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In his address to the nation on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about three major topics regarding the nation's vaccination programme -- the procurement, the production and the politics surrounding it. He announced an important change to the vaccine policy and promised that the issue of shortages would be addressed soon. What did he say? Here are three important take aways from his speech.

Pollution, climate change and ecological destruction are some of the biggest challenges we face today. We can see some of the effects of climate change already – be it more intense heatwaves, floods, droughts and other natural calamities.

As we observe World Environment Day, The Hindu BusinessLine, in association with UNICEF, brings to you a special podcast series on climate change. In the first episode of the series, ‘Fighting Climate Crisis’, Sanskriti Menon, Senior Programme Director at the Centre for Environment Education, talks about the impact on climate change and India and what can be done to tackle it.

The UN has recently adopted an India-sponsored resolution to mark 2023 as the Year of Millets. In this episode of Field Notes TR Vivek is in conversation with Joanna Kane-Potaka, the Assistant Director general of ICRISAT and Prashant Parameswaran, founder and managing director of Soulfull Foods on why the much-neglected and forgotten millets are 'smart foods' that help us fight malnutrition and climate change at once.

Edited & Produced by Nivedita V

1,600 German companies are reportedly functioning in India, including 600 joint ventures. Cumulatively Germany has invested $12.39 billion in India since 2000. India and Germany marked the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations in March. The relationship has progressed satisfactorily but not spectacularly. Let us analyse some of the reasons for this.

The country Covid vaccination drive seems to be proceeding despite the debates. But the concerns related to the availability of the vaccines cease to end.  

In order speed up the process, the Centre Government had granted permission to the States to procure the vaccines directly from the vaccine makers. But, now pharma companies have said that they would only work with the Union Government and not with individual states, putting the vaccination process is jeopardy.  Also, these producers have already committed to supplying vaccines to other countries. This has been rather stressful as fear about the infection continues to mount.  

But, one State leader had suggested a few ways to resolve the problem.  

Listen to the podcast.

Despite the decline in the number of Covid cases across the country, many are still skeptical of its riddance once and for all.

This could be the reason why the election commission’s statement related to the five assembly polls due early next year came as a rude shock to me.

India is still bearing the brunt of the recently concluded assembly elections across Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, Pondicherry and Assam. The country’s Covid cases had sky-rocketed during the election season, leading to near collapse of the healthcare systems.

The last elections season also saw the many participating in the Kumbh Mela as well.

So, here is my question? Is the EC truly concerned about the timely elections or would he consider a Covid-safe election season?

Listen to the podcast. 

The NDA outperformed expectations in the 2019 general elections– the BJP alone won 302 seats, 21 seats more than in 2014, and the NDA won 353 seats. This was a testimonial to PM Modi’s charm and it showed that the people of India placed their trust in him. But the coronavirus pandemic pushed PM Narendra Modi to declare a stringent lockdown to contain the spread of the virus. This hit the economy hard, and when it was recovering, the second wave hit, forcing many States to impose lockdowns. 

What should the Modi government focus on as it steps into its eighth year in office?

In this episode of Field Notes TR Vivek speaks to Subhadeep Sanyal, a partner at Omnivore, India's first agriculture-focussed venture capital firm. Sanyal talks about the unique challenges faced by entrepreneurs in the agri sector and how a new breed of agripreneurs with engineering backgrounds are helping to better the lives of farmers.

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Edited & Produced by Gitanjali Diwakar

In today’s episode of News Explained, we are going to go over some important advancements that took place at the GST Council. The GST Council, which met after October last year, decided to set up a Group of State Finance Ministers to look into the crucial question of granting tax relief to Covid materials, including vaccine and drugs.

The Group of FMs will be formed today and it will submit its recommendation on or before June 8th and then the Council will make a decision.

The Delhi government had announced a lockdown on April 20 for six days as Covid cases surged in the State. It was later extended multiple times. The State recorded 28,395 new Covid-19 cases on April 20, and the cases have fallen since then. This fall has prompted Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to announce the gradual lifting of lockdown rules from May 31.