India Today

Though it put a brave face on its rejection by the people, the BJP is unlikely to forget its electoral humiliation in West Bengal in a hurry. The saffron camp first escalated the post-poll violence into an issue meriting President’s rule. But when it

At the end of his seventh year as the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi would never have thought his relationship with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) would be on such slippery ground. After all, pracharak-turnedpolitician Modi has delive

Shivshankar Menon’s book is a complexly woven discourse on how India has seen itself, Asia and the great powers for the past 75 years. But this is no primer: Menon has spent his entire adult life studying China; he was ambassador there, as well as to

The most severe cyclonic storm recorded in the Arabian Sea since the early 1900s, cyclone Tauktae made landfall in Gujarat on May 17 and has devastated three coastal states in India—the other two being Maharashtra and Goa. The cyclone, according to u

BJP MP Subramanian Swamy recently demanded that Union minister for road transport Nitin Gadkari be asked to lead India’s Covid-19 task force. He had perhaps heard of Gadkari’s behind-the-scenes Covid-relief work in Maharashtra. In April, Gadkari pers

As India’s second wave of Covid cases began to surge in late February/ early March, policymakers and bankers were concerned that the lockdowns states were implementing to combat the virus could stoke inflation. As the data for WPI (wholesale price in

At the May 10 Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, party president Sonia Gandhi announced that the Central Election Authority (CEA) of the Congress was ready with the schedule for the presidential election. An earlier CWC meeting, on January 22,

TEAM AHMEDABAD, Ahmedabad What it has done Provided financial and logistical support for medical supplies and to set up hospitals IN APRIL, as state governments across India began imposing lockdowns to contain the second wave of Covid-19, Captain

MEET GURPREET SINGH RUMMY. For a living, he works as a contractor supplying fuel pumps to petrol stations in the National Capital Region. But not during these troubled times. He and his friends are busy running an ‘Oxygen Langar’ 24x7 in a gurudwara

KAVITA SRIVASTAVA National secretary, PUCL, Rajasthan What she has done Helping Covid patients get medical assistance, oxygen and hospitalisation and providing food and water to those in extreme need DURING THE LOCKDOWN LAST YEAR, Kavita Srivastav

MAASH Kasargod, Kerala What it has done The initiative has brought teachers into Covid-safety programmes IN NORTHERN KERALA, the colloquial Malayalam word for teacher is ‘maash’. As community educators, they are a widely respected demographic. In

COVID CARE NETWORK West Bengal What it has done Conducted awareness drives and provided medical resources to rural areas HOW DOES ONE explain the danger of Covid to people who have little direct experience of it—such as the people of Ayodhya Hills

DR S.N. BASNA , Deputy Medical Superintendent, LNJP Hospital What he has done Provided free teleconsultations to over 800 people since October last year AS A 13-YEAR-OLD in Sirsi village near Jaipur, Sri Narain Basna saw his sister die due to post

THE CITIZENS’ WAR ROOM What it has done A collective of private citizens, it has helped Covid victims source oxygen cylinders and concentrators and get hospital beds WHEN THE SECOND WAVE of Covid-19 began choking medical infrastructure, leaving t

RED VOLUNTEERS West Bengal What it has done Helped with hospital admissions, arranged for medicines and oxygen and assisted in cremations SEVENTY-YEAR-OLD Shaktimani Chatterjee, was gasping for breath. Her oxygen level had dipped to 73. Her husban

THE VIRALS GROUP Lucknow What it has done Volunteers provide verified leads for medical resources in Lucknow ON MAY 9, Payal Yadav and her husband made over 50 calls to oxygen suppliers in Lucknow. They urgently needed an oxygen cylinder for Yadav

CALVARY TEMPLE Hyderabad What it has done Set up a Covid care centre on the church campus to provide free medical treatment ON CALVARY TEMPLE’S sprawling campus in Hafeezpet in west Hyderabad, next to its imposing church, a 300-bed Covid care cent

LAST YEAR, in a precautionary Covid test, all of Dr Sudhanshu’s family members tested positive for the virus. Sudhanshu himself was not tested, and as he got busy caring for them, he overlooked his own symptoms. As a result, by the time he was diagno

LALIT KIRI’S STORY is a rags-to-riches tale of a pharmacist who made it big supplying logistical services to Cairn Energy while it was exploring for oil in Rajasthan’s Barmer, and continued to grow after that. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, he ha

ON THE NIGHT OF APRIL 22, Gurpreet Singh Rummy, along with four fellow social workers, stood outside the Shri Guru Singh Sabha Gurudwara in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, the streets around him a dystopian nightmare of death and helplessness. The 49-year-ol

ON APRIL 8, WHEN AMIT SANYAL saw his oxygen levels falling, he dialed Gaurav Rai for help. Rai wasn’t a friend but Sanyal knew the person they call Patna’s ‘Oxygen Man’ was his best hope. The next day, even as Sanyal’s oxygen level plummeted below 90

THERE IS NO CHAOS or the smell of sickness inside the Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Covid Care Centre, the hospital set up inside Gurudwara Rakabganj Sahib in central Delhi. It radiates order, control, empathy and calm. The facility, set up in 10 days and op

IN MID-APRIL, VINAY PASRICHA received a call from a friend’s wife who was desperate to find oxygen for her hospitalised husband. Pasricha, an alumni of Harvard Business School, spent the night finding oxygen for his friend which eventually saved his

ATE EVENING OF MAY 16, a few volunteers of Sewa International were busy at their office in New Delhi’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg loading 100 oxygen concentrators into a truck. The consignment was on its way to Nagpur in Maharashtra. At the Nagpur noda

LAST YEAR IN AUGUST, WHEN Tariq Ahmad Patloo, a houseboat owner in Srinagar, was infected with Covid and needed a ride to Srinagar’s SMHS Hospital, his own community failed him. He was unable to find a shikara to take him across the lake. Even after

ON MAY 9, WHEN 84-YEAR-OLD Kamalakshmi, a resident of Kerala’s Meloor Village, tested positive and needed to reach the hospital, ambulances were unable to get to her home located 400 metres away from the road. The octogenarian had severe symptoms and

EVERY MORNING, JITENDRA SHINDE, an autorickshaw driver in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, dons a full-body PPE suit, double mask, rubber gloves and a face shield before heading out for the day. It is not just because the city and the district named after it a

FOR THE PAST MONTH, SNEHA VACHHANEY HAS BEEN SUFFERING from “mom’s guilt”. There’s little time for her four-year-old son as she spends most of the day cooking free meals, fielding requests for them on phone and her social media feeds, coordinating wi

BEFORE THE ONSET OF COVID-19, THE Bengaluru-based Akshaya Patra Foundation ran the world’s largest not-for-profit midday meal programme, reaching out to 1.8 million children from over 19,000 schools in 12 states and two Union territories. But as the

MUMBAI-BASED BUSINESSMAN M.K. NAVAS FORMED a group of like-minded individuals in April last year to help those impacted by Covid-19, but he had little idea that the initiative would get a resounding response. Within weeks, Care4Mumbai had people read

WHEN 38-YEAR-OLD SATISH SAVITRI SARELLA, a superintendent (vigilance) with the Andhra Pradesh animal husbandry department, tested positive for Covid-19 last year, he decided to send his wife and daughter to live with his in-laws till he had recovered

SRAVASTI GHOSH SPENT MUCH OF HER TIME IN APRIL helping Covid patients find hospital beds or oxygen cylinders and fetching medicines and groceries for them. But the shrill sirens of speeding ambulances at odd hours left her restless, and she felt guil

RISHABH LALANI, A BENGALURUBASED INDEPENDENT fundraising strategist, moved back in with his parents in Kolkata at the start of the pandemic in 2020. “I would rather be with my parents than die alone,” says Lalani. “Koi time nahin hai sochne ke liye (

THIS APRIL, AS MANJARI CHATURVEDI TESTED POSITIVE for Covid, several qawwali singers, tabla players, sitarists and stage technicians from the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan prayed hard for her quick recovery. Chaturvedi has earned

IT IS 9.30 PM AND JATINDER SINGH SHUNTY is sitting in an ambulance in a parking lot in Jhilmil Colony, fielding calls asking him to pick up and cremate Covid victims’ bodies. “I’ve been living in this ambulance in the parking lot for 21 days now,” sa

EVERY DAY, AROUND MIDNIGHT, filmmaker Vaibhav Wagh steps into a different role. Donning a PPE suit, he volunteers at the Vaikunth Smashanbhumi in Pune’s Lokamanya Nagar locality. He notes the details of the deceased persons, stacks the wood on the fu

WHEN HIS ONLY SON, 31-YEAR-OLD RAJIV LAL, died on April 21 at the King George’s Medical University (KGMU) in Lucknow, Bachchhulal, 65, had exhausted all his money on his treatment. He had first taken him to a private nursing home in Nanpara, Bahraich

Q. Radhe is your third film with Salman Khan. With each project, it seems your screen time has increased. What is he like to work with? You have got to sing his tune, for sure. We have been friends off-screen for over a decade now. He is always [som