Innholdsfortegnelse for April 20, 2020 i India Today

As India enters the third week of the unprecedented lockdown to arrest the spread of the coronavirus, the big question weighing on everyone’s mind is whether it will be extended or lifted or strategically eased. This is the most difficult decision for the government to make in view of the mounting evidence of the economic suffering the lockdown is causing to the most vulnerable in our society. According to a recent report by the International Labour Office (ILO), 400 million people working in the informal economy are at the risk of falling deeper into poverty during the crisis. The weekly tracker survey of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) shows that the unemployment rate shot up from 6.7 per cent mid-March to 23 per cent in the week ending…

Since the British withdrawal from South Asia, modern nation-state-building in the region has been a fraught exercise for India and Pakistan and, latterly, Bangladesh and the other South Asian states. Modern India’s “official history” (to borrow Perry Anderson’s term) exalts her adoption of liberal democracy and a republican constitution. Thicker political histories describe the project as a complex, multifaceted task, deficit in many regions and the jury still out. Both narratives can be buoyed, but there is considerable room for critiques of the adoption of a copy-paste modernist state between 1947 and 1950. Indeed, the discourse on how to weld a steel-frame that will achieve the easily cited claim of the Indian state as a “unity in diversity” of nations is far from over. Political scientist Sanjib Baruah’s latest book,…

The coronavirus pandemic has offered countries a tough choice—to either allow the disease to eat through the population before they achieve herd immunity and slow down the spread, keeping economic activity largely steady, or opt for a lockdown to lower disease incidence that can ‘flatten the curve’ and ease the burden on healthcare facilities, but at the cost of most economic activity. India’s choice of the latter—protecting lives over livelihoods—was a difficult one, as the country was already in a slowdown mode, clocking just 4.7 per cent growth in the third quarter of 2019-20. But having bitten the bullet, and effected a 21-day lockdown, what matters now is how India crafts an exit strategy for all business activity if the lockdown is lifted on April 15. The government now faces…

TOTAL+CASES 738 TOTAL DEATHS 8 With assembly elections less than a year away, Tamil Nadu chief minister E.K. Palaniswami is using all the resources at his disposal to minimise COVID-19 casualties in the state. The focus, of course, is to aggressively contain the infection. With 621 positive cases so far, Tamil Nadu today has the third highest number of coronavirus infected patients among the states. Of the 63 districts which account for over 60 per cent of the detected cases in India, 10 are in Tamil Nadu. That makes CM Palaniswami’s job even more challenging. “Self-discipline is the need of the hour. If the virus spreads, the situation will be very grim. We should learn from the experiences of other countries and remain indoors till things change” — E.K. PALANISWAMI…

TOTAL +CASES 28 TOTAL DEATHS 0 COVID-19 and China’s Wuhan province were just making the global headlines in the beginning of 2020, but Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal was already making contingency plans. In the final week of January, he had an informal conversation with health and finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and chief secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna on the issue. Two days before India’s first novel coronavirus case was detected on January 30, Sonowal’s government started screening international passengers at the six airports in Assam. To stress the importance of social distancing, Sonowal cancelled all his public engagements from March 13. Meanwhile, Sarma was handling the state’s response to the crisis on the ground. He even made the statewide lockdown announcement on March 24, a day before Prime Minister…

TOTAL +CASES 345 TOTAL DEATHS 2 Soon after the COVID-19 outbreak was reported from Wuhan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan directed his health minister K.K. Shailaja Teacher to monitor the situation closely. On January 23, Vijayan constituted a 40-member core group headed by Shailaja and a crisis management group headed by principal secretary (health), Dr Rajan Khobragade. Another group tracked down and contacted those who had returned from Wuhan by January 25. Task forces headed by the district collectors were formed in 14 districts to support the medical professionals. In the past four years, the Left Front government has spent more than Rs 5,000 crore to improve the delivery systems of public health institutions, which has played a huge role in preventing the community spread of the virus. The CM has…

Dr. C.P. Srivastava, Director & HOD - Cardiac Surgery at Narayana Multispeciality Hospital, Jaipur, is amongst the top few cardiac surgeons of North India who regularly performs high risk re-do cardiac surgeries on patients considered in-operable or categorized as high risk. With an enviable experience of 39 years in the profession, the illustrious doctor is passing on his skills to young aspiring cardiac surgeons, many who carry his legacy in different parts of the world. He has performed over 16,000 operations ranging from the basic to advanced cardiac, thoracic and vascular surgeries. The affable surgeon, in a chat with the India Today shares his life’s experience in the medical field. HOW DID YOU COME TO CHOOSE MEDICAL PROFESSION AS A CAREER? I come from a humble rural background, a village…

SHUBHA MUDGAL Some of us have come together to start the ADAA (Assistance for Disaster Affected Artistes) campaign. This has been initiated out of concern for what the future holds for artistes and the arts in India. It is clear that the virus cannot be contained without social distancing and, if that is the case, what will happen to performances, concerts, events? While some of us are fortunate to have savings and access to family resources, there are many whose existence depends on daily performances. The campaign, led by Aneesh Pradhan (musician and scholar), Arundhati Ghosh (cultural practitioner), Mona Irani (producer and casting director), Rahul Vohra (actor and arts consultant), Sameera Iyengar (cultural practitioner) and myself, is an effort to provide some assistance to those artistes and art professionals whose…

The textile town of Bhilwara in southcentral Rajasthan has come a long way in just under a week. It took some doing to go from being India’s scariest corona hotbed in the early days, when news broke of a doctor in Bangad Hospital contracting the disease, to now being cited as a containment model the Centre wants to replicate everywhere in its evolving strategy to battle the spread of COVID-19 in India. Before the imposition of a 10-day, no-exceptions ‘maha curfew’ on April 3, Bhilwara district had 27 cases; since April 2, it has reported no new cases. ZEROING IN ON EMERGING COVID-19 CENTRES IN INDIA AND ISOLATING PATIENTS WILL BE A DAUNTING TASK COVID-19 cases have been reported in 284* (or 39 per cent) of India’s 736 districts. As…

KHAN IS KING Shah Rukh Khan hasn’t had a hit in years, but his COVID-19 relief work has been a superhit in three states—Delhi, where he hails from; Maharashtra, where he lives; and West Bengal, whose brand ambassador he is. Khan made a donation to the Maharashtra Chief Minister’s Relief Fund and his Meer Foundation provided 50,000 PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) kits to healthcare workers in Bengal. Khan is feeding 5,500 families for a month in Mumbai and providing basic essentials to 2,500 daily wagers in Delhi. Wife Gauri has opened the doors of her four-storey office for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to set up a quarantine centre for children, women and the elderly. The chief ministers of all three states tweeted their thanks for the relief efforts. King Khan…

JAMMU & KASHMIR Contact-tracing under way on war footing. Six persons who stayed in Nizamuddin and tested positive quarantined. HARYANA Five villages in Haryana have been sealed for having been visited by Tablighis; 74 positive patients till April 6, 44 of them Tablighis. April 8 was set as deadline for self-declaration. GUJARAT Has received a list from the central government of 1,350 names at the congregation; of these, 1,287 persons had already been traced; now, 103 more have been traced MAHARASHTRA Legal action taken against 35 Tablighi members, including 29 foreigners HIMACHAL PRADESH Police plan to register attempt to murder cases against Tablighi members for hiding attendance at the Delhi congregation KERALA Of the 300 suspected of having attended the Tablighi gathering, only 80 are deemed to have returned to…

TOTAL +CASES 276 TOTAL DEATHS 3 “We have established a Covid Care Fund for capacity-building in medical colleges, testing labs, etc. to fight the pandemic”—YOGI ADITYANATH On the evening of March 27, when news of thousands of migrants congregating at the borders in Noida and Ghaziabad started pouring in, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had just finished a review meeting. Soon, though, he was huddled again with top state officials till late in the night. Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) managing director Raj Shekhar was instructed to mobilise 800 buses to ferry stranded migrant workers to their native places. Three days later, the state transferred Rs 611 crore to the bank accounts of 2.7 million workers as part of a MNREGA scheme programme. Though Adityanath feels the…

“The Centre should let states decide on lock-down criteria and release our dues at the earliest. The states must also get better financial terms for loans”— ASHOK GEHLOT TOTAL +CASES 430 TOTAL DEATHS 3 As soon as Rajasthan reported its first case on March 2, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot chalked out a strategy to contain the spread of COVID-19 and formulated a cluster containment plan. The plan was devised to contain the disease within a defined geographic area by early detection, breaking the chain of transmission and thus preventing its spread to new areas. This includes implementing geographic quarantine, social distancing measures, enhanced active surveillance, testing of all suspected cases, isolation of cases, home quarantine of those who came in contact with positive cases and social mobilisation to follow preventive…

“Eat well and simple, but healthy—puffed rice, dal, mashed potatoes with sprinklings of onion and chillies”— MAMATA BANERJEE TOTAL +CASES 71 TOTAL DEATHS 5 Since the national lock-down came into force on March 25, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has hardly been home. Indeed, she has been everywhere else—from the markets to hospitals to banks and wholesale godowns, overseeing the administration’s war against COVID-19 first-hand. In one such visit to the Janbazar market in Kolkata, the chief minister picked up a brick and drew circles on the road near some vegetable vendors, demonstrating how people should maintain social distance when buying daily needs. As a crowd gathered to see her, Banerjee reprimanded them, asking them to maintain distance among themselves. Her efforts have earned kudos, but also have many worried. Prime…

Coping with Corona is a complex challenge especially in the absence of distinct prevention and a vaccine for want of adequate knowledge about the virus so that it can be checked. How to ward off the symptoms or combat it if persistent? How to up immunity? What are the short and long term measures to protect the lungs that are the critical target of the virus? Are other anti – malarial drugs a palliative if not a possible cure? With hypertension, diabetes and a weak heart reckoned as co – morbidities what are the guidelines for those already plagued by lifestyle illnesses? How can others who need regular blood transfusion and dialysis managed the disruption posed by Covid 19? And, how can one manage the altered ways of virtual confinement…

Tigers, over 200 of them, languish in cages. Like us today, they too are denied an elsewhere. As the end credits of Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness roll, it should be their captivity that saddens us, but the new Netflix documentary miniseries is so shocking, so brutal, we somehow forget the sorrow we are meant to feel. More than the show’s many animals, the humans on view are wilder. Joe Exotic, the self-proclaimed Tiger King, is addicted to the thrall of breeding, raising and parading big cats. He is gay and lives in his private zoo with two husbands for company. Joe seems to have as many guns as he does tigers, but despite this obvious menace, there’s something affable about him. Without smoothening his jagged edges, the documentary…

Worship, like everything else, moved indoors as the government imposed a 21-day national lockdown to contain the spread of the novel corona-virus, leaving religious places eerily quiet and empty. The air seemed to breathe easy too, clean and clear, uncontaminated by human presence, even as humans themselves battled a viral infection. The more desperate found themselves caught in a strange purgatory—neither able to return home nor able to stay, the kindness of strangers their only hope. It’s a strange moment in history, the accompanying images providing but a brief glimpse of its zeitgeist.…

It was the period between 2008 and early 2019. The Indian stock market was steadily recovering after the recession in 2008. In fact industry insiders firmly believed that investor wealth was witnessing organic growth; the same was showcased by stock market indexes at NIFTY and SENSEX. The overall mood was quite bullish considering the sustained recovery over a 11 year period. Yet there was one forecast which was not only bearish in nature but also bold and bordered on the preposterous at that point of time. The seemingly audacious forecast was made by Lakshmi Narayanan Sundaram, a renowned Indian Stock Market Research analyst and Managing Director of International Financial Services, a fiscal advisory and solutions firm with a formidable market presence. He forecasted that the stock market will witness a…

Q. The Tablighi Jamaat has been accused of wilfully concealing COVID-19 cases at the Nizamuddin markaz and causing the spread of the virus. Does the Jamaat take moral responsibility for this? A. It is unfortunate that infections spread because of the congregation at the markaz. But the whole movement is being projected in an unfair manner. It is on record that we followed the restrictions put in place since March 22, when the ‘Janta Curfew’ was observed. We have taken every step to act as prudent citizens of the country. Q. By holding the congregation, did the Jamaat not flout the Delhi government’s order barring large gatherings? A. Yes, a Delhi government order on March 13 did ban gatherings of over 200 people, and another order on March 16 prohibited…

Agriculture, which accounts for 14% of India’s GDP, tops the government’s priorities in terms of getting the economy going again—even while it fine-tunes strategies to contain the spread of COVID-19. India has an estimated 200 million farmers and nearly half the population is engaged in this sector, directly or indirectly. The rabi harvest, a sizeable chunk of the national farm produce, has to be put on track. What makes the disruptions even more worrisome is that India has a bumper rabi crop this year. A combat strategy has been evolved, featuring both measures to keep farmers and farm labour safe and even taking the market to the farmer in some cases where he is being asked to keep safe distance. Improvisations include: • Doorstep wheat procurement • Staggered entry of…

TOTAL+CASES 1,297 TOTAL DEATHS 74 When the nationwide lockdown began on March 25, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray decided the situation called for innovative ways to manage the crisis. He knew he had to lead by example, make people realise the importance of social distancing in the battle against COVID-19. To drive home the point, he decided, literally, to get behind the wheels. He started driving to work with his security guards coming in another car. He has also been conducting cabinet meetings through video conferencing. Thackeray, however, knows he cannot win this battle without the “extraordinary” performance of his frontline soldiers—the health workers. Maharashtra’s budgetary allocation for health-related services has risen around 50 per cent in six years, yet its per capita health spend of Rs 975 is one…

TOTAL +CASES 720 TOTAL DEATHS 12 Delhi reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on March 2. Two days later, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal constituted a special task force to monitor the pandemic in Delhi. Even so, a month later, on April 7, with 576 confirmed cases, Delhi now has the third-highest number of cases in the country. While the city remains in lockdown, Kejriwal has been holding regular press briefings and video conferences to ensure transparency in all matters related to the pandemic. In one such online interaction on April 7, the chief minister announced the ‘5-T’ strategy to combat the pandemic. It will comprise efforts towards stringent testing, tracing, treatment, team work, and tracking and monitoring. “We will do mass tests for coronavirus like South Korea did,” Kejriwal…

TOTAL +CASES 341 TOTAL DEATHS 30 Shivraj Singh Chouhan was sworn in as chief minister on March 23, a day after the Janta Curfew when the state went into lockdown. His immediate task was to respond to the COVID-19 challenge. A cabinet has still not been sworn in and the CM is functioning as minister for every department (there’s been some criticism about this). Chouhan’s typical style has been to reach out to people. Even now, sometimes he hits the streets, asking fruit sellers and vegetables if they were doing alright. It’s a nightmare for the local administration but Chouhan does it nonetheless. His other attempts at providing succour include scriptures which he cites in his social media messages. In the middle of the crisis, the new CM also transferred…

“Those hit by the crisis have first right over government funds. We have tried to reach out to all of them with financial assistance”— NITISH KUMAR TOTAL +CASES 51 TOTAL DEATHS 1 As the head of a state which is home to a large chunk of the migrant population in the country, Nitish Kumar anticipated the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak would be most severe on them and Bihar. It was one reason why, even before the country went into lockdown mode on March 25, Bihar released Rs 100 crore as funds to handle the migrant arrivals. This was in addition to the one-month extra salary distributed to doctors and other health department employees, one month free rations to 16.8 million ration card holders and a bank transfer of…

TOTAL+CASES 181 TOTAL DEATHS 5 The political school that Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa belongs to never believed in the power of social media. But in the past three weeks, he has turned to it again and again to be seen and, more importantly, be heard. The CM has been addressing people through social media channels at least once a week, creating awareness about COVID-19 and informing people about the government’s preparations. Yediyurappa, in fact, started early in his efforts to arrest the spread of the virus. Even before the Centre announced the nationwide lockdown, he had announced a shutdown of seven districts, including Bengaluru, where positive cases were reported. He also announced the formation of a task force, putting health minister B. Sriramulu and medical education minister K. Sudhakar…