-The Hindu In videoconference addressing District Magistrates from 54 districts across 10 States, he said mutations had raised concerns for youth and children. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that empathy and resoluteness in the face of COVID-19 was essential while also flagging that mutations of the coronavirus had raised concerns for youth and children going ahead. Addressing a videoconference of District Magistrates from 54 districts across 10 States with Chief Ministers...

-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...

-Livemint.com The government will have to ensure its spending improves economy-wide productivity, and its own revenue-generating capacity, to avoid a stagflationary trap After dithering on a fiscal stimulus package for nearly a year, India’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has declared that she will not allow the fiscal deficit number to worry her too much as she pushes spending to revive growth in the upcoming budget. The government hopes that growth will generate higher...

-The Telegraph The Nobel laureate economist described 'India as a poster child of what not to do' Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz made a strong case for spending money to combat the long-term economic damage of the pandemic, saying that India would be well advised to focus on containing the Contagion as the economic aftermath cannot be tackled without tackling the pandemic. Bracketing India with Brazil and the United States for its “utter...

-The Hindu There is a resonance between Saramago’s literary world and the migrant labour distress in contemporary India The novel, Blindness, by Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago, is strikingly prescient about a sweeping illness. The plot revolves around a mysterious epidemic because of which people suddenly turn blind. The thread It starts with a person driving his car who turns blind while waiting at a traffic signal. He pleads to be taken home and...