India coronavirus dispatch: Does smoking really prevent virus infection?

Here is a round-up of important articles on Covid-19 from across Indian publications — From lockdown in Antarctica, to uncovering the regional parameters of Covid-19, and how vulnerable the homeless are — read these and more in today’s India dispatch.

Expert Speak

Relaxing labour laws can’t help industry in the long run; formalising the economy can: Though firms seemingly have an upper hand if labour laws — which protect workers’ rights — are relaxed, in reality, as a result of weak labour laws, firms will have to work with labour that “owes no allegiance to the organisation”. Read this interview with Errol D’Souza, professor of economics and director of Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, on how the dilution in laws will end up making these organisations invest more in monitoring and enforcement to obtain productivity from precarious employment. Read More