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Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to indicate the current situation of the COVID-19 outbreak in India, the world's second-most populous country. India reported its first COVID-19 case in the southern province of Kerala in late January 2020. Since then, the outbreak has spread to other provinces and union territories, with the highest number of cases reported in Maharashtra province as of 24 May 2020.


Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents the age- and gender-wise analysis of COVID-19 patients in Maharashtra province and the whole nation.


Findings
It shows that 75% of them belong to the age group of 21–60 years and the age above 50 years has a very high fatality rate of 14.52% in Maharashtra. This analysis also shows that 76% of COVID-19 cases are in males in the nation. The data indicates that in the nation, 75.3% of the deaths are in the age group over 60 years and 86% of cases of death had diabetes-related comorbidity, hypertension, chronic kidney problems and heart problems. In India, the case-fatality rate, which estimates the proportion of deaths among identified confirmed cases, is 2.93% as of 24 May, which is significantly less than that many countries.


Originality/value
To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first attempt to indicate the current situation of the COVID-19 outbreak in India based on age and gender.

This article seeks to explore the core interests of India at the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). It argues that India joined this organization as a part of its broad strategy to engage with all the major powers. It foresaw significant geopolitical and economic dividends from its association with other emerging states in a multilateral forum. New Delhi actively participated in the BRICS summits and has contributed significantly to its agenda setting and institutionalization. The article also shows how the BRICS has departed from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and India's traditional policy towards the Global South. By entering into a privileged club, India seeks to upgrade its rank and status. Finally, the article discusses the way preponderance of China in this organization and its border conflicts with India have impacted the potential of the BRICS.

This article provides a broad overview of Russian foreign policy in the last three decades. It has divided this period into three broad categories—neoliberalism and the West-centric policy (1991–1995); Eurasianism and the search for multipolarity (1996–2006); and crossing the Rubicon (2007–2015)—marked by external interventions. Taking domestic factors into account, it analyses how Russian foreign policy took a radical turn from being a West-centric to a complete break with the West. Russian interventions in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria have revived the spectre of the beginning of a new Cold War. Towards the end, it discusses how Russia has developed a close economic and strategic partnership with China, especially after the sanctions from the West.

Two terms of Putin's presidency set in motion a dichotomous trend of growth and stability, on the one hand, and stifling of political and civil liberties, on the other. This was an inevitable outcome of Putin's policies, which laid more emphasis on growth and stability than democratisation of Russia. This imbalance has led to a divergence of assessments and interpretations by the experts. While most of the Russian scholars consider Putin to be a remarkable president, their counterparts from the West condemn him as an authoritarian ruler who derailed the progress of democracy in Russia. Against this backdrop, this article argues that some of the centralization measures of Putin were necessary to keep Russia united and growing. But his attempts at consolidation of the hold of a single party over the legislature militate against one of the fundamental democratic principles of separation of powers between the legislature and the executive. While this has provided unbridled powers to the president, the process of the growth of a strong opposition party in Russia has suffered a definite setback. As a powerful president, Putin emerged as the chief architect of a nation-in-the-making. Under him, national-ism triumphed but democracy staggered.

"BRICS is conceivably the most formidable organisation to have emerged in the post-Cold War period in the non-Western world. This book highlights the significance of BRICS in a wider global context and foregrounds the long pending demand for the reform of global governance institutions. The volume: - Traces how the organisation came into being and looks at the distinct norms and principles espoused by it; - Discusses the glaring limitations of the existing institutions of global governance; - Explores the economic growth and the rising political influence of BRICS states; - Analyses the internal threats to the survival of the organisation and assesses its prospects in the foreseeable future. A significant intervention in situating BRICS as one of the major players in global governance, the book will be of great interest to students and scholars of international political economy, international business and finance, international relations, politics, and Global South Studies"--