India's media have had plenty of substantive stories to dig into lately. COVID-19 infections are surging, with more than 90,000 new cases a day, as New Delhi struggles to resuscitate an economy that contracted 24 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter. About 73,000 Indians have died and 270 million children have been out of school since March.

Along India's disputed border with China, tens of thousands of Indian troops are jockeying for position with Chinese rivals in inhospitable terrain, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours to their highest level since 1962, when they fought a bloody border war. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party government faces a deepening public finance crisis, with many frontline public sector workers paid weeks or months late, if at all.

Financial Times