Best of BS Opinion: Redeeming India, dual regulation is bad, and more

Here are the best of Business Standard's opinion pieces for Thursday

Suspicions that UP has been fudging its Covid-19 data abound from anecdotal facts on the ground – masses of bodies floating in rivers, the numbers at the funeral ghats -- and the visibly parlous condition of health infrastructure in the state. Omkar Goswami offers an explanation of the fudge here. UP’s data fiddles only highlights the larger picture of serial mis-steps by India’s political leadership that have caused the tragedy of the second wave. India can redeem itself only by transforming our health outcomes by Diwali, writes Naushad Forbes and sets out the principles we must follow to achieve this here
 

Other views examine the implications of the rabi procurement and dual regulation for micro-finance institutions:
 

The glitch-free marketing of rabi crop, resulting in record procurement of most crops at minimum support prices, reflects the successful implementation of some key measures that provoked the impasse between the government and farmers over the three reforms-oriented laws, says the second edit. Read it here 
 

The new Assam government’s move to regulate microfinance institutions in the state is the wrong way to address the problems of micro-credit, the top edit argues. Read it here

QUOTE OF THE DAY

‘Delhi CM does not speak for India’

Foreign minister S Jaishankar’s tweet on Kejriwal’s request to ban flights from Singapore