A roundup of today’s news in brief

With India inching towards the 2,00,000-mark in the number of COVID-19 cases, several cities has played a major role in increasing in the number of positive cases so far. However, it can be seen that Maharashtra is one of the worst-affected state due to the novel coronavirus infection. Also, Mumbai is one among the hardest hit cities by the pandemic.

The government permits 100 per cent foreign direct investment in food retail for food produced and manufactured in India. Last year, the company had set up a new local entity – Flipkart Farmermart – to focus on food retail in India, and had applied for requisite licences from the government. Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, at that time had said

The associations of epidemiologists, public health practitioners and social medicine have issued a joint statement saying that the community transmission of COVID-19 is well established across large sections or sub-populations in the country.The government insists that there is no community spread of Covid-19 in India. The statement added that India was paying a heavy price both in terms of a humanitarian crisis and disease spread due to the government having relied overwhelmingly on general administrative bureaucrats. It asserts that policy makers should have engaged with expert technocrats in the areas of epidemiology, public health, preventive medicine and social science.