Rajan says ‘monetisation’ is a good option in the short-term and within reasonable limits.

Labour laws in India are part of the façade of democracy that middle-class India confuses for the real thing. In reality, nine out of ten of India’s 500 million workers are in the informal sector, which does not admit labour laws, minimum wages, social security and such other symbols of civilised existence even as figments of the imagination.

Social stigma and low testing are the key reasons for the high mortality rate among COVID-19 patients in West Bengal, where the disease, like elsewhere in the country, is still an urban phenomenon, experts say. The state's Trinamool Congress government has been drawing consistent criticism from the Centre and opposition parties over the way it has tackled the pandemic, and has been accused of under-reporting data about the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

Gandhi also called upon the government to immediately put money into the hands of the poor and provide a financial package to the industry to help revive the economy.

Official figures say 1.8 lakh workers have returned home to Bihar. Unofficially, however, that figure is said to have crossed 3 lakhs. Can Bihar cope?