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Rural India sinks deeper into debt as Covid-19 pandemic wipes out work

The coronavirus and a lockdown aimed at stopping it last year saw millions of people thrown out of jobs in cities and towns and forced back to their villages, and ever higher levels of debt.

Interviews with 75 households in a cluster of eight villages in India’s most populous state showed household incomes have slumped nearly 75% on average. Almost two thirds of the households have taken on debt.
Rural unemployment rate, which used to hover around 6% before the pandemic, rose to 8.75% in June, according to the Mumbai-based Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

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India’s COVID death rate hit record in June after calls for better data

“The Delta variant is both the most contagious variant and among the most dangerous variants in terms of infection fatality rates,” said Christophe Z Guilmoto, a demographer at the French Institute of Research for Development in New Delhi, who has studied COVID-19 mortality in India. “It did play an increasing role at the end of India’s second wave, and this may explain why the daily count of deaths in India isn’t coming down as fast as we expected/hoped.”

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Delhi govt launches financial assistance scheme for families of Covid victims

”Each family in which a death has occurred due to Covid will be provided an ex gratia of Rs 50,000.”
”We are launching a portal through which such people can apply for financial assistance. Our representatives will also visit such families and get applications filled up,” he added.

The chief minister said such representatives will not reject claims of families in case any document is missing and will only facilitate the process.
There is no income criterion to apply for financial assistance under the scheme.

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Twitter loses immunity over user-generated content in India

India’s IT ministry told the High Court in New Delhi that Twitter’s non-compliance amounted to a breach of the provisions of the IT Act, causing the U.S. firm to lose its immunity, according to the filing dated July 5. The filing came in a case filed by a Twitter user who wanted to complain about some allegedly defamatory tweets on the platform, and said the company was not complying with the new law that requires appointment of certain new executives.

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