-The Telegraph The panel of scientists and other experts on testing strategies, has also said that testing kit suppliers would need to be ready to respond to recurring surges An expert panel has asked the Centre to help the states conduct well-designed surveys on the prevalence of Covid-19 to understand the evolving epidemic, expressing concern that three nationwide surveys have so far not helped guide policy. The panel, which includes scientists and other...

-The Indian Express Last week, the ICMR brought out an advisory on Pooled Testing, ideally in districts where incidence of COVID-19 is low. Faced with criticism about insufficient testing and the reality of limited resources, India has decided go for Pooled Testing in districts where no cases have been reported. This would on the one hand give data on whether these really are zero-case districts, and on the other, save resources. * What...

-The Indian Express The percentage of the adult population for four large developing countries — China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria — who are living in cities, as well as the change in this percentage between 1975 and 2000, are plotted in chart. Rural-urban migration is exceptionally low in India. Changes in the rural and urban population between decennial censuses over the period 1961-2001 indicate that the migration rate for working age...

KEY TRENDS   • During 2014-15, while procurement of foodgrains (rice and wheat) increased from 56.9 million tonnes to 60.2 million tonnes, offtake of foodgrains (rice and wheat) from the PDS decreased from 59.8 million tonnes to 55.9 million tonnes. Despite increased availability in the PDS and prevalence of high inflation in foodgrains, dependence on the PDS is reducing, suggesting that there may be issues of availability, timely availability and quality of the PDS foodgrains...