-NDTV The 'R' factor - a statistic used worldwide to track, and potentially, control the spread of the virus - is a measure of how many people are being infected by one person New Delhi: Concern over an alarming increase in new coronavirus cases in India - 131,750 over the past 72 hours - was underlined Monday by a spike in the 'R', or 'reproduction rate', of the virus, which has jumped...

-The Telegraph Maharashtra leads the surge, Kerala improves, says health ministry India’s health ministry reported over 40,000 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, raising the count of patients by over 17,000 in a single day after a week during which the spread of the virus was the fastest since August. The 40,953 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases, over 25,000 in Maharashtra alone, documented till 8am on Saturday increased the number of patients under medical supervision to...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...

-The Hindu In 2020, 84% of all monitored countries observed air quality improvements Delhi remained the most polluted capital city in the world but India, on the whole, had improved its Average annual PM 2.5 (particulate matter) levels higher in 2020 than in 2019, according to a report from IQ Air, a Swiss air quality technology company, specialising in protection against airborne pollutants, and developing air quality monitoring and air cleaning products. Delhi’s...

-The Hindu Its analysis says recontesting MLAs’, MPs’ assets went up by 39% An analysis of MLAs who switched parties and recontested elections from 2016 to 2020 has found that the BJP was the biggest gainer, while the Congress accounted for the most MLAs who quit to join another party. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report released on Thursday analysed the election affidavits of 443 MLAs and MPs who switched parties and...