Best of BS Opinion: Late on the ball, counting true death toll, and more

Here are the top BS Opinion articles of the day

Was the central bank’s off-cycle repo rate hike the result of a misreading of its inflation-control mandate, an effort to facilitate North Block’s huge borrowing programme at the lowest cost possible or an exercise in  “inflating away debt”? T N Ninan weighs the arguments. Read it here

In other views:

Devangshu Datta says the 10X gap between government and WHO estimates of Covid-19 related deaths in India is too large to ignore and should be investigated in the interests of shaping meaningful healthcare policy. Read it here

Mihir Sharma says instead of aggressively rebutting WHO’s estimates of Covid-19 deaths in India, the government should engage with it to understand the reasons for such wide discrepancies with official statistics. Read it here

Radhika Oberoi suggests that removing translated excerpts from two Urdu poems of Faiz Ahmad Faiz Class 10 Social Science textbooks testifies to the poet’s unsettling influence. Read it here
 

Quote of the Day

‘India remains Asia's best long-term structural story in terms of equities and investors should buy their favourite stocks on a decline’

Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy, Jefferies