Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has called for the opposition to unite against the BJP today, pointing to the "threat" posed to democracy by what she called a "surveillance state" in the aftermath of the Pegasus scandal; The Centre's statement in parliament that no deaths due to lack of oxygen have been specifically reported by states and UTs has angered the families of Covid victims; Maharashtra may be adding backlog deaths to its Covid death count fairly regularly, but in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, the death count from the second wave of the pandemic has fallen drastically and it is not clear whether the state has accounted for those who died when the system was overwhelmed; As talk continues of the possible resignation of Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, his loyalists insist he is not going anywhere; and other top news of the day.