Do we have enough trained oncologists and medical professionals in India to man these over 4,500 beds in the public sector?
China's birth rate has been in decline since 2017, despite easing of the 'one-child policy' in order to avert an incoming demographic crisis.
The unemployment rate among women came down to 12.4 per cent in urban areas
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday expressed concern over vaccine hesitancy in some communities and urged people to spread awareness about the benefits of inoculation to win the battle against coronavirus.
'If we want real democracy, the economy itself will need to be democratised.'
In its weekly bulletin of December 27, released on Monday, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) said global outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 are increasingly shifting from Delta to Omicron.
Shailaja Teacher, arguably the most famous Covid warrior in India, versus former student leader Shafi Parambil who defeated 'Metro Man' E Sreedharan in the last assembly election. Shyam G Menon reports from the Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency, which some feel is the most politically important contest in Kerala this election.
'Kerala is on a par with global standards.'
'The economic impact of this lockdown is evidently huge.' 'Its impact on the livelihood of vulnerable sections of the society is immeasurably bigger,' observes Mahesh Vyas.
The country's demographic dividend is dissipating, with seriously adverse consequences for young India, asserts Shankar Acharya, former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India.
'We eat first, they later; we sit on chairs and they on the floor; we call them by their names and they address us by titles,' writes Tripti Lahiri, author of Maid in India.
Whether the third wave will ravage us depends on the pace of vaccinations, careful and calibrated opening up of establishments, and a strategy to contain the spread in specific states or pockets.
'We may have moved back three decades on the fiscal situation,' notes T N Ninan.
Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to humans from animals) with symptoms similar to those seen in the past in smallpox patients, although it is clinically less severe.
One of the other key takeaways of the manifesto is setting up a separate maintenance department for the national and state highways, where repairs and other works are currently done by the road construction contractors.
'Aggressively stepping up vaccinations will constitute the most enduring stimulus of all in the coming quarters,' observes Sajjid Z Chinoy, Chief India Economist at J P Morgan.
The outcome ratio of COVID-19 -- the ratio of recoveries and deaths of closed cases -- was recorded at 90:20.
The Centre on Thursday advised states slated to hold assembly polls in the next few months to ramp up COVID vaccination exponentially to protect the vulnerable population given the steady rise in cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus in India.
Amid increasing cases of monkeypox being reported in non-endemic countries, the government on Tuesday issued guidelines directing district surveillance units to consider even one such case as an outbreak and initiating a detailed investigation through the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party of talking about terrorism during the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections while diverting attention from the 'central discourse' on unemployment, inflation, empowering women and helping small businesses and farmers.
Only West Asia and North Africa have a lower employment rate than India, points out Mahesh Vyas.
'We behaved as if this disease is not a problem for India.' 'We acted as if it would go away. But it didn't go away; it exploded.'
In the past 12 months, since September 2020, the net cumulative increase in employment has been just 44,483. This is negligible -- just 0.04 million on a base of over 400 million jobs, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
Every patriot should learn from our history and recognise that celebrating size will neither negate nor obscure the huge economic challenges that India faces, asserts Rathin Roy.
Here are seven jargons you may often come across when discussing the Covid-19 pandemic that Devangshu Datta makes sense of.
The costs of providing free vaccines are way lower than the costs of a freewheeling epidemic.
Macroeconomic management is usually a lot more comfortable with lower fiscal deficits. The sooner we get there, the better for the economy, says former Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India Shankar Acharya.
The Centre on Saturday strongly advised 12 states and Union Territories reporting a surge in coronavirus cases to significantly increase testing and ensure people follow COVID-appropriate behaviour, noting that one infected person could spread infection to an average of 406 individuals in a 30-day window without restrictions.
'The rise in unemployment, underemployment, discouraged workers and job insecurity is likely to continue, with very adverse consequences for the nation's economic well-being and social cohesion,' warns Shankar Acharya.
'You cannot fight a disease as complex as COVID-19 without a carefully calibrated, localised response.'
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
Urban planners and real estate experts say bad town planning in Mumbai and rising deaths during the ongoing pandemic are a "sad reality". Dev Chatterjee and Raghavendra Kamath report.
'The government lights lamps for nurses but when we demand what's due for us, they don't listen at all.'
That is the number for job creation that India needs to achieve, argues T N Ninan.
A recent study shows that more than 100 million people are excluded from the public distribution system because the central government insists on using 2011 population figures to calculate state-wise PDS coverage, which effectively leaves out 100 million people, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
A study by eminent economists, by Jean Drze, Reetika Khera and Meghana Mungikar released few days back shows that more than 100 million people are excluded from the PDS because the central government insists on using 2011 population figures to calculate state-wise coverage under the National Food Security Act.
'As people have moved from cities to small towns and villages, they have carried the infection into new territories.' 'Poor healthcare infrastructure in these places should be a big worry in the days to come.'
Blacks and Hispanics make up about 18 percent of Apple's workforce, a ratio that is about triple of those of most other tech firms.
'Businessmen like Rajiv render public service when they speak truth to power,' observes Virendra Kapoor.
The dollar moved higher, while prices for US government debt fell, as traders ramped up bets the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates in March
