-The Hindu Business Line/ NetworkIdeas.org The disease ripping through the country is only one of the destructive forces affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians. The dramatic increase in hunger is another. Like devastation wrought by the current surge in coronavirus infections, this too is the result of policy failure and official callousness. It is already causing immense suffering among affected people and will have serious repercussions on their...

-Press release by World Health Organisation, dated 6th May, 2021 * Initial 11 members are distinguished experts in economics, health, government, finance and development from around the world. * Council’s focus is on new strategies to shape economies and financial systems with the objective of building healthy societies that are just, inclusive, equitable and sustainable. It will incorporate lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. * Council will hold its first meeting on 6...

-The Hindu Business Line Having recovered from their lows touched early or mid-2020, food prices are rising fast. At $574.8 a metric tonne in February 2021, the price of soyabean was 53 per cent higher than the corresponding month of 2020, when the effects of the Covid pandemic were yet to be felt (Chart 1).  Over that period, the price of maize had risen from $168.71 to $245.24 a metric tonne...

-The Hindu Business Line/ NetworkIdeas.org The world has been preoccupied with the Covid-19 pandemic, and this has also affected policymakers everywhere. There is much more recognition today of the terrible effects of underfunding public health over decades and how this affects the resilience of economies and societies. Yet this official preoccupation with addressing the spread of infectious disease appears to have had an unanticipated negative effect: less policy attention to concerns...

-The Hindu Business Line/ NetworkIdeas.org It defies all logic. As expected, once the implications of the Covid-19 contagion began to be absorbed, the BSE Sensex lost 37 per cent in value, falling from a level just above 41,000 on February 19, 2020, to just below 26,000 on 23 March 2000 (Chart 1). That was the day when the nationwide lockdown was declared and three days before the first of the government’s...