1 per cent...

-The Hindu Binoy Viswam asks Modi to make it a minimum of 200 days CPI Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged to extend the quota of working days under the MGNREGA scheme to a minimum of 200 days and additionally, extend the limitations of the scheme to per adult individual rather than per household. “To ensure survival and dignity to all its citizens is the...

-Hindustan Times The World Health Organisation has estimated that between 81,000 and 138,000 people die from snake bites globally each year, and of these, nearly half are in India. Nearly 1.2 million people died from snake bite deaths in India between 2000 and 2019, and many of these fatalities can be avoided by adopting a series of targeted precautions, a new study has pointed out. Published in the open access journal eLife, the...