AWARE and AWAKE

Net  new   enrolments  with retirement fund body  EPFO  rose to  10.05   lakh   in   August  from 7.48  lakh   in  July 2020, according to its latest payroll data, providing a perspective on employment  in  the formal sector amid the coronavirus pandemic. Provisional payroll data released by the  EPFO  last month had shown that net  new   enrolments  stood at 8.45  lakh   in  July this year. The figure has now been revised down to 7.48  lakh . The net  enrolments  with the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (  EPFO ) had dropped to 5.72  lakh   in  March 2020 from 10.21  lakh   in  February, according to the payroll data released  in  May.

  Half of Indians may have had coronavirus by next February, government panel estimates: At least  half   of  India's 1.3 billion people are likely to  have  been infected with the new  coronavirus   by  next  February , helping slow the spread  of  the disease, a member  of  a central government committee tasked with providing projections said on Monday. India has so far reported 7.55 million cases  of  the  coronavirus  and is second only to the United States in terms  of  total infections. But COVID-19 infections are decreasing in India after a peak in mid-September, with 61,390 new cases reported on average each day, according to a Reuters tally. Our mathematical model  estimates  that around 30%  of  the population is currently infected and it could go up to 50%  by   February ," Manindra Agrawal, a professor at the Indian Institute for Technology in Kan...