As predicted by health expert India surpassed Brazil as the country with the second-highest recorded corona cases. India recorded the largest number of cases in a day with 90,802 recorded overnight Sunday, according to data released by India’s health ministry. There have been 71,000 deaths from corona, making India the third-largest by a number of deaths.
The pandemic began and opposition kept warning about the gravity of the situation but Mr. Modi put on a grand public reception to welcome the U.S. President. Ignoring the crisis, Mr. Trump received an exuberant welcome in the country.
The tragedy of the common people remained as it had deteriorated over time. The unplanned locked down, the migrant crisis, clueless government policies all led to the economic conundrum that it faces.
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The migrant crisis has also revealed the truth about the contemporary Indian government. A husband walked for miles carrying his wife’s body because ambulances refused help, dogs fed on a body kept in a mortuary. The list is endless. Over the past few months, India’s rotting healthcare system has repeatedly tainted its people.
Instead of using the lockdown as an opportunity to scale up testing facilities, the PM only chose to address the nation via televised videos for some self-endorsement. Neither Indians clapping for frontline workers nor lightening candles have helped. The bogus act has failed to wish away the darkness caused by the pandemic. India didn’t need morale-boosting. It needed solid policies.
A forceful lockdown must be evaluated now by asking whether it has put the country’s healthcare system in a position. Whether the government has ensured that the pandemic remains suppressed for the foreseeable future? NO. The government has been reticent to address these basic questions, for an obvious reason.
Senior BJP leaders were busy giving communal colour to the pandemic. Bhoomi pujan amidst crisis was a top-notch priority of the government. An unquantified amount of money has been spent to clean and deck up Ayodhya for the ceremony, which was attended by many bigwigs even amid the health risks posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
No other country except India has seen the death of the poor at this scale due to starvation or lack of resources in the fight against COVID. Except for a few states, like Kerala, the data suggests that large parts of the country are now in a worse position than they were at the beginning of the lockdown. This implies that the country has squandered the possible epidemiological benefits of the lockdown while paying its terrible social costs. The lockdown has destroyed the livelihood and economic security of millions of people.
The damage to the Indian economy is another fault line that should alarm everyone. India’s GDP is far worse than in the U.S. — one of the worst affected by the pandemic.The 24% fall in the GDP growth rate is the fruit of the faulty policies by the Narendra Modi-led government. The decline had begun much before the pandemic hit.
Now when we are in the middle of a crisis, PM Modi needs to put a pause on “Mann ki Baat” and listen to the masses. The Government needs to work on the gruesome issue of coronavirus which has so far appeared to have taken very lightly.PM Modi is not a believer in press conferences or taking questions from journalists. So it’s no surprise that his approach to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic has not been very different. While India overtook Brazil as the country with the second-highest recorded corona cases and the COVID tally rose to over 4.13 million cases, Modi’s Mann ki Baat is devoid of any solution to the sinking economy and pandemic. Masses are worried whether the Modi government has a solution or “act of God ” is the answer.
