Between the Delta and Omicron variants of the coronavirus, the need for home healthcare has been acutely felt and a fledgling healthcare service has begun to grow. Largely fragmented, and yet, about two crore patients have been supported during the second wave.

Not a moment too soon, the Centre revised home isolation guidelines on January 5th. In fact, this week, NatHealth (a platform for various healthcare arms including hospitals) also came out with a white paper on home healthcare, focusing on issues including standardised procedures, insurance coverage, data privacy, and training the human resource needed to staff these services, says Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Secretary-General, NatHealth.

Nano materials, with the large surface areas, interact better with gas molecules which can help in detecting gas leaks. Nano materials of different chemical compounds can detect different gasses. Scientists are using these properties to develop hi-tech gas sensors for industrial and medical applications.

In this week's podcast Keerthi Sanagasetti and Hari Viswanath of BL Research Bureau discuss the concept of inflation expectations and how it can impact markets.

How has 2021 been for Indian agribusiness in general and agritech companies in particular? There were of course the continuing protests by farmers that ended in the repeal of the three signal farm bills. How did it go down with India's agri private sector? Did Indian agritech break any new thresholds on the road to maturity? And what prospects does 2022 hold? TR Vivek is in conversation with Venky Ramachandran, a consultant who advises agri-businssses on strategy, market access, fundraising and technology.  He also runs the weekly newsletter Agribusiness Matters.

In this week's podcast Keerthi Sanagasetti and Sai Prabhakar of BL Research Bureau discuss the aspects involved in Health insurance porting

The Covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdown has had a huge impact on the education systems across the world and school closures affected more than 1.6 billion learners. The initial focus of policymakers was to ensure students would be able to attend classes without disruption, even if the students would have to learn remotely. However, increasing evidence suggests that the lockdown will have a profound long-term effect on the students. This generation risks losing $17 trillion in lifetime earnings --- it is equivalent of 14 percent of today’s global GDP -- in present value as a result of school closures, a recent UNICEF report shows.

In India, UNESCO estimates that nearly 321 million Indian children were affected. Schools and various State governments started holding classes remotely or even on TV, but was this effective? How did children and youth, especially from the marginalized communities, cope with these drastic changes? Now that classrooms are slowly opening up, what should educators and policymakers be looking at?

Today, we have with us, Rajeshwari Chandrasekar, Chief of UNICEF Maharashtra, to understand the issue better.

 This conversation you're about to hear is a part of BusinessLine's Table Talk series, conversation with leaders on their life and times, and their businesses. In this episode, Vinay Kamath and Thomas K Thomas speak to Anish Shah, MD of Mahindra group. This November, he took over as the chief of the $22-billion Mahindra group. 

They chat about his move to India from the US after 16 years, the seamless academic journey from IIM Ahmedabad to Carnegie Mellon, the pandemic impact on the group's auto business, and his interests beyond corporate life.

The Winter Session of the Parliament drew to a close on Wednesday, one day ahead of schedule. The session saw multiple protests by the Opposition on issues related to price rise and the Lakhimpur Kheri violence.

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As Omicron (the new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus) threatens to overwhelm hospitals around the world, Vishal Bali, Executive Chairman of Asia Healthcare Holdings, calls for public and private hospitals to plan together to tackle the possible surge in India.

And with another pandemic-dominated year drawing to an end, Bali foresees more “virtualisation” of care through remote or online methods, even as he stresses the need for reforms in medical education to graduate more doctors, nurses and paramedical staff.

When the farm laws were repealed, the protesting farmers on Delhi's borders were ecstatic while those who championed the laws as necessary for a 'New Deal' found themselves in a trough of despond. Should it be all gloom and doom? There's enough room for maneuver for the $400 bn Indian farm sector to reform, modernise and prosper even in the absence of the controversial laws, argues Padmanand V, partner, public sector, Grant Thornton Bharat in this conversation with TR Vivek