Weekly Round-up

Here's a round-up of the stories we’ve reported over the past week
The Union Budget exercise was supposed to be an opportunity to reimagine and reinvent India's healthcare system, using the COVID-19 pandemic as a trigger. But is the money allocated for health, and the vaccination effort, enough? We ask Srinath Reddy of Public Health Foundation of India and Yamini Aiyer of the Centre for Policy Research
Read it here
In the four years before Jammu and Kashmir enacted a law against child sexual abuse, the Kashmir division saw an average of 30 cases a year. In 2019, 162 cases were reported, which was nearly a 350% increase
Read our report to know why
After its initial success in keeping COVID-19 cases under control, Kerala’s numbers peaked in October 2020, a month later than the rest of the country. It has since not seen a strong decline in numbers, contrary to the rest of the country.
Our story examines why
Is India's flattening curve of fresh COVID-19 infections for real, and will it last? Has India attained herd immunity? And can you still infect others once you are vaccinated? We interviewed Om Shrivastav of Jaslok Hospital and Kiran Shetty of Kokilaben Hospital in Mumbai to give us a view from the frontlines of the battle against COVID-19
Read here
India's efforts at land reforms have a long history. After Independence, 21 states enacted land reform laws to address the historical inequality in land ownership. However, amendments since 2014 have been a "U-turn" on the land reform agenda, to the detriment of landless and marginal farmers
Read the complete story here
Barriers put up by human beings in the path of nature and rivers are what lead to disasters. Ravi Chopra, founder director of People’s Science Institute (PSI), Dehradun elaborates on what threatens the Himalayan region, why their health is critical, and the role of activists and local communities
Read the interview here