-ThePrint.in Some residents of Gahmar in Ghazipur say they’ve had to resort to immersing bodies in the Ganga due to high number of deaths, rising cost of cremations. Gahmar, Ghazipur: Five dogs are lying asleep next to three withered corpses on the bank of the river Ganga. At the thrum of our approaching motorboat, one dog pops its head up to look, and then promptly goes back to sleep. Amit Sah, who is...

With the rise in Covid-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths since March this year, media reports (please click here and here) on migrant workers returning back to their native places (i.e. places of origin) from migration destinations (i.e. workplaces likes cities and large industrial towns to where the informal and low skilled workers from the marginalised sections of the society migrate seasonally, and sometimes for a longer duration,...

-The Hindu 12-member team to go beyond present crisis, prepare road map for transparent budgeting with States The Supreme Court has constituted a 12-member National Task Force to streamline and ensure the “effective and transparent” allocation of liquid medical oxygen on a “scientific, rational and equitable basis” to States and Union Territories fighting COVID-19. The apex court had expressed its dissatisfaction at the Centre’s earlier “oxygen-for-bed” formula. This “rough-and-ready” arrangement, as the court...

-The Hindu Several others make desperate calls for supplies The shortage of medical oxygen in the national capital region came to a head with one of the largest hospitals, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, reporting on Friday morning that 25 severely ill patients had died in the past 24 hours and 60 other patients were at risk. Several other hospitals also reported dwindling supplies even as the number of COVID-19 patients mounted. Artemis Hospital...

-RuralIndiaOnline.org With no industrial activity and low wages in agriculture, men from Bhagabanpur in Maldah district go to work in faraway places like Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, just to survive and send money home Rehna Bibi didn’t think much when her phone call to her husband, Anas Shaikh, failed to connect at 10.30 a.m.on February 7, 2021. They had spoken less than two hours ago. “His grandmother had died that morning,” says...