-The Hindu Business Line The development economist, now part of Tamil Nadu’s Economic Advisory Council, says that public expenditure on health is just 0.6 per cent of the state domestic product, one of the lowest ratios among Indian states * Universal quality education, health care and social security are still distant goals * A well-designed system of emergency cash transfers would be quite useful in this situation of recurrent crises, which may last...

-CBGAIndia.in India’s response to the pandemic has depended heavily on the exploited labour of women workers, most of them from marginalised backgrounds. These are ASHAs or Accredited Social Health Activists, the cadre of frontline health workers that has been mobilised for everything from door-to-door surveys, distributing medicine kits, measuring oxygen saturation, monitoring containment zones and spreading awareness about vaccines. 70,000 such women recently went on strike in Maharashtra demanding higher pay,...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com Thiruvananthapuram: VEHICLES scattered left and right as Ushakumari S., surreally perched on her scooter in a personal protective equipment (PPE) suit, drove at top speed through Kollam’s streets to get to a hospital. Riding pillion with her was a COVID-19 patient, Ramla Beevi, who needed her second antigen test done. Ushakumari had got fed up, waiting for an ambulance to ship the patient, and decided to take matters into her own...

-PTI/ Business Standard The findings of the study are under consideration for publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal A multi-centre study on a cohort of over 31,000 vaccinated healthcare workers of a leading private facility, spanning across the country, has found that Covid vaccine provided protection against infection in "95 per cent" of the beneficiaries, hospital authorities claimed on Wednesday. The study by Apollo Hospitals took place over four and a half months,...