Fifth Column: Corona times
Does our healthcare system allow us to relax? In her column for The Indian Express, Tavleen Singh asks whether, in spite of reassurances by the Prime Minister, Indians can afford to "not panic" during the Coronavirus scare.
The Prime Minister has advised us not to panic, but perhaps what we need is to panic enough to acknowledge that we live in a country that is notorious for having the most hopelessly inadequate public health services. Government hospitals remain as bad as they were 30 years ago and prove every time there is an epidemic, as happened in Bihar last year, that they can simply not cope. More than a hundred children died of encephalitis in that hospital in Muzaffarpur last June. For a while, this awful story made national headlines. Famous anchors traipsed through the filthy wards of the hospital holding forth on its abysmal standards. Intrepid reporters discovered human bones lying around in the hospital’s backyard. Shrill prime-time debates were held on what needed to be done to improve the standard of Indian public health facilities and then everything died down and we were back to yelling at each other about politics.Tavleen Singh in The Indian Express.
Corona Threat Could Spark A Mega Recession
Staying with the Coronavirus, Swaminathan Aiyar, in his column for The Times Of India, explains that while the virus is a global health threat, it is also slowly emerging as a massive economic threat to the world.
Most analysts have focused, rightly, on the human tragedy. But the economic consequences may be as bad. The first-round effects are already clear. When China locked down Hubei province, the source of the virus, this disrupted global value chains in industrial production, especially electronics and pharma. The world prepared for a trade shock. India restricted the export of some medicines to avert shortages. The OPEC agreement fell apart and the price of oil crashed, threatening the oil and associated industries including automobile, especially small players. Then came massive strangulation of activity by governments to quell the virus. Movement was slashed or banned in entire countries starting with Italy. The US banned visitors from 26 European countries, and will surely expand the list. India stopped visas to tourists and automatic clearance for NRIs. Country after country is enforcing isolation.Swaminathan Aiyar in The Times Of India
What India Needs To Do To Win Against Covid-19
Chanakya, too, talks about the Coronavirus in their piece for The Hindustan Times, specifically analysing India's shortfalls and strengths when it comes to handling outbreaks like this. The piece provides a guide to how once can help the government in controlling the disease.
What has worked for India so far are its protocols for dealing with the perennial threat of outbreaks from new and deadly diseases like bird flu, Sars, Mers, Nipah and Zika. The bird flu (H5N1) outbreak in Maharashtra in 2006 forced it to get its clinical diagnostic systems in place in 2008, before which all samples were being sent to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing. Since 2008, across the country, influenza surveillance network laboratories routinely test patients admitted in hospitals for ‘influenza-like’ illnesses and severe acute respiratory infections, including pneumonia. A second round of random testing of patients with fever and pneumonia will begin tomorrow to detect unrecorded cases of Covid-19 in the community, if any. This diagnostic advantage, however, will collapse when the epidemic surges and government labs get flooded with samples that run into hundreds and thousands each day. India has to plan for this contingency given that close to 70% of India’s population of 1.35 billion is dependent on the private sector for treatment. Private sector participation in diagnostics and treatment must start now, or we risk going the way of the US and Italy, where the explosion in cases has led to panic and the collapse of the public health system.Chanakya in The Hindustan Times
Inside Track: Scindia Story
What is a Sunday without some political gossip, and who else but Coomi Kapoor to get it from? This week, in her column for The Indian Express, Kapoor focuses on the Madhya Pradesh political drama, but if you read the whole column there's something for you if you're interested in the Delhi riots, the Shiv Sena's mouthpiece Saamna and er...speaker Om Birla.
Whatever their public posturing, Jyotiraditya Scindia’s two aunts in the BJP, Vasundhara Raje and Yashodara, are not exactly thrilled about their nephew joining the party. The longstanding family feud is not about different political ideologies but over the inheritance of the vast Scindia estate. It was not Scindia’s aunts but his in-laws from the Gaekwad royal family of Baroda, Gujarat, who opened a channel for him with Narendra Modi. Amit Shah backs the anti-Vasundhara Raje faction in Rajasthan, while Yashodara was marginalised as a minister by Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh. An additional incentive for Jyotiraditya’s defection may have been a government bungalow in Lutyens Delhi, preferably 27, Safdarjung Road. This was the Scindia family house for over three decades, allotted first to Madhavrao Scindia back in the 1980s. It was retained by the Scindias even when no member of the family was a minister. The bungalow is currently allotted to HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank.Coomi Kapoor in The Indian Express
Out Of My Mind: Scindia’s Exit Seals Cong’s Fate
In his column for The Indian Express, Meghnad Desai, too talks about Jyotiraditya's exit from the Congress party and says that it was a long-time coming. The question he asks is, who next?
It is repeating what happened to the British Liberal Party which dominated British politics in the Nineteenth Century as one of the two great parties, won a landslide victory in 1906, stayed in power till 1922, and then declined for the next hundred years. Longevity in a political party is no guarantee of immortality. In politics your life is measured in your ability to renew yourself at each election. The Congress is governed by geriatrics who have not won (and could not win if they tried) an election to the Lok Sabha. They control the Congress and are in no mood to give up. Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal Emperor, had more energy than this lot.Meghnad Desai in The Indian Express
Is It Time For Gandhi Parivar To Exit & Congress Parivar To Emerge?
Sagarika Ghose takes the same tone as Desai in her analysis of the Madhya Pradesh political drama for The Times Of India. Ghosh suggests that maybe it's finally time for 'Brand Gandhi' and 'Brand Congress' to separate from each other.
For too long, Brand Gandhi and Brand Congress were seen as inseparable — it was thought Congress would splinter without the family “glue”, and it was the family that was bringing in the votes. Now Congress is falling apart despite family control, and the family isn’t able to garner votes either. Rahul Gandhi has lost two consecutive national elections, and it’s only strongman local leaders like Amarinder Singh or Bhupesh Baghel who’ve been able to craft the occasional Congress victory in states. Sonia Gandhi diligently held together her inlaws’ party for a decade, but now seems too frail to make the same effort. Priyanka Gandhi continues to flit in and out of active politics. In India, most political dynasties shrink by the third generation: no Gandhi has been PM after Rajiv, Deve Gowda’s grandchildren have had little impact, Jayant Chaudhary is a shadow of his grandfather Charan Singh. Being fifth generation dynasts, Rahul and Priyanka are facing seriously diminishing returns of the family name.Sagarika Ghose in The Times Of India
The SC Has Not Been Fair To Harsh Mander
Moving away from Madhya Pradesh and Coronavirus, Karan Thapar, in his piece for The Hindustan Times, talks about the Supreme Court's decision on an alleged "hate speech" by activist Harsh Mander in December. Thapar says that if the judges had heard Mander's speech, their decision would have been different.
The matter came up again on 6 March, by when the Delhi Police had filed an affidavit accusing Mander of “bringing the judiciary, as an institution, and individual judges in disrepute”. On this occasion, Mander’s lawyer, Dushyant Dave, pleaded with the judges: “Please go through the entire speech … the filing of the application by Delhi Police against Mander is an attempt to browbeat him … He is being put in the dock for nothing.” But, again, the Court did not hear the full speech. It continued to rely on the Solicitor General’s version now, presumably, supported by the police. And it ordered Mander to respond to the allegations and fixed an April date for the next hearing. However, if the judges had heard the speech, this is what they would have found Mander said of the Court. After saying the fight for our country and our Constitution cannot be won in Parliament, because our secular parties do not have the moral strength to take it up, he added: “This fight can also not be won in the Supreme Court because, as we have seen in the case of the NRC, Ayodhya and Kashmir, the Supreme Court has not been able to protect humanity, equality and secularism. We will definitely try as hard as we can in the Supreme Court, because it is our Supreme Court after all. However, the final decision will be given neither by the Parliament nor by the Supreme Court.”Karan Thapar in The Hindustan Times
India Faces A Diabetes Crisis. But You Can Avoid It
While we obsess over the Coronavirus, there is a long-standing epidemic that India is already dealing with- diabetes. Read David and Dawn Ludwig's piece for The Hindustan Times to know how you can avoid this potentially deadly lifestyle disease.
Think of diabetes — technically type 2, the kind that strikes adults — as the ultimate metabolic meltdown. After years of a low-quality diet, not enough physical activity, and excessive weight gain, the body may stop responding efficiently to the hormone insulin, causing blood sugar to rise to dangerous levels. Chronically high blood sugar can harm blood vessels, kidneys, eyes and other organs, and greatly increase the risk for cardiovascular disease. According to one estimate, more than 100 million Indians will have diabetes by 2030, and many more will have pre-diabetes. If left unchecked, this epidemic will exact a huge human toll of suffering and also stretch limited health care resources to the brink.David and Dawn Ludwig in The Hindustan Times
What The Last-Meal Ritual For Prisoners Tells Us About Life
And finally, in this guest piece for The Times Of India, Vikram Doctor takes a look at the practice of allowing a "last meal" to prisoners who are to be executed. While many of us know about the custom, not many have delved into its psychological roots. The piece offers perceptive insights into why a prisoner might want a last meal when he knows that he might not live to digest it?
It is not mandated by prison codes. Yet prison authorities often end up allowing the prisoner a few final treats, within reason. This could simply reflect the fact that jailers are human too and, having had contact with the prisoner, can’t reduce him or her to the abstraction condemned by the law. So, while carrying out their duty they try to ease the last hours. India doesn’t keep records of this, but it was reported that when Ajmal Kasab was asked if he wanted food from outside prison, he declined but, rather touchingly, asked for tomatoes. A basket was brought from which he took two, but only ate one. In the US, last meal requests are a subject of popular interest. The Texas department of criminal justice used to list on its website the last meals of those executed by them. But it stopped fulfilling every request in full after one prisoner requested an incredibly large meal (two steaks, an omelette, okra, barbecue, pizza, ice-cream, fudge, soft drinks), but then didn’t eat any of it.Vikram Doctor in The Times Of India
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