> There's a lot of indicators of bad faith in the OpIndia article, but I don't see any in the Economist article.

claim was it is true and nothing fake there, so you did a strawman there. Since that is true, it shows economist as acting in bad faith in best case scenario.

Opindia is reporting on Govt of India rebutting the Economists argument. These are not opindia arguments, they are paraphrasing GoI's. So the below part you quoted is a paraphrase of GoI

> "However, the entire analysis done in the article was based on ‘estimates’ based on randomly selected numbers"

See actual press release here

https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1726521
and the twitter post here
https://twitter.com/drharshvardhan/status/140367805453529088...

I am reproducing part that shows Economist acted at the least in bad faith and you have continued on same basis by claiming that you checked out their research and back it over the actual data given out by experts in field of health and agency that collates the actual data

***

The unsound analysis of the said article is based on extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence.

Studies which are used by the magazine as an estimate of excess mortality are not validated tools for determining mortality rate of any country or region.

The so called “evidence” cited by the magazine is a study supposedly done by Christopher Laffler of Virginia Commonwealth University. An internet search of research studies in scientific database such Pubmed, Research Gate, etc., did not locate this study and the detailed methodology of this study has not been provided by the magazine.

Another evidence given is the study done in Telengana based on insurance claims. Again, there is no peer reviewed scientific data available on suchstudy.

Two other studies relied upon are those done by Psephology groups namely “Prashnam” and “C-Voter” who are well versed in conducting, predicting and analysing poll results. They were never ever associated with public health research. Even in their own area of work of psephology, their methodologies for predicting poll results have been wide off the mark many times.

By their own submission, the magazine states that ‘such estimates have been extrapolated from patchy and often unreliable local government data, from company records and from analyses of such things as obituaries’.

Union Government has been transparent in its approach to COVID data management. As early as May 2020, to avoid inconsistency in number of deaths being reported, Indian Council of Medical Research has issued ‘Guidance for appropriate recording of COVID-19 related deaths in India’ for correct recording of all deaths as per ICD-10 codes recommended by WHO for mortality coding. States and UTs have been urged through formal communications, multiple video conferences and through deployment of Central teams for correct recording of deaths in accordance with laid down guidelines.

***

> In early March, India's health minister declared the pandemic over,

NPR has not given any source for this claim and if you look at the Minister's twitter timeline for the period , it shows the opposite.

https://twitter.com/drharshvardhan

Or check out the timeline of the ministry he heads

https://twitter.com/MoHFW_INDIA

All proof there shows that he & ministry was calling for people to be careful, warning about increasing cases, updating on vaccines & health protocols. Not the actions of someone who declared it is over.

So that is a explicit lie/untruth from NPR and your comments also show that you find it easier to believe that India is hiding deaths at unimaginable rates than India has done exceedingly well given its challenges.

Other publications which carried out the same news

https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/extrapo...

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/national/reports-o...

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/india-news-unsoun...