-The Hindu The court quoted from a National Statistics Office survey of 2018 which said that around four per cent of the rural households and 23% of the urban households possessed a computer Taking a dig at the Centre’s argument that the poor and marginalised can lean on friends to register online for vaccination, the Supreme Court has said even the digitally literate are finding it hard to get vaccine slots on...

-The Hindu It will complicate payment system, may lead to a reduction in funding, say experts. The Centre has asked the States to split wage payments under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme into separate categories for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and others from this financial year. Workers’ rights advocates said this will unnecessarily complicate the payment system, and expressed fears that it may lead to a reduction...

-The Hindu Official secrecy on pandemic policies aggravates a crisis In August 2020, the Modi government constituted the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) as a nodal agency on all matters related to vaccine administration and rollout. Asked under the Right to Information (RTI) Act for details of the NEGVAC’s meetings, the Health Ministry, which anchors the expert group, replied that it does not know where the concerned documents...

-Down to Earth The Swiss multinational food and beverage multinational has admitted some of its products will never be healthy no matter how much it reformulates them “Good Food, Good Life” is the mission statement of one of the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness multinational, Nestle SA. One can quickly catch words and phrases such as ‘healthy’, ‘healthier lives’, ‘healthier future’ while scrolling through its website, which does does lull a...

-Newsclick.in Report by prominent economist Jean Dreze and Anmol Somanchi highlights the severe economic distress and food crisis suffered by a vast majority of Indian poor following the 2020 lockdown. It demands a stronger wave of relief measures to avoid a repeat of the crisis. On May 31, 2021, prominent economist Jean Drèze and Anmol Somanchi published a detailed report analysing the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on food security, employment, income,...