Explained Highlights: Why monkeypox is spreading, the nationalisation of banks, and why Myanmar executed 4 dissidents

Monkeypox Explained Highlights: The detection of monkeypox on Sunday in a 34-year-old Delhi resident, who had no history of international travel, marks India’s first case of local human-to-human transmission. This comes a day after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, its highest level of alarm. There have been 14,533 probable and laboratory-confirmed monkeypox cases reported from 72 countries this year until July 20, according to the WHO, increasing from 3,040 cases across 47 countries recorded in the beginning of May. We write on all you need to know about the disease.

Last week, on July 19, which was the 53rd anniversary of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi nationalising 14 banks, the Indian National Congress and its senior leaders commemorated the move as “a transformational change” and bemoaned that the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government were on a “privatisation spree”. Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh announced that his party will oppose any Bill seeking to facilitate privatisation of public sector banks. We take a look at what it achieved and whether it was a masterstroke or a policy failure.

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s military junta executed four pro-democracy activists on Monday, marking a new low in the situation in the country since the February 2021 coup. The four political prisoners had been arrested last year on charges of terrorism and arming people to fight the junta. They were sentenced to death in January this year in closed door trials. They appealed against their sentences and lost earlier this year. We explain why the junta went ahead to take this decision.