'The pandemic ends only when 70 per cent of the world is vaccinated with two doses.'
Here's the second part of guide to a year that will soon become history.
The manner in which a large proportion of common people have mortgaged their rationality and questioning spirit to let hatred, prejudice, and bigotry take over their minds is a cause of worry, observes Mohammad Sajjad.
Bandhan Bank is the first bank to be launched in eastern India post Independence.
India's old warhorses like Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh will look to impress the Indian Premier League franchises when they take the field in the Super League stage of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament, starting in Kolkata, on Sunday.
Taking exception to Health Minister Harsh Vardhan not mentioning the death of healthcare workers due to Covid-19 in his statement in Parliament, the Indian Medical Association has published a list of 382 doctors who died due to the viral disease and demanded that they be treated as "martyrs".
'Rajan brought in a healthy air of competition in the banking sector.'
'Second-class citizenship would have been meaningless to a Hindu in the Mughal empire.'
Schools and colleges, closed since October 31, were shut on Saturday as well, while several universities postponed their exams.
As the longest serving woman chief minister who ruled the city state for three consecutive terms from 1998 to 2013, Dikshit ushered in an era of all-round development that transformed Delhi into a world class capital.
Attlee said Great Britain had concluded that the Indian element of the army was no longer reliable and that Netaji's Indian National Army had demonstrated that. That had shaken the foundation on which Britain's Indian empire rested, argues Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
'While the fears in Assam and other north eastern states are natural given their experience since 1947 when successive governments and even political leaders in Delhi have repeatedly let them down, the intent and provisions under the Citizenship Amendement Bill -- when examined closely -- should remove those apprehensions,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the well-known commentator who lived in and reported from the north east between 1983 and 2006.
'Whatever the legal position, it is my understanding that in practice, the Indian authorities have always treated Hindu refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh far more sympathetically than Muslims,' notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'There is no audience anymore for my graphic novels. Few people seem interested in what I find interesting,' Sarnath Banerjee tells Uttaran Das Gupta.
Kejriwal, who had joined International Yoga Day participants last year along with Lt Governor Anil Baijal and the then Union minister and now Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, was found having high blood sugar following his nine-day, arduous sit-in at the Lieutenant Governor's office.
'Amit Shah and his fellow travellers need to realise that India was divided because of competitive communalism of forces like Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League, prodded, aided and abetted by the colonial power,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The India-Japan joint naval exercises are a strategic signal for China, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
Aseem Chhabra lists his favourite Indian films of 2021.
Rajneesh Gupta gives us a list of noteworthy statistics from first-class and Ranji Trophy
'Besides electoral opportunism, a sustained vilification of AMU on one or the other pretext helps them sustain their 'everyday communalism', the new strategy of the BJP of the Narendra Damodardas Modi-Amit Anilchandra Shah era,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Prohibitory orders were imposed in Delhi and parts of Karnataka. Police kept tight vigil in Kerala. In Gujarat, 50 people were arrested for Thursday's violence.
Defying prohibitory orders, protests were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and several other cities. Protesters, mostly students and activists, were detained on a large scale in national capital and other places.
Counting's underway and the fate of the candidates is awaited. As we wait for the results with bated breath, here's how your heavyweights are faring for now.
Irom Sharmila, the woman who was on a hunger strike for 16 years, leads a quiet life, and recently became a mother of twin girls.
'India's reputation is not and cannot be dependent on the whimsical opinions of some obscure foreign advisory committee packed with Hindu-phobic acolytes,' declares Vivek Gumaste.
'It was the Mughals who first established standard units of measurement and maintained offices of meticulous record keepers and auditors, departing from the more haphazard methods of earlier regimes.' 'By the end of the 16th century, their revenue and judicial administrations exhibited an obsessive preoccupation with order, the efficient management of time, and a spirit of rational self-control -- all of them characteristics of early modernity,' point out Sheldon Pollock and Benjamin Ellman.
India's Muslims need to assert their educational and economic upliftment and political empowerment rather than be provoked by communal remarks, says Mohammad Sajjad, reflecting on the Malda riot.
The media and social media are abuzz about the no-frills style of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and Delhi's to-be-CM Arvind Kejriwal, both very unusual politicians in today's India. But India has not seen a chief minister like Nripen Chakraborty whose spartan lifestyle and frugal habits were the subject of legend.
Universal basic income or social security? Economist Nitin Desai feels we need a blueprint for universal health care and pensions to help the vulnerable section.
Authorities also said the recovery rate of COVID-19 patients was improving consistently in India and it was in a much better position in handling the pandemic, which has seen more than 63 lakh people testing positive for this virus since its emergence in China last December and over 3.7 lakh having lost their lives.
'Does a thousand-year-old sculpture worshipped in a thriving religion belong to a foreign museum or the temple from which it was extracted?' Congress MP Shashi Tharoor asked angrily. 'They legitimately belonged to India and people of past, present and future generations are interested in re-possessing them,' a central information commissioner declared last month.
Specially abled Sai Kaustuv Dasgupta talks about how he wants to make his life a message to all the 'wheelchair warriors'.
India's largest airline has also told its crew members -- who are working on flights connecting India with East Asian countries like Thailand and Singapore -- to wear N95 masks at all times when they are on ground.
'If done well, the containment measures can help minimise the impact of the epidemic.'
'Communalism and communal riots happened in India only during and due to colonialism. Pre-colonial India didn't have this problem of communal conflicts and religious strife.'
'There was a period when they questioned the flag and there were questions also against the Constitution.' 'That's long past.'
Mohammad Sajjad salutes the memory of Mushirul Hasan -- historian, thinker, academic, institution builder, -- who passed into the ages this week.
'It might get worse. We don't really know what is it that is resulting in the high value of R now.'
In a candid conversation Indrani Mitra, educationist Sunanda Sanyal explains why many intellectuals like him are disillusioned with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Not many people in Bangladesh are talking about the Teesta issue.
