Wednesday 12 May 2021

Lest We Forget

Lest we forget...

Soon after a new era started in Indian history a little known hospital in Gorakhpur had its oxygen supply cut off. The vendor said the Dean wouldn’t pay his dues. And 68 children died in one night. Did we see a case against the Dean or the vendor? No. We saw the arrest of the doctor who worked through that night trying to get oxygen to save the children. Because he had a different name.

And that is how began the story of #NewIndia.There have been so many things to remember…I’m writing them down lest we forget.

Do you remember our money became invalid within 4 hours of his announcements. Do you remember the queues for ATM, to deposit money, to withdraw your own money, we stood in line for 50 days. We were told black money would come, but all that we got was middle men making money changing notes while we stood in long lines and people died, and people cried. But it made no difference. And now we watch over the years the interest rates on our savings fall. Down, down, down.

Do you remember certain cooperative banks failed. They let a Modi fly away to UK. They gave an NOC to a Choksi to become a legal citizen of Antigua. And to all the people who had deposited their hard earned money they said all you’ll get is 25,000₹ whether you need it for a child’s wedding or your own surgery….it matters not. People died, and people cried but no one lost except the common man of India, who’s money went down,down,down.

Do you remember they brought a new tax without anyone having a clue how it would work. They had the Parliament release it at midnight, and then ensured businesses lost their sleep. 5 forms to be filled EVERY month. Small businesses shut all over the country. Why would they create the most complex taxation system in the world? One that is unfathomable to even a reasonably computer literate person? The states stopped getting their share of taxes. And they were asked to take loans to make ends meet. The economy went down, down, down.

Hate grew and criminals were garlanded. Little girl’s rapists were supported with Tiranga Yatras and Bharat Mata ki Jai. People were killed over meat in their fridge. And beards and skull caps. And names. And children beaten up for drinking water from temples. And then some ladies sat and blocked one road. And sang songs and said hum kaagaz nahin dikhayenge. And it shook the government’s ego so …. They used a pandemic to settle the score. And just like that CAA NRC bills went down, down, down.

With 4 hours notice mitron, we were locked in our homes. For 54 days. And then the poor started trickling out of cities. They were beaten with lathis and stopped on borders and sprayed with disinfectant and made to do sit ups. They trudged along rail tracks and got run over. They carried their children on arms, and shoulders and pulled them on suitcases. They died of starvation and thirst in trains which were randomly sent to wrong stations. And they cried, and they died but they wouldn’t count the dead. They posed with peacocks and gave their Mann ki baat. And humanity in India came down, down,down.

We had a year to prepare for the Covid pandemic. We didn’t increase hospital beds, ventilators or oxygen plants. We did election rallies, and Kumbh melas even as bodies started piling in crematoriums. We gasped for oxygen beds and then for oxygen within those hospital beds. But he declared ₹20,000 crore Central Vista an essential service. While hundreds queue up for Vaccination and thousands try logging into slots from morning to night abandoned to fend for themselves. They fudged numbers of dead by one tenth but hundreds of pyres burned in parking lots. People cried, and people died but no one listened to our Jan ki baat.

Humans tend to forgive and forget. I write this down so we will read and remember. A nation that was a vibrant democracy, a developing country, a power to reckon with has now seen a fall in all its indices. We are now a partly free nation. Employment opportunities, malnutrition, pollution, personal liberties, media freedom have all gone down, down, down.

We need to learn from our mistakes. And promise to never make them again. This regime has to end.
Step down. down..down.

Dr Sarika Verma
AAP spokesperson
South Haryana

https://drsarika005.wordpress.com/2021/05/10/lest-we-forget/
Posted by Shakir Roshanali Virpurwala at 07:24 0 comments

Friday 7 May 2021

New ‘liberalised’ vaccine policy a mistake

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CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

Current and former Modi advisors are calling his new ‘liberalised’ vaccine policy a mistake

A member of the PM’s Economic Advisory Council said the procurement aspect of the new policy would lead to ‘confusion, arbitrage, diversion and leakage’.

Current and former Modi advisors are calling his new ‘liberalised’ vaccine policy a mistake
Healthcare workers watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing them through video conferencing to launch one of the world's largest Covid-19 vaccination campaigns in Kolkata on January 16. | Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters

In mid-April, as vaccine shortages were starting to become apparent and questions were starting to be raised about the Centre’s management of the inoculation drive, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government made an abrupt announcement.

India, which at the time had covered less than 10% of its population with one shot, would be opening up eligibility to all adults starting May 1, while also selling vaccines on the open market and making private manufacturers compete with state governments to procure doses.

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Many aspects of the new policy were baffling, with little explanation on offer from the Centre for why it was changing tack.

The new approach has been criticised by many, concerned that it fragments the market, since the Centre is no longer the only procurer, with states and private hospitals also competing for doses, and because it features unfair pricing mechanics while leaving important questions of equity in distribution to manufacturers, who have done more communication about the policy than the Centre.

The Indian Supreme Court has also questioned the government’s choice to let private hospitals charge up to Rs 2,400 for two vaccines, suggesting this may face a constitutional challenge on ground of treating citizens equally during a pandemic.

India’s vaccination rate in the first week of the new “liberalised, accelerated” policy, as Modi’s government titled it, has been anything but. The new policy was announced on April 19, and came into force on May 1.

What’s more the criticism has even come from those who have directly worked with Modi on economics and policy matters in the past.

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Take Arvind Panagariya, who was hand-picked by Modi to be the first head of the government think tank, NITI Aayog, in his first term. Here is Panagariya, now a professor of economics at Columbia, calling for a U-turn:

“We need to recognise that the recent decentralisation of purchase and allocation of vaccines has been a mistake. Given that the pandemic constitutes a national public health emergency, optimal response to it requires planning, coordination and prioritisation of vaccine delivery at the national level... 

It is likely that the government announced the decentralisation policy as a response to a barrage of ill-informed criticisms. But it is something that requires a rethink once the current crisis abates. As a rule, policy reversals should be avoided to minimise uncertainty but when too much of public interest is at stake, course correction must be done. To blunt potential allegations of politicisation of allocations, the government may delegate the authority to an independent group of professionals.”

Then there is Arvind Subramanian, another economic voice hand-picked by Modi as his chief economic adviser in the first term. Subramanian is now a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs, Brown University, and has, over the last few years, criticised Modi’s current economics team on a number of issues.

His recommendations are similar to many of the criticisms of the new policy: Vaccines should be free and they should be procured by the Centre.

It isn’t just former advisers either. V Anantha Nageswaran, a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, has also criticised the decision to fragment procurement between Centre and states.

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In an article in Mint, Nageswaran and Rahul Bajoria call some aspects of the new policy welcome, but then argue that,

“the current three-tier pricing of vaccines – one for the Centre, another for states and yet another for the private sector – has the potential to cause confusion, arbitrage, diversion and leakage.

The country could have just two prices: one for the government and another for the private sector. This would allow the Centre to procure and distribute vaccines to states, actively supporting their efforts. It will be a good gesture of federalism in these times. Nationwide vaccination, facilitated and financed by the Union government, would be the equivalent of its stimulatory fiscal response to the first wave. States would continue to be responsible for making sure vaccines are not diverted to the black market.”

In a subsequent blogpost, Nageswaran went further, asking “friends active on social media” to tweet the following while leaving them to “decide whom to tag”:

“The Union Government should procure vaccines on its budget at the agreed price (max. Rs. 300) from both the vaccine manufacturers and distribute to States with the latter responsible for preparing the infrastructure for quick administration.

That is both a response to the ongoing second wave, potential future waves and three, it would forestall a major economic disruption for the second year running.”

One can also point to the opinions of R Jagannathan, a pro-government commentator and editorial director of Swarajya, whose most recent piece on the subject begins with the following line, “That we have got our vaccine strategy all wrong needs no elaboration.”

Though it is not quite the same thing, Ashok Malik, policy advisor to the Ministry of External Affairs had thoughts about the current vaccine policy even before the government had announced it:

Finally, Rathin Roy, Managing Director (Research and Policy) at the Overseas Development Institute and another former member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council had a much pithier response to the new policy:

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Posted by Shakir Roshanali Virpurwala at 00:43 0 comments

Tuesday 4 May 2021

Arundhati Roy: we need a government

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CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

Arundhati Roy: We need a government

An appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Please step aside.

Arundhati Roy: We need a government
Prime Minister Narendra Modi. | PTI

We need a government. Desperately. And we don’t have one. We are running out of air. We are dying. We don’t have systems in place to know what to do with help even when it’s on hand.

What can be done? Right here, right now?

We cannot wait till 2024. Never would people like myself have imagined the day would come when we would find ourselves appealing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for anything. Personally, I would rather have gone to prison than do that. But today, as we die in our homes, on the streets, in hospital car parks, in big cities, in small towns, in villages and forests and fields – I, an ordinary private citizen, am swallowing my pride to join millions of my fellow citizens in saying please sir, please, step aside. At least for now. I beseech you, step down.

This is a crisis of your making. You cannot solve it. You can only make it worse. This virus prospers in an atmosphere of fear and hatred and ignorance. It prospers when you clamp down on those who speak out. It prospers when you manage the media to such an extent that the real truth is only reported in the international media. It prospers when you have a prime minister who has never held a single press conference in all his years in office, who is incapable of fielding questions, even now in this moment of numbing horror.

Hundreds of thousands of us will die, unnecessarily, if you don’t go. So, go now. Jhola utha ke. With your dignity intact. You can have a great life ahead, of meditation and solitude. You yourself have said that’s what you want. That won’t be possible if you allow this mass dying to continue.

There are many in your party who can take your place for now. People who know they must get on even with political opponents in this moment of crisis. Whoever that person is – from your party, with the approval of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – can head the government and a crisis management committee.

The state chief ministers can elect a few representatives so that all parties feel represented. The Congress by virtue of being a national party can be on the committee too. And then scientists, public health experts, doctors, experienced bureaucrats. You may not understand this, but this is what is known as democracy. You cannot have an Opposition-mukt democracy. That is known as a tyranny. This virus loves tyrannies.

If you don’t do this now, as this outbreak is increasingly viewed as an international problem, as a threat to the world, which it is – your incompetence is giving other countries a legitimate excuse to try and interfere in our affairs, try and take charge. This will compromise our hard fought for sovereignty. We will become a colony again. This is a serious possibility. Do not disregard it.

So please go. It is the most responsible thing for you to do. You have forfeited the moral right to be our prime minister.

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Posted by Shakir Roshanali Virpurwala at 04:58 0 comments
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