Shuttered Markets, Missing Labour – Chilli Farmers Brace For A Bitter Harvest In Andhra Pradesh

Crops are still standing in the fields, labour is scarce, and prices have crashed in a dire start to 2020. This time last year M Venkateswara Reddy was a busy man, procuring hundreds of thousands of bags of Guntur’s famous red chillies to export to markets across Asia. In good years, nearly half the red […]

#Corona Shutdown Likely To Get Extended After April 14 Deadline In Telangana

Government sources indicate that the shutdown may not just end on April 14 itself, as initially planned. PM Narendra Modi is believed to have told Chief Ministers that it is a long drawn battle. In what can be seen as a confirmation of the same, Telangana CM KCR hints in his recent meetings with state […]

Why Govt Delays To Provide Doctors ‘Protective Gear’ And PPE In #Corona Hospitals?

The Modi government delayed framing proper guidelines and standards for the manufacture of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) — meant for health workers and first responders treating coronavirus patients — in India. The delay is one of the reasons that health workers in India are now facing a severe shortage in high quality protective suits, the […]

Govt Banned ‘Social Help’ Activity To Streamline ‘Social Distancing’ In Hyderabad

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has said it has opened a ”special wing” for collection of food and other items from donors to distribute them in a proper manner as it was observed social distancing was not maintained in events conducted by organisations to give things away during the lockdown. GHMC Mayor Bonthu Rammohan […]

‘Sunday Blackout’ Call Will Keep India’s Power Industry In Deep Trouble

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to the nation to switch off all lights in homes and light candles, diyas, torch lights or phone flash lights for nine minutes on April 5 to ‘feel the collective battle that we are all fighting’. This unusual tactic might have created an additional battle for the national electricity […]

Have Tablighi Jamaat Members Misbehaved Or Stripped In Front Of Hospital Nurses?

News appeared in social media that hospital in charge in Ghaziabad hospital has complained to the police authorities of unruly and disgraceful behavior on the part of some Tableeghi jamat members from the Nizamuddin Markaz admitted for diagnosis. The news explained the disgraceful behavior as it said that the Tableeghi members indulged in undressing and […]

Why ‘Contact Tracing’ Tableeghi Jamaat Members In Telugu States Becoming A Big Challenge?

It has been a tumultuous month for Mirza (Name changed). A native of Tangellamudi at the outskirts of Eluru in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, he and three others had set off for Delhi on March 6. “We stayed there for a few days and made arrangements for others from the state who were […]

Why Companies Are Giving ‘Too Much Work’ For ‘Working From Home’ In Hyderabad?

“Between the mountain of deliverables set by my company and the looming pile of dishes I need to wash at home, I don’t know which challenge is larger,” says 28-year-old Advaith, who works at an FMCG company in Hyderabad. From March 20, this young professional, like many others, has had to work from home. But […]

Tableeghi Jamaat Attendees ‘Fear Ostracisation’ As Thousands Quarantined Across South India

Over two days on March 30 and 31st, state police, intelligence officers and the health departments of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu raced to trace and quarantine thousands of people who attended a religious meeting in Delhi’s Nizamuddin neighbourhood, after a number of cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, […]

Why Hyderabadis’ Are Struggling To Perform ‘Last Rites’ To ‘Corona Dead’?

In a sad and shocking case, health workers in Hyderabad performed the funeral of a 74-year-old Khaja Hameeduddin, who became the first person in Telangana to die of the deadly coronavirus. Soon after his death, blood samples were collected. He was tested positive with COVID-19 and his grieving family has been under quarantine at their […]