-The Hindu ‘This indicates the extent of reverse migration from lockdown States to native States’ The demand for MGNREGA work so far in the month of April has increased to 2.57 crore households, 92% higher than a year ago, and a record high for April since 2013, as per State Bank of India (SBI) Research. “This indicates the extent of reverse migration from the lockdown States to their native States,” SBI group chief...

-The Telegraph Health ministry asks for 15 samples each from five labs and five hospitals in every state every two weeks, which is less than the 5% prescribed for each state The Union health ministry has asked each state to send 150 Covid-positive samples fortnightly for genome sequencing, deviating from the original target set by a national Research consortium to genome-sequence 5 per cent of positive cases from all states. The move has...

-The Hindu Business Line Kerala’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the subject of international conversation about public health systems. Piloting Kerala’s fight against the pandemic is the State’s Health Minister and CPI(M)’s Central Committee member KK Shailaja who speaks exclusively to BusinessLine about the criticality of publicly-run healthcare and how the need of the hour is to nationalise the system. Excerpts: * What are the lessons to be learnt from...

-PTI/ The Hindu Active infections to touch 38-48 lakh between May 14-18, says SUTRA model Active cases in the ongoing second COVID-19 wave in India may peak at 38-48 lakh between May 14-18 and daily new infections could hit a high of 4.4 lakh from May 4-8, according to a mathematical model by IIT scientists, who have revised their projections upwards. India on Monday saw a single-day rise of 3,52,991 (3.52 lakh) COVID-19...

-The Indian Express Many groups, previously engaged with blood donation, have also stepped up to the task. From fulfilling plasma needs, these volunteers are now working on getting ventilators, oxygen cylinders, hospitals beds and medicines. For over a week, citizen volunteers across the country, from students to social media influencers, have been responding to SOS requests on Twitter from Covid patients seeking oxygen, ventilators, hospital beds, plasma and medicines. The website has become...