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LUCKNOW: More than 125 teachers, shiksha mitra and instructors have died in the past 10 days while performing their duty in the panchayat poll, which is proving to be super-spreader.

In a Manichean world darkened by narrow binaries, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan often stood as a source of light and hope. With his passing away, India and the world have lost a remarkable religious and Islamic theologian, who tried till the very last to bridge the difference especially among the believers of different faiths. A Padma Vibhushan awardee, the Maulana was unfairly caricatured theologian (a Sanskrit Musalam, so to say), nothing can be further from the truth.

New Delhi: The Asian Boxing Championship scheduled to be held in New Delhi next month will now take place in Dubai.

Last year 2020, an Indian journalist writing for Pakistani newspaper Dawn gave India the sobriquet ‘Sick Man of Asia’, originally the namesake of China, and which was used by the World Street Journal (WSJ), again in 2020, to describe China, which got so pissed off by the moniker that it banished three WSJ journalists from China, punishment for talking and writing ill of China.

India's Covid numbers have far outstripped countries like the US and Brazil, which have been the poor performers till now. More worryingly, the number of positives to tests are now more than one out of five, more than four times what it was a few months back, indicating that the actual numbers of infected could be even higher.

The oral order of the bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy of Madras High Court holding the Election Commission as “the most irresponsible in not stopping political parties from wanton abuse of the Covid-19 protocol” telling it in no ambiguous term: “You should be put up on murder charges probably”, has undoubtedly exposed the denigration of the democratic and constitutional agencies in the country.

COVID-19 pandemic is laying bare systematic vulnerabilities and inequalities in just about every economy and society. It is more than just a health crisis, which is driving losses of lives and livelihoods, extreme poverty, inequality, and food security. Apart from this onslaught of ferocious rise in infection, the world is combating unprecedented, worldwide crises on multiple fronts, from devastating impacts of cororavirus to escalating effects of climate change and a biodiversity crisis. For each of these complex global challenges, forests and forest-dependent people are both a casualty and an important part of the solution.

World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has recently said that India's situation is a devastating reminder of what the coronavirus can do. Indeed, he was right as the country is suffering from a severe and more dangerous second wave of the pandemic. The authorities have confirmed more than 16 million cases and 1,86,000 deaths. India has overtaken the US with the highest number of issues. No doubt there is an unprecedented health emergency as the Centre and the state governments are on the test.

Political leaders have been urged to conduct awareness campaigns to end crimes against women; block unauthorized virtual private network (VPN) and the “dark web”. All political leaders should campaign to raise awareness among masses about gender sensitization to have a deep and lasting impact to change the pattern and attitude of society towards women. This has been stated in a latest report of the Standing Committee of Parliament on the Ministry of Home Affairs tabled in March 2021 in the second part of the Budget Session of Parliament. The Committee was headed by Mr Anand Sharma, Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Council of States (Rajya Sabha).

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala has always led from the front, setting a good example for other States to follow. God’s Own Country now has a chance to rush to the rescue of Delhi, which is gasping for life because of severe shortage of oxygen.