No room for complacency: On tackling Omicron

India recorded its first death caused by Omicron in a fully vaccinated person in Rajasthan on the last day of 2021. The 73-year-old man, with co-morbidities, had tested positive on December 15. Preliminary evidence from South Africa and the U.K. suggests that unlike the Delta variant, a majority of people with Omicron, particularly in the fully vaccinated, exhibit only mild disease; hospitalisation is relatively less among the vaccinated. A huge percentage of the population in India was infected when the Delta variant raged last year. Studies from other countries have shown that such people might enjoy the same level or even better protection from severe disease than fully vaccinated people. Hybrid immunity achieved through full vaccination in people who have been previously infected offers the highest level of protection against severe disease, as several studies outside India show. With vaccination picking up speed after the second wave peaked in India, a significant

Exception and exemption: On Australia denying entry to Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic being denied entry into Australia in the early hours of Thursday after his visa was cancelled following a 10-hour stand-off with the Australian Border Force (ABF) at Melbourne airport is one of sport’s most sordid tales. The World No.1 and a three-time defending Australian Open champion, also a vaccine sceptic, had secured a medical exemption from the Victorian State government and Tennis Australia — the sport’s national governing body — to circumvent a mandatory vaccination requirement to play at the season’s opening Major. But in a stunning turnaround, the Serb was stopped at the border control after ABF, which operates under the Australian government, deemed the evidence supporting his medical exemption as insufficient, sparking a diplomatic row. Faced with the prospect of deportation, Djokovic has now mounted a legal challenge, the fate of which will be known by Monday. Shorn of all the drama, this month could have been momentous for the 20-time Major winner as he is
Editorial

Message from Mumbai: On hate crimes and legal action

Purveyors of hate, misogyny and xenophobia have been on a boundless revelry in India, online and offline, with near total impunity and often times with support from politicians and the police. In the midst of such pervasive police apathy, the swift action by the Mumbai police in tracing and arresting three persons linked to the latest incident involving a fake online ‘auction’ of Muslim women gives hope that all is not lost. The Mumbai police action also contrasts with the inaction of the Delhi police, who come under the Union Home Ministry, and the Noida police in Uttar Pradesh, a BJP-ruled State, in a similar case last year. Whether the three arrested were indeed the creators of the app remains a question of investigation and the limited police version at the moment is that they were promoting the platform, at a minimum. The Commissioner of the Mumbai Police has said the probe is continuing and anyone involved in the crime, directly or indirectly, will be arrested and prosecuted. It

Editorial

Third time lucky?: On economy and the third COVID-19 wave

India’s post-COVID economic recovery remains delicately poised at the turn of the new year — the third successive year under the shadow of the pandemic. With the Union Budget for 2022-23 less than four weeks away, the latest set of numbers capturing different aspects of the economy present a mixed picture with persistent pressure points. COVID-19 restrictions are already denting India’s services exporters’ order books, even as merchandise exports have hit a record high in December. Worryingly though, imports grew even faster last month than exports, keeping the merchandise trade deficit at an elevated $22 billion, just a tad less than the record $22.9 billion in November. The eight core sectors had a disappointing November, but GST collections from that month were reasonably healthy at around ₹1.3-lakh crore, albeit a three-month low. GST compensation cess revenues touched a record high in November, but customs duty collections dipped to a five-month low. The Purchasing Managers’

Editorial

Inadequate response: On income criteria to identify EWS quota

The submission by a Government-appointed committee to the Supreme Court that the annual family income of ₹8 lakh is “a reasonable” threshold to determine if someone belongs to economically weaker sections to avail 10% reservations in admissions and jobs does not seem to hold water. The submission rejected the notion that the Government had “mechanically” adopted ₹8 lakh as the cut-off because it was used to identify the OBC creamy layer, by asserting that the income criterion was “more stringent” than the one for the OBC creamy layer. This justification, based on a few more criteria that exclude some income and occupational parameters from the OBC creamy layer, however, is not convincing as the Court’s key question remained unanswered satisfactorily. The Court had said that the OBC category is socially and educationally backward, and had therefore additional impediments to overcome, and had asked whether it “would... be arbitrary to provide the same income limit both for the OBC and

Transition in peril: on military crackdown in Sudan

Widening the safety net: On rollout of COVID-19 vaccines for health-care workers

Safety at all costs: On implementation of safety protocols in fireworks industry

Needless provocation: On China ‘renaming’ Arunachal places

Prepare for the worst: On Omicron response

Killing the licence: On NGOs and funding

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