Articles by: Ashok Kapse

Debt and bureaucracy deal death blow to MP farmers reeling from Covid impact

Debt and bureaucracy deal death blow to MP farmers reeling from Covid impact

“The farmer also wants to live, sir! But he is forced to take a loan. This is done not once, but over and over again. First, to sow the crop, one has to take a loan. Then a loan has to be taken to eliminate weeds, to apply medicines, to apply fertilizers. If the crop is ruined, then you have[Read More…]

by 11/04/2022 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch
Covid-induced poverty and rising power bills make an explosive combination

Covid-induced poverty and rising power bills make an explosive combination

In mid-February this year the police in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh registered a case against Kisan Gupta a resident of the city’s Vallabh Nagar slum. The case against him is an example of the rising tensions in the state due to the dire economic condition of poorer citizens in the state due to the impact of the Covid[Read More…]

by 05/04/2022 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch
Incompetence turns to indifference in MP during third Covid wave

Incompetence turns to indifference in MP during third Covid wave

The first wave of Covid in India revealed that those running the government were clueless. The second was exposed their sheer incompetence. And now, during the ongoing third wave of the pandemic, it is becoming very clear that those at the top of the governance pyramid have become supremely indifferent to the plight of the public. This is at least[Read More…]

by 31/01/2022 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch
For want of doctors, the Covid Third Wave was lost…

For want of doctors, the Covid Third Wave was lost…

When Chandu, a cloth merchant of Sant Hirdaram Nagar (old name Bairagarh) of Bhopal, got a message on his mobile phone informing him that he had been certified fully vaccinated for Covid-19 he was not very happy. The reason was that in reality he had not received even a single dose of vaccine till then. The message was a fake[Read More…]

by 04/01/2022 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch
Covid becomes excuse to deny dues to MP state government employees

Covid becomes excuse to deny dues to MP state government employees

“In the first and second wave of the Covid pandemic, ministers and MLAs were sitting in their homes. They avoided common people and crowds. Had virtual meetings. Continued their rhetoric via Twitter and Facebook. Not one rupee was deducted from their salaries. Whereas, we government employees worked round the clock. We did not get time to go home, could not[Read More…]

by 24/11/2021 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch
Medical interns at AIIIMS, Bhopal strike over dues from Covid duty

Medical interns at AIIIMS, Bhopal strike over dues from Covid duty

On 28 October, over a 100 interns at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal went on a day and night hunger strike. They were demanding that the hospital management pay them the Rs.1000 for every 8 hours of overtime duty promised to them at the peak of the Covid pandemic earlier this year. A promise that was never[Read More…]

by 09/11/2021 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch
MP farmers in distress due to low cotton prices

MP farmers in distress due to low cotton prices

After making losses on their vegetable crops throughout the Covid period farmers in Madhya Pradesh are making big losses due to falling prices of cotton. Vegetable crops have been destroyed for two years in a row due to Covid, because the market was closed. Prices had fallen so low that paying for  wages and freight charges to the mandis was[Read More…]

by 28/10/2021 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch
Rail passengers in MP demand restoration of pre-Covid train services

Rail passengers in MP demand restoration of pre-Covid train services

With 22 million passengers every day the Indian railways is second only to China globally in terms of the number of people transported. Since the onset of the Covid pandemic in early 2020 however, hundreds of train services have been shut down and traffic plummeted with big revenue losses. While this has not made much difference to the India’s urban[Read More…]

by 20/10/2021 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch
Suicides, drug addiction on rise in MP due to Covid induced job losses

Suicides, drug addiction on rise in MP due to Covid induced job losses

“I am unable to face hunger, future, illness, fee debt, house rent and unemployment” said the four  page suicide note. On the night of 27 August 2021 Ravi Thackeray*, an engineer in Bhopal’s Sahara township, aided by his wife Ranjana*, slit the throats of their young son Chirag* and daughter Gunjan* with stone cutters. Soon after, the couple consumed poison[Read More…]

by 14/09/2021 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch
Covid pushes families in MP into debt as economic crisis deepens

Covid pushes families in MP into debt as economic crisis deepens

Bhopal: The second wave of Covid-19 has hit the people of Madhya Pradesh hard, with thousands losing their lives. The misery has not stopped though for millions of citizens in the state who now find themselves neck-deep in debt due to expenses borne during the pandemic as well as loss of jobs and income. The deepening economic crisis has devastated[Read More…]

by 07/08/2021 Comments are Disabled COVID Response Watch