Innholdsfortegnelse for June 22, 2020 i India Today

These days, we are constantly being bombarded with all kinds of grim statistics from across the world and India. The overwhelming narrative of the COVID-19 pandemic has been one of fear—the fear of infection and the fear of dying. This is not an irrational sentiment. The pandemic has so far swirled across the globe, infecting close to 7.5 million people, claiming 419,000 lives and, so far, defying worldwide attempts to find a cure or a vaccine. On June 6, India crossed Spain’s tally of Covid-afflicted citizens, and took the fifth spot in the hierarchy of countries with the most confirmed cases. As we gradually begin exiting a 70-day nationwide lockdown, the number of cases continues to rise. Worryingly, our two largest metros—Delhi and Mumbai—are the epicentres of this surge, with…

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan recently landed at state home and health minister Narottam Mishra’s house for breakfast. The meeting set off intense speculation as Mishra is the only cabinet colleague Chouhan has called on. Their interactions were presumably to break the deadlock over Chouhan’s decision to overrule postings of Mishra’s choice in state vigilance agencies. The two leaders have had a history of frosty ties, but what can’t be resolved over a session of good chai-naashta?…

DR BALRAM BHARGAVA, director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), spoke with Associate Editor Sonali Acharjee about the coronavirus pandemic—how our understanding of the virus has evolved over the past months, the current status of testing and the way forward. Excerpts: Q. COVID-19 was first described as manifesting as a severe flu; it was later reported to also cause cytokine storms (severe immune reactions). Now there are reports of it causing pulmonary thrombosis (blood clots causing blockages in the lungs) as well. Will the virus continue to surprise us in the weeks ahead? A. An increase in understanding happens with all diseases as a larger variety of people get infected and more cases come to light. Not only has our knowledge of how Covid impacts the body become…

Sanjay Kumar Bhunia won his battle against COVID-19 on May 9, but when Ranchi’s Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) discharged him, the landlord barred his entry to the home he had rented for 14 years. Since then, Bhunia has been living in his pathology lab that’s now out of business. “Once I tested positive, the police came and shouted my name. I was made to sit on the road like a criminal, then sent off to RIMS” The 250 sq. ft lab has no bed or other furniture, nor a kitchen, and reeks of chemicals and disinfectants. All by himself, Bhunia spends time thinking about his family, watching Bhojpuri films and listening to Rabindranath Tagore’s Ekla cholo re (If none heeds your call, go it alone). “This song has…

“The stigma is very frustrating. I had contracted it while doing my duty and people were outing me as though I was cursed” It was March 20, the early days of Covid, but Sumedh Kesaria, a pulmonary specialist at Mumbai’s Wockhardt Hospital, was already following precautions and, when not working, confining himself to a room in his house where he lives with his joint family. The designated person for swab collection from those returning from abroad or walking in with fever, Kesaria, on March 27, took seven swab samples. He was wearing an N-95 mask, goggles and doublelayered gloves throughout. One patient though, he recalls, showed severe symptoms. Two days later, Kesaria had joint pain and fever. By March 31, it was confirmed he was Covid positive. The said patient,…

Turnover: Rs 30 crore p.a. No. of employees: 170 THE CRISIS Joneja, who says he’s lost Rs 1.5 crore over the past three months, has restarted operations at a third of his set-up capacity. Six ready-to-ship containers are idling because buyers have pushed delivery dates. For future orders, he says, supply of hardware inputs like screws, rivets and such have been impacted. “Ours is a labour-intensive unit and we’re facing a labour shortage.” Given this, he is re-training workers across departments, though his production line requires specialists. He has paid minimum wages but those earning over Rs 50,000 per month have taken 50 per cent cuts. Rajiv Kumar, 42, a packer in the factory, supports a family of five on a salary of Rs 10,200. “We have cut back expenses…

Turnover: Rs 81 cr p.a. No. of employees: 160 THE CRISIS The lockdown halted all work, but Patel had to continue paying salaries. “Our products were ready, but we couldn’t send them; our revenue target for April was Rs 8-10 crore, which was lost.” When the lockdown was partially lifted in May, nearly 60 per cent of workers left. He is bracing for losses of Rs 20 crore in three months (March-May). DID THE STIMULUS HELP? Patel says: “We do not see loans as a stimulus.” EMIs and GST payments may have been deferred, but interest will still have to be paid. He says the Gujarat government’s move to waive minimum electricity and CNG charges and levy only usage charges helped. WHAT MORE/ ELSE IS NEEDED? Patel suggests that business…

The COVID-19 pandemic has given new meaning to ‘survival’. When speaking to leaders of the restaurant business, it’s a word that gets employed often. The coronavirus has, of course, hit all industries hard, but the restaurant trade, one that hinges on people’s mobility and spending capacities, has been dealt a blow that seems altogether extraordinary. With experts predicting that 35 per cent of India’s restaurants might now shut shop, the country’s Rs 3.78 lakh crore restaurant industry is faced with an unprecedented turmoil, while the future of its seven million-plus employees is, sadly, precarious. “Very small business or businesses which were not doing as well as expected will think twice about reopening in this scenario”Vicky Ratnani, Chef and culinary consultant “Standalone restaurants are bound to be hit hard. Even provenance…

Compiling terms, concepts and the everyday language of teaching, listening and musicianship—this dictionary is ethnographic in spirit and one of its kind. Most music dictionaries on the other hand eschew practice and are obsessed with explicating the ‘shastriya’—canonical texts and raga grammar. Amarnath came from the music tradition of pre-Partition Punjab. This was a cultural zone that extended from the courts of Afghanistan to Kashmir, Jammu and the adjoining hill states. Muslim ustads and courtesans dominated the scene and the epicentre from the early 20th century was Lahore. Reformist Hindus were keen connoisseurs and eager learners. Amarnath, like his more celebrated elder contemporary Prannath (he went on to influence American avant garde music in the 1970s), came under the spell of a school of music called the Kirana, exemplified by…

The great American writer James Baldwin wrote an essay in 1966 in which he spoke of black neighbourhoods being “policed like occupied territory”. Since the police know that they are hated, he wrote, “they are always afraid. One cannot possibly arrive at a more surefire formula for cruelty”. America has some 18,000 local law enforcement agencies. This is where the battle against brutality will have to be fought and won Much has changed in America since then, but evidence of unspeakable cruelty continues to emerge. The latest instalment was the brutal murder of George Floyd, whose neck was pressed down by a police officer’s knee for almost nine minutes as he begged for breath, and a crowd of appalled onlookers pleaded in vain for his life. Atrocities of this kind…

The national lockdown may have disrupted term-end and board examinations and caused students much anxiety across India, but not in Telangana. Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has decided to promote all 530,000 Class 10 students without appearing for exams. The students will get grades based on internal assessments. Similar good fortune awaits universities in the state. Today’s students are, after all, tomorrow’s voters. —Sandeep Unnithan with Shwweta Punj, Rahul Noronha and Amarnath K. Menon…

1 April 5 Rohtak, Haryana Magnitude: 2.5 Depth: 8 km 2 April 9 Noida, Uttar Pradesh Magnitude: 2.4 Depth: 15 km 3 April 12 New Delhi Magnitude: 3.5 Depth: 8 km 4 April 16 New Delhi Magnitude: 2 Depth: 10 km 5 April 18 Rohtak, Haryana Magnitude: 2.9 Depth: 10 km 6 May 3 New Delhi Magnitude: 3 Depth: 5 km 7 May 6 Faridabad, Haryana Magnitude: 2.3 Depth: 10 km 8 May 15 New Delhi Magnitude: 2.2 Depth: 22 km 9 May 28 Faridabad, Haryana Magnitude: 2.5 Depth: 10 km 10 May 29 Rohtak, Haryana Magnitude: 4.5 Depth: 15 km 11 June 1 Rohtak, Haryana Magnitude: 1.8 Depth: 5 km 13 June 8 Rohtak, Haryana Magnitude: 2.1 Depth: 19 km 12 June 3 Faridabad, Haryana Magnitude: 3 Depth: 4…

I would cough so much that my throat and chest would literally burn,” recalls Naresh Bhati, who owns a medicine business in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. On April 30, after his wife, Asha, the BJP’s Ghaziabad municipal councillor, tested Covidpositive, Naresh was asked to get tested too. “My wife had fever for a few days but I had no symptoms initially. So I was surprised to find I too had Covid,” he says. Asha says she most likely contracted Covid when she stepped out for work. Having reported chronic cough and fever, the Bhatis were taken to ESIC Hospital in Ghaziabad’s Rajendra Nagar and were there for 12 days. The couple had to leave behind their 14-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, both of whom tested negative. “You cannot imagine the…

Grief and shock overwhelmed 30-year-old Nageena when doctors at the JLN District Hospital in Nagaur, Rajasthan, informed her on April 14 that her newborn baby, Arman, was, like her, Covid positive. From her bed in the isolation ward, Nageena’s eyes searched for her family: her in-laws, nine-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, who suffers from cerebral palsy. They were all in the vicinity, on separate beds—battling COVID-19. Nageena’s husband, Mohammed Javed, was far away in Jaipur, in the Covid ward of SMS Hospital. The 34-year-old had returned from Mumbai, where he worked at a tea stall, on March 24 and developed fever subsequently. He tested positive on April 12. At one go, Covid had knocked out this family of seven from Basni, a village of 30,000 people near Nagaur that has…

“I learnt life lessons, but I was not scared of dying. My symptoms were never very severe. However, it was painful to see four of my neighbours dying” On May 11, 49-year-old Imran Khedawala, Congress MLA from Ahmedabad’s Jamalpur-Khadia, was seen driving around his constituency in his white Toyota Innova, distributing immunity-boosting Ayurvedic medicines to his constituents. Many were surprised that he was out among them. A month ago, Khedawala had decided to get himself tested for COVID-19 in the hope that by posting such news on social media he could convince his constituents to cooperate with the state government’s anti-Covid drive. Little did he know that he himself would test positive and have to remain in hospital for the next 14 days and in self-quarantine for another 12 days.…

Faiyaz Ahmed, employed in the Indian Railways’ machine maintenance unit in Savarkundla, Gujarat, was visiting his family in Patna for Holi when he felt the first few symptoms of Covid coming on. Ahmed, who returns to Patna every year during the festival, had been mingling with family and friends since March 6 and had even attended a wedding. “Coronavirus is not life-threatening for those free of other ailments. But the suffering it piles on you is worse than the virus” His health troubles began on the night of March 19. It started with a cough, some throat pain followed by breathlessness. Since there was no fever, Ahmed waited a day before calling a medical helpline on March 21. He was advised some medication, but no test. However, as the problems…

Santhoshkumar, the junior health inspector in Chowara village of Kerala’s Ernakulam district, is back at work teaching people about the precautions to take against COVID-19. He is scrupulous about the sanitisation programmes in the village and visits the homes of those quarantined regularly to check on them. But not many know that Santhosh himself is a Covid survivor. When the locals ask him how deadly the virus is, he merely smiles and tells them to wear masks and take every single precaution to not pass the infection on to others. No one realises that he is speaking from personal experience. As a health inspector, Santhosh has been actively involved in the preparations to keep Covid under check in his area. He was deployed at the Cochin International Airport to screen…

COVID-19 has kicked business owners in the gut. Thousands of small businesses, employing millions, face the grim prospect of permanent closure. A survey by the All India Manufacturers’ Association found that more than a third of the self-employed and small and medium businesses did not see any hope of recovery and were on the verge of winding up. A national multi-institutional survey by the SKOCH Group, a private think-tank, and FISME (the Federation of Indian Small and Medium Enterprises) conducted towards the end of May, found that 62 per cent of surveyed MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) would let go of employees, and 78 per cent would cut wages. Both surveys were conducted after the recent government interventions. On May 13, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman unveiled a Rs…

Turnover: Rs 25 crore p.a. No. of employees: 1,000 THE CRISIS Hawk Eye’s packaging plant can process 5.4 million diapers, 4.4 million sanitary napkins and 423,000 batteries per day. The plant was closed for the first two weeks after the lockdown was announced. After sanitary napkins and diapers were reclassified as essential goods, it was allowed to reopen, but battery packaging was not permitted for another two weeks. Now, though there are no restrictions, output has fallen. The plant is operating with 40 per cent of its workers and without night shifts. Grover says the company has lost about Rs 50 lakh per month in billing—roughly half its revenue. DID THE STIMULUS HELP? Grover says the government’s package did not do enough for factories—there is no support for running costs…

Not too long ago, “gourmet” was synonymous with “imported”. With international shipping curtailed through the lockdown, India’s gourmands might have felt the absence of fancy ingredients. But, thanks to the arrival of hipster entrepreneurship in India, many producers have adopted organic, family-owned, delivery-driven models and adapted them with a swadeshi flair, giving gastronomes in metros access to a range of homegrown gourmet ingredients and staples. The holy triumvirate of caffeine, carbs and cheese are at the forefront of these offerings. Let’s start with coffee. Brands like Araku, Bili Hu, Black Baza, Blue Tokai, Devan’s and Koinonia are available online, with the last also selling cheese, snacks, chocolate and tonic by other companies. This kind of platform-sharing collaboration is on the rise, with vegetable growers expanding into general grocery, and coffee…

Q. The show goes on, but it does so from your home now. How has the work-from-home experience been? It’s been an adventure. I shot a promo for the TV show Dance Deewane and a music video for my first single, ‘Candle’, in the house. Hair, make-up, lighting, camera—we had to do everything ourselves. My husband handled the camera and learnt about lights. I love it. It gives you new perspectives. Q. Biggest lesson from the lockdown? You have to be self-reliant. It’s also your duty to help others in need. Q. The lyrics to ‘Candle’ are intense and strangely appropriate for the turmoil the world is in right now… They asked me what I wanted to sing about. I thought that the one thing everybody experiences in life is…

4 NO. OF MISSING PARTS Jyoti CNC Automation says once the imported parts are added, Dhaman-1 will be a “full-fledged” ventilator 5,000 NO. OF DHAMAN-1 MACHINES ordered by the central government-owned HLL Lifecare 6.24% DEATH RATE from COVID-19 in Gujarat, as of June 10, compared to an all-India figure of 2.87%…

Broadband rates in India are among the lowest in the world, yet remain out of reach of many. Union minister of electronics & IT Ravi Shankar Prasad plans to roll out an initiative to bridge this digital divide. Under the ‘Vani’ scheme, which will come up for the Union cabinet’s approval soon, affordable broadband connections will be sold through local grocery stores. Any public or private internet service provider will be able to sell broadband through it. Rates could be as low as a hundred rupees or even less, with the option to take a connection for even a few hours. Connections going viral?…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ that would also serve as a factory to the world raises the all-important question: how did India fail to become a manufacturing powerhouse like China, Japan or Korea despite our natural advantages and the stated goals of several prime ministers? That is the query R.C. Bhargava’s new book, Getting Competitive: A Practitioner’s Guide for India, seeks to answer. Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, has excellent insights. He was in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), had a stint as director (commercial) of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd and then joined what was Maruti Udyog Ltd when it had just been formed. He was its second managing director, playing a hands-on role in setting up the supply chain ecosystem and handling worker-management…

“A crisis does not make us, but reveals what we are made of. Covid has brought to the fore human fallibility. It has given us a perspective” Punna Reddy was confident he would pass the thermal screening at the airport without any trouble. Travelling from Edinburgh, via Dubai, to Hyderabad on March 14, Reddy was checked for signs of COVID-19 and cleared. On reaching home in the city’s upscale Jubilee Hills after a week of back-to-back meetings in the UK, a relieved Reddy went to bed. The next day, he woke up feverish and with a headache. “Being a workaholic, this was normal for me,” says Reddy, but as his fever rose to 101.9, he decided to get tested at the state-run Gandhi Hospital in Secunderabad. “The hospital felt like…

Revised MSME classification: Aimed at incentivising MSMEs to grow—under the earlier system, firms would lose government support after attaining a certain size. Now, manufacturing and service sector firms will be measured under a common metric: micro units are those with investment below Rs 1 crore and turnover under Rs 5 crore; small firms are those with investment less than Rs 10 crore and turnover below Rs 50 crore; medium enterprises are those with investment under Rs 20 crore and turnover less than Rs 100 crore Priority for domestic firms: Global companies cannot participate in government tenders valued up to Rs 200 crore Improved cash flows: Pending payments to MSMEs to be cleared within 45 days…

Turnover: Rs 90 crore p.a. No. of employees: 400 THE CRISIS Arun Sarnobat’s factory remained closed for 45 days during the lockdown. Since partially reopening on May 6, he has found it difficult to find workers—almost half his staff of 400 are migrants, who have left for their home states. He says he spends Rs 10,000 a day just ferrying staff to his plant. Despite having no revenue at all, he paid his staff for March and half their salaries for April. Since resuming operations, his factory has been running a single shift instead of the usual three. He says he has lost Rs 17.4 crore in sales between April and May. DID THE STIMULUS HELP? Sarnobat says the initiatives announced by the Centre are insufficient. “The government has only…

Turnover: Rs 33 crore p.a. No. of employees: 250 THE CRISIS Aggarwal’s company has been manufacturing bicycle gears for over 30 years. He has restarted operations, but output is down to a third—from 300,000 pieces a month, he is currently manufacturing 100,000 a month. Only about 80 of his 250 workers remain. Some of those who left for their hometowns want to return, but with no transport available, he does not expect them back until the middle of July. He approached his bank for an export loan (which have better terms), since exports comprise 90 per cent of his business but was told he could apply only for a domestic loan. Unsure when again he can run at full capacity, he has written off sales for nearly a quarter, and…

Sant Kabir—both a Hindu and Muslim and neither, and a fleeting character in Ira Mukhoty’s brilliant biography of Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar—shared something exceptional with the third Mughal Emperor. Brajbhasha! Mukhoty, whose effortless prose is one of her hallmarks besides psychological acumen, salvages Akbar, the polymath and human, from bickering symbols, politics and ‘bastardised cuisines’ of our age. Akbar saw lutes from Mongolia married to the ragas of Hindustani classical music, the rebirth of Dhrupad, and adopted Brajbhasha—the dialect of Awadhi Bhakti poets from Tulsidas in the 16th century to Wajid Ali Shah in the 19th—for his court. For readers who know that the first ever Persian translation of the Ramayana was commissioned in the emperor’s reign, or that the Mahabharata was copiously copied and orally circulated at this time,…

Serendipity had something to do with C.A. Bhavani Devi taking to fencing. As a 12-year-old student in Chennai’s Muruga Dhanushkodi School, she was stuck with a sport she knew nothing about because slots for volleyball, squash and gymnastics were all full. She didn’t complain. “I was happy to play with a sword,” says Devi. To get her hands on one, though, she first had to excel with a stick. Devi made quick strides and won her first gold in the under-14 category for Tamil Nadu within a year. Soon, her talent was noticed and at 16, Devi was invited to train with Sagar Lagu, coach at the Sports Authority of India in Thalassery, Kerala. Becoming the brightest star of a sport that still remains elusive to most Indians, Devi hasn’t…