Opinion

Bruhaspati Samal The Government of Odisha released a fresh list of frontline workers for Covid-19 vaccinations on May 13, 2021. The list includes forest department staff, bank/insurance staff, ATM maintenance staff, staff of logistic companies, railway staff, child care institutions’ staff, oxygen plant employees, filling...

Aditya Pratap Swain About 18 months back when coronavirus engulfed the entire world, we were celebrating ‘Namaste Trump’ and when the world was awash with the second wave of Covid-19 we were celebrating the ‘Dance of Democracy’ and Kumbh Mela. When the Union Health Minister...

Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg The surge of Covid-19 cases and deaths in India shows that the pandemic is far from over. While most developing countries in Asia and Africa managed to keep their death tolls low over the past year, it is only a matter of...

Palitha Abeykoon, Maha El Rabbat & David Nabarro As special envoys on COVID-19 for the director-general of the World Health Organization, we have witnessed firsthand the intensity of the suffering caused by the pandemic, especially in poorer communities. This profound tragedy has been evolving before...

Shivaji Mohinta With the onset of Covid-19, I have observed numerous occasions where leaders or top executives have resorted to micro-managing and adopt top-down command and control measures such as finding out about routine tasks, seeking daily status updates, frequent checking ins and probing. I...

SN Misra There are three seminal supreme court judgements which have stood the test of time viz. Kesavananda Bharati (1973), affirming inviolability of basic structure, SR Bommai (1995) making floor test mandatory for adjudicating majority and Indra Sawhney(1992) putting a cap of 50% on reservation....

Melvin Durai Bill and Melinda Gates announced recently that they are getting divorced after 27 years of marriage. The Microsoft co-founder and his wife are worth a combined $124 billion and have given away a portion of their wealth through the Bill and Melinda Gates...

Junaid Nabi When I was growing up in northern India’s Kashmir Valley, my physician father would often accompany me when I received my annual vaccinations. I used to ask him how vaccines worked and where they were developed. After explaining the basic biology of the...

Ajit Ranade Last October, India and South Africa proposed in the World Trade Organization that intellectual property rights of Covid-related drugs and vaccines be suspended.  This proposal was supported by 60 countries. However, the US, still under the Trump administration and the EU were opposed...

Rosalind McKenna In March, South Sudan received its first batch of COVID-19 vaccines. While that is good news, it came almost four months after the first doses were administered in the United Kingdom, highlighting the wide disparities in global vaccine distribution. If these gaps are...