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With uncertainty continues even after two years of COVID-19 crisis, India needs to replace its adhocism with a strong healthcare system, since inter-linkage of the healthcare sector to other sectors of economy has sufficiently proved. When the health sector is week, the whole economy crumbles down. During 2020-21, and 2021-22, India had to respond to the emergency with adhoc measures and arrangements, and had not found enough resources and time to create a strong healthcare system to prepare itself for any such future.

It is a cold winter day, even a rainy day. What do I watch to get over the depression of just being there and not being able to get out of this ‘two years of lockdown’ phase?

LUCKNOW: CPI national Secretary Atul Kumar Anjaan told IPA that his party will contest 45-48 seats in Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. List of 32 candidates was released and remaining would be decided later on, he added. The CPI leader said that his party would make all efforts to stop BJP from coming to power in the state again and expose the poor governance of BJP government led by chief minister Yogi Adityanath during last five years.

The postulation about freedom of expression by the nineteenth century British politician, Charles Bradlaugh, is particularly relevant in the Indian context today when the Modi government is doing everything possible to deny such right to the citizens in the name of sedition. Bradlaugh’s relevance goes up further considering that he was the founder of the National Secular Society within some 15 years after his colleague George Holyoake coined the word ‘secularism’ for the first time. The Modi government has cooked up a deadly cocktail of sedition, secularism and freedom of expression, which makes a revisit to the British parliamentarians particularly rewarding.

IAS officers don’t grow on trees. Both the Centre and states want them. Now, the Centre says it is facing a shortage of IAS and that the states are refusing to relieve IAS officers for central deputation. So, the Modi Government will amend IAS rules and divest the states of powers to veto the Centre’s request for IAS officers.

The move by the Modi Government to sell the public sector Central Electronics Limited (CEL) to a private company has led to widespread protests in the country. Retired directors and senior scientists of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have written a letter to the Ministry of Finance expressing concerns about the sale of its 100 per cent stake in Central Electronics Limited to a private entity.

KOCHI: The eighth annual conference of the Kerala Security Employees Union (KSEU) was held on January 13 and 14 in Ernakulam. KSEU is affiliated to All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC). KSEU president K Vijayan Pillai initiated the proceedings with the hoisting of the Red Flag in the presence of AITUC general secretary Amarjeet Kaur.

The recent announcement by the Union Government of converting a part of what Vodafone-Idea (VI) owes to the government into its shareholding, is another step in the long story of crony capitalism and so-called reforms in the telecom sector. The government has taken a 35.8 per cent shareholding in VI to reduce the two hundred thousand crore rupees that VI owns the government, and postponed payments of the rest for four more years. This will still leave the company in the hands of the two major private shareholders, Vodafone and Idea, who have amended the shareholders' agreement so as to exercise their “promoters rights” even without the requisite shareholdings. The government will still be its largest creditor, along with the public sector banks, while also being its major shareholder.

India suffers from the greatest tragedy of the century. It is the crisis of fragmentation. The Constitution that has always stood for multiplicity, faces the threat of autocracy. There is the majority with its divisive slogans calling for end of an age when all people lived in unity. The entire initiative is aimed at suffocating the voice of people even before it is communicated. The cry for hunger, livelihood, and finally life itself goes unattended. People have been reduced to caste, community and gender. Each one plays its divisive role, which promotes antagonism and feeds into our multiplicity. The areas are divided, localities are divided, every house lives in pain as people do not live as one. Each one has to live according to the space allotted to one. To honour human dignity has become an alien concept.

After releasing the standard operating procedure (SOP), the union agriculture ministry has issued guidelines for grants to popularize the usage of drones on Indian farms. The grants will be available until March 31, 2023, and cover expenditures for the purchase, hiring, and demonstration of agricultural drones. State agriculture universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, and ICAR institutions will get 100% or up to Rs 10 lakh in grants to purchase drones. Farmer producer organizations (FPOs) will get 75% or up to Rs 7.5 lakh funding while custom hiring centers set up by FPOs and cooperative society of farmers will receive 40% or up to Rs 4 lakh in grants to purchase drones.