-The Hindu ‘PM failed to outline concrete steps on COVID-19’ The Left parties slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on the COVID-19 saying that the PM failed to outline any concrete measures to contain it and its economic fallout. The CPI(M) has made 11 demands, including cash transfer of ₹5,000 to Jan Dhan accounts and all BPL (Below Poverty Line) beneficiaries to temporarily tide over the crisis. The party also...

-The Indian Express Threat from coronavirus is real, demands vigilance. But responses to it are bordering on paranoia. In The Plague, Albert Camus describes the French town of Oran, which is swept by a plague leading to the death of thousands of inhabitants. Camus’s novel is the story of a community struck by a destructive force, to which it refuses to surrender. The outbreak of the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus epidemic and the...

-The Telegraph 'The people of Kashmir need healing from the deep wounds of this conflict, not subjugation to further violence and alienation' If nature abhors a vacuum, so does journalism. The Lancet, an international medical journal, has referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “prosperity” justification for the changes in Jammu and Kashmir and said the people there first need healing, not subjugation and alienation. The journal has also raised concerns about the mental...

-The Times of India KOLKATA: Bengal is sitting on a powder keg. And the fuse could well have been lit on Friday as a 33-year-old agent of Saradha Group, a chit fund company that has gone bust, committed suicide being unable to pay his depositors while over 3,000 agents laid siege to chief minister Mamata Banerjee's residence in protest against the lockdown. The turn of events has triggered fears of a repeat...

John Vidal, who was in Rio for the '92 Earth summit, looks back at that momentous event, and how the 2012 version compares Helicopters thundered up and down the chic Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Tanks guarded the bridges and tunnels. The favelas were in lockdown, schools closed and supermarkets stood empty. Unexpectedly, George H W Bush, the 41st US president, flush with success at the collapse of communism, had arrived in...