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The Supreme Court’s latest move in taking up suo moto cognisance of the dangerous Covid situation, particularly in the crisis related to the availability of life-supporting oxygen in hospitals across the country, has created a storm for procedural breaches. Retiring Chief Justice S A Bobde has been criticised for his ‘parting shot’ for undermining the importance of the high courts, many of which have already been deliberating on the problem. But undoubtedly, being blamed for an uncharacteristically aggressive stand by the court under the leadership of Chief Justice Bobde, is much better than being criticised for a completely callous response by the same court under his own guardianship when weary migrant workers travelling on foot for thousands of kilometres fell asleep on railway tracks and run over by approaching trains and the court blamed it on ‘fake news’. That will remain as a blot on the apex court forever, and will not be crossed out by the subsequent proactive actions by the court in trying to bring relief to the most wronged section of the population: the migrant workers.

As a preventive measure against the Covid 19 in India, the Indian government imposed a nationwide 21-day lockdown on March 23, 2020, restricting the movement of its entire population of 1.38 billion. The nationwide lockdown continued until May 3, after which it was extended with conditional relaxations until May 31. The economy slowly started reverting with Unlock 1.0 being announced on June 1. Today, almost a year later, COVID-19 vaccines are being rolled out across the nation. Nearly 105 million Indians have been vaccinated so far. Priorities for vaccination in India have been based on occupation, age and health conditions. Being a dynamic community with no specific definitions based on any criteria, migrants have been dropped from the priority list for vaccination. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared “Teeka Utsav” from April 11-14 across the nation’s healthcare centres, apartment complexes, residential colonies, traditional halls, workplaces and more, the focus group for vaccinations were individuals over the age of 45, not migrants. Even when the economy thrives on the value of their essential services, why are migrants being kept off the priority list?

It has been an act of careful carelessness. Narendra Modi knew that the second wave of corona would hit the Indian soil hard, but he pretended to be unaware of the impending threat; poor innocent guy. An insight into his conduct would make it clear that his pretention has wider ominous implication.

New Delhi: Young pugilist Sachin came up with a flawless performance to win the 56kg title and the unprecedented eighth gold for India a day after all seven women swept the top honours at the Youth World Boxing Championship in Kielce, Poland.

Serum Institute of India’s (SII) announcement of the Covishield prices it will charge the Union government, the states and, finally to the private hospitals raises several disquieting questions.

Though under strict instructions from the Calcutta High Court to adhere to the Covid norms and enforce health safety norms during the assembly election process, including campaigning, the Election Commission has managed to safeguard the interest of its political masters by not agreeing to club the remaining phases.

Despite sufficient stock of oxygen in India, COVID-19 patients in hospitals across the country have been dying because its unavailability. Distribution issues have been preventing its availability at the hospitals. The centre has been monitoring the situation for over a year, but issues still remains unresolved. With unprecedented rise in demand of medical oxygen, the stock is depleting fast. The only way out from this grave crisis is faster resolution of distribution issues, enhancing medical oxygen generation, and increasing imports.

The official wholesale price index for March 2021, which was released a few days ago shows it to be7.39 per cent higher than for March 2020. Such a high rate of inflation has not been seen in India for over 8years. It was only in October 2012 that the country had witnessed a 7.4 percent inflation over the corresponding month of the previous year.

New Delhi: It was Indian women's show all the way. Seven of them were finals and all of them finished with a Gold each and in the process they created history at the AIBA Youth s World Boxing Championships in Kielce, Poland on Thursday.

It is difficult to believe and impossible to accept that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not know or could not anticipate the grave and injurious consequence of his lock down of life as his strategy to prevent the corona virus infections becoming life taking pandemics. NaMo ruled Gujarat for 13 years to know the dire consequences of stoppage of industrial wheels even for a day from rolling out their produce. Yet he suddenly imposed the lock down on all economic activities. His directive to all employers to pay regular salaries even without working showed lack of practical approach and more a pretence of care of working class. No industry would risk keeping huge amount of cash, could not gain from sale of their wares as markets were closed due to the lock down. Even banks had stopped working. Thus the lock down resulted in loss of employment for practically 120 million employees.