As of June 2021, India’s #COVID19 death rate could be 6.8-7.9 times higher than the official ~290 deaths/mn popn, shows a preprint by @YRDeshmukh, @countthedead, @h_tejas, @paulnovosad, @AditiBhowmick18 et al. Follow the thread to know more: The discrepancy btwn the estimated current death rate & expected death rate as per trends in the past yrs is called ‘excess mortality’. 8 states had 22% excess mortality in the 1st #Covid19 wave and 46% excess mortality in the 2nd, compared to 2015-19

The #FarmersProtest against the central govt’s #FarmBills completes 6 months today. Farmers are demanding a repeal of three laws passed in Sept 2020 & have called for a nationwide protest today, May 26, 2021. Follow this thread to know more: 12 opposition parties, supporting the protest today, have written to the Centre demanding a repeal of the #FarmBills & minimum support price (#MSP) for foodgrains, based on the M.S. Swaminathan Committee recommendations

https://twitter.com/SitaramYechury/status/1396469362584784896

A 2nd pre-monsoon tropical cyclone off the Indian coast, #CycloneYaas, has formed over the Bay of Bengal, just a week after #CycloneTauktae made landfall on Gujarat’s Saurashtra coast on May 17, 2021. Follow this thread to know more: #CycloneYaas is very likely to cross the north Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Island around May 26, 2021, at noon with wind speed between 155-165 km per hour, gusting up to 185 km per hour

Today, PM @narendramodi said that India has the world’s largest #COVID19 #vaccination drive. In three months, India has vaccinated 120 mn but that is 1.3% of its popn vs 23.7% vaccinated in the US, 15.3% in the UK and 4.3% in Brazil. We put India’s vaccine numbers in context: India has administered 109mn 1st vaccine doses & 17 mn people have been fully vaccinated. India needs to administer 10mn doses/day to reduce mortality. But India’s average vaccination rate dipped from 3.6 mn doses/day to 2.7 mn doses last week. Our report indiaspend.com/covid-19/state…

Madhya Pradesh has no oxygen (02) production capacity, while 02 demand in Maharashtra is more than the capacity to produce it, per a govt panel set up during the 1st #COVID19 wave. As case numbers rocket, a thread on India’s medical-grade 02 situation: The government wants to import 50,000 metric tonnes of medical oxygen--equivalent to 5 million jumbo cylinders--and is currently finalising a tender and looking for sources to import from

With 4 states and 1 UT due to get new govts next month, we looked at political representation of women in India. Of the 4,235 members of legislative assemblies (MLAs) in India, only 11% are #women. Follow the thread to know more:
#Elections2021 Among states that had elections in March & April 2021, #WestBengal had the highest representation of #women, at 13% of all MLAs. 7% of MLAs in #TamilNadu are women, 6% in #Kerala & 6% in #Assam, data from @GoIStats recent collation of #gender data show:
mospi.nic.in/sites/default/…

As some states report they’ve run out of #COVID19 #vaccines, here’s how the states with the highest population of those above 45 years stack up on vaccinations: As many as 9.3 million doses, making up 10% of the total vaccines given in India by April 9, were given in Maharashtra, followed by 8.8 million doses in Rajasthan (9.3%) and 8.4 million doses in Gujarat (9%)
pib.gov.in/PressReleasePa…

India’s defense forces, including the army, navy & air force, reported 787 deaths by #suicide between 2014 and 2021, the government told #Parliament on March 22, 2021. Thread on govt data and reasons for the suicides: 3 in 4 suicides were in the #IndianArmy. The Defence Institute of Psychological Research says domestic and personal problems, marital discord, stress and financial problems were the major causes of these #suicides

The fortunes of India’s 100 #billionaires increased by ~Rs 13 lakh crore ($17.8 bn) between March 18 and December 31, 2020, enough to give 138 million of the poorest Indians Rs 94,045 each, says a recently released @OxfamIndia report #inequality
oxfamindia.org/press-release/… The wealth of Indian #billionaires was at $422.9 billion in July 2020, which increased by 35% between April and July 2020, during the #COVIDLockdown #inequality
pwc.ch/en/publication…

30% of households who had said in Jun 2020 that they had lost their source of income because of #COVID19 had returned to work in Oct 2020, but most of them were self-employed in agriculture, as per a survey by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (@ncaer). Thread: The telephonic survey was conducted twice, once in June among 2,068 households and then in October among 1,989 households. In the October survey, 65% of the households surveyed were the same as in the 1st round

By Jan 24, 2021, 1.6 million Indian health workers or, about 1 in 1,000 Indians, had received the 1st dose of the #COVID19#vaccine, data from the govt show. The UK has vaccinated 95/1,000 and the US 56/1,000. Follow this thread to know more: India vaccinated more people (207,229) on Jan 16, 2021, the 1st day of the #COVID19 vaccination drive, compared to France, UK & the US, the govt said. How this compared:
India: 0.15/1,000
US: 0.24/1,000
UK: 0.29/1,000
France: 0.001/1,000

#AirPollution, measured by annual PM2.5--particles finer than a human hair--reduced in bigger cities such as Delhi & Varanasi but increased in smaller cities such as Fatehabad & Moradabad, finds a @CSEINDIA analysis of 26 cities. Follow the thread for insights: In many cities in the upper Indo-Gangetic plains, avg PM2.5 levels were above 2019 levels. #AirPollution in Fatehabad, in northern Haryana, deteriorated the most, with PM2.5 levels increasing 35% from 2019

A comprehensive school management programme implemented in Madhya Pradesh government schools did not improve their functioning or students’ learning, says a working paper on the impacts of the programme. More in this thread: The study, co-authored by @karthik_econ of @UCSanDiego & @singhabhi from @handels_sse, analysed the impact of a school management prog developed by the MP govt in collaboration with education services provider Ark across 1,774 randomly selected elementary schools

International #migration from India rose 3X between 1990 (6.6 million) and 2019 (17.5 million).
Most Indian migrants (3.4 million) went to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Follow this thread for more findings from the December 2020 Asia-Pacific Migration Report by @UNESCAP: India and China were the world’s largest remittance recipients, receiving over $83 billion and $68 billion in 2019, respectively, the report says

Today, Deepak Maravi, 45, of Bhopal was reported to have died during a @BharatBiotech & @ICMRDELHI #COVIDvaccine trial. It is unclear if Maravi received a vaccine or a placebo, & what exactly caused his death, but a media storm has ensued. Follow @AnooBhu’s thread from Bhopal: On Jan 3, 2021, India’s drug controller approved 2 #COVID19 vaccines, #COVISHIELD by @AstraZeneca & @UniofOxford, & #COVAXIN by @BharatBiotech & the Indian Council of Medical Research (@ICMRDELHI). The approvals were controversial as relevant data was not made public

Globally 2020 was as warm as 2016, the warmest year till date, making 2020 the 6th in a series of exceptionally warm years starting in 2015. Follow the thread for insights from the #CopernicusClimate Change Service (#C3S) @CopernicusECMWF #ClimateChange 2020 was 0.6°C warmer than the standard 1981-2010 reference period & ~1.25°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, a press release from @CopernicusECMWF notes. 2011-2020 is the warmest decade recorded #ClimateChange

78% of the elderly who have retired said they were neither receiving nor expected to receive a pension, found an @IIPSMumbai survey of >72,000 adults aged 45 and above btwn April 2017 & Dec 2018. More than half (51%) the men & 22% women were still working. Thread: A higher proportion of women (89%) & those living in rural areas (86%) said they were not receiving pensions compared to their male (74%) & urban counterparts (57%). Only 8.6% of those over 60 years said they were covered by some work-related pension and 6% by the provident fund

India tops the list of 21 countries that blocked civilians' access to the internet in 2020, affecting 10 mn users and costing $2.8 bn, as per the 2020 Global Cost of Internet Shutdowns report by Top10 VPN @top10vpn, a UK-based company. Follow this thread to know more: Globally, the cost of internet disruptions halved from $8 bn in 2019 to $4 bn in 2020. In India, they more than doubled from 4,196 hrs in 2019 to 8,927 hrs in 2020. The cost of these disruptions for India also doubled from $1.3 bn to $2.8 bn

Indian women spend nearly 5 hours on unpaid care work every day against the ½ hour that men do. Unpaid care by women could actually trigger violence against them, shows an @OxfamIndia study. Follow the thread for details: The researchers conducted 7 focus group discussions with 161 participants (adolescent girls and women) in Udaipur, and in-depth interviews with 28 men & 32 women in rural Udaipur, 4 men & 10 women in urban Udaipur, and 4 men & 8 women in Delhi

In 2019, police across India recorded 525 cases of underage marriage under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act of 2006. Nearly half were from Assam (115) and Karnataka (111), @NCRBHQ data show. Follow the thread for details:
ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/… Cases reported more than doubled from 239 in 2015. That year, Tamil Nadu (77) and West Bengal (40) had reported the most cases of child marriages
ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/…

6% more scheduled castes (SC) students of govt schools got pre-matric scholarships (for grades 9 & 10) last year than in the previous year, per govt data submitted in #Parliament. ~2.8 mn students benefited. Follow this thread for details:
pqars.nic.in/annex/252/AU47… From Apr to Sept 11, 2020, over 1.4 mn students from the scheduled tribes (ST) benefited from the scholarship, up 11% from 1.2 mn in 2019-20. The scholarship provides Rs 225 per month for day scholars and Rs 525 per month for hostellers #affirmativeaction
pqars.nic.in/annex/252/AU62…