There was a time when it seemed Papua New Guinea had managed to dodge a bullet. Instances of SARS-CoV-2 were minimal, along with its disease, COVID-19. Through 2020, the country of eight million people recorded a mere 900 cases. The World Health Organization praised the PNG government in a September 2020 news release in “taking the threat of the pandemic[Read More…]
Mortality data is very important for understanding trends relating to health problems and diseases and hence for overall health policy and planning. Unfortunately, however, in many countries there is need for improving reliability of mortality data. In addition there is another serious and wider problem. This relates to delays in availability of mortality data, even more in the context of[Read More…]
The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic has topped 3 million people amid repeated setbacks in the worldwide vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in countries like Brazil, India and France. World Health Organization (WHO) says pandemic is at a critical point. The number of deaths, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of metropolitan Lisbon, Portugal[Read More…]
Tuberculosis has been one of the most damaging infectious diseases of India for several decades. COVID-19 has been the most feared disease In India for over a year now. From the beginning of 2020 to March 2021 , a period of about 15 months, about 150 thousand or 1.5 lakh deaths were caused by COVID-19 in India. The normal number[Read More…]
The second wave of Corona-virus has stuck hard in India particularly states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar-Pradesh and Delhi have seen alarming rise in the cases and the governments have been caught by surprise. Was the Corona wave surprising or we allowed this to happen. Let us go to the latest figures. As per reports 14.5 millions cases[Read More…]
To Shri Rajiv Gauba Cabinet Secretary Dear Shri Rajiv Gauba, Enclosed are my two letters dated 12th & 13th April, 2021 addressed to the Union Home Secretary, on the responsibility for spreading COVID by permitting Kumbh Mela to take place at Haridwar in Uttarakhand. I had requested the Union Home Secretary to intervene in the matter urgently and stop the[Read More…]
Unlike Hollywood movies where Americans have the lead in saving the world, the crisis of the corona virus pandemic has shown the opposite. The first major test showed that the American health care system was inferior to the Russian one, created during the Cold War. And while the Kremlin has managed to provide real assistance to a number of European[Read More…]
Whether people of the world will have to learn to live with the virus? As India and many parts of the world seem to be engulfed by the second or third wave of the Coronavirus epidemic – which is more dangerous and has appeared with new symptoms – this idea is being pushed from different quarters. Newspaper articles or surveys[Read More…]
COVID-19 pandemic as well as the lockdowns which followed in most countries have caused a lot of distress . However the wider bitter reality is that these times were also used to push the narrow interests of very powerful persons and forces. Inequalities have increased greatly. While tens of millions have suffered great distress and loss of income, the fortunes[Read More…]
The head of the Norwegian police, Ole Saeverud imposed a fine of $2,352 on Erna Solberg, the two-term Prime Minister of the country for violating the COVID rules in a private party held by her. While doing so, what Ole Saeverud said is significant . “Though the law is the same for all, all are not equal in front of[Read More…]
“I am not going to be talking about numbers today,” Australia’s Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told Australia’s Radio National on April 12. This echoed suggestions from the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, who had adopted the position that Australia best forget meeting any clear vaccination targets. Having left battling the pandemic to State governments, the Federal government has found[Read More…]
Coronavirus infections in the South Asia has surpassed the grim milestone of 15 million on Saturday, a Reuters tally shows. The surge is led by India’s record daily infections and vaccine shortages. South Asia — India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, and Sri Lanka — accounts for 11% of global cases and almost 6% of deaths. The region accounts for[Read More…]
The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic situation across the country is becoming alarming. With nearly 1.52 lakh new cases being reported daily (as on 10th April) and the mounting death toll a calamitous health situation is emerging. Amidst this, various states reported vaccine shortages and people are being sent home at the vacination centers. With spike in infections people started[Read More…]
To Shri Rajiv Gauba Cabinet Secretary Dear Shri Gauba, I write this letter in continuation of my earlier letter dated 30-3-2021 (copy forwarded) addressed to the Union Home Secretary on the potential danger of the huge election rallies being held in Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala, West Bengal and Assam becoming super-spreaders of COVID. I had earlier requested the Union Home[Read More…]
To Shri A K Bhalla Union Home Secretary Dear Shri Bhalla, It is unfortunate that we have not been able to contain the COVID virus spread and many States including the capital city of Delhi are witnessing an unusual spurt in virus cases of different mutants, some potentially dangerous. Your Ministry and several States have rightly tightened the COVID[Read More…]
Covid pandemic will remain an important chapter in India’s history. This is not only for the public health challenge it caused but it also brought out the deeply hidden flaws, biases, prejudices of the state and society. It was a mirror reflection of the state and society we are living in. The book by Harsh Mander titled “Locking down the[Read More…]
The dense worldwide transportation network constructed by humans is now powering so-called variants (mutations) of COVID-19 across the world from their countries of origin. The British variant (called B.1.1.7), the Brazilian variant (called P.1) and the South African variant (called B.1.351) are all racing across the globe. This shouldn’t be surprising since all three are thought to be more contagious[Read More…]
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top adviser to the U.S. President on the coronavirus pandemic, said he did not believe that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory for studying pathogens. Dr. Fauci’s opinion appears to contradict controversial remarks made earlier on March 27, 2021 by the former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert[Read More…]
The centre’s estimates are flawed and give the impression that the economy has not only weathered Covid-19 but overcome pre-existing difficulties. But in reality, demand is short, dampening economic revival. Officially, the “growth in GDP during 2020-21 is estimated at -8.0 percent as compared to 4.0 percent in 2019-20”. Further, “GDP at Constant (2011-12) Prices in Q3 of 2020-21 is[Read More…]
The lockdown that has been imposed almost a year back in the wake of COVID-19 has introduced several changes in almost every part of the world. The virus has not only resulted in damages resulting in high mortality and morbidity, but it has also made adverse qualitative changes in the lives of billions while its socio-political repercussions have devastated economies[Read More…]
About a year ago we responded to the call for a ‘self-imposed Janta Curfew’ observed on 22 March 2020 as the first attempt to contain the spread of coronavirus which had shown its presence in the country on 30 Jan 2020. This response was closely followed by the ‘Tali and Thali’ and lighting of ‘diyas’. The spread, however, continued unabated.[Read More…]
Sensible, ideal, wonderful – if you happen to be in the European Union. This is the air of confidence surrounding the March 17 proposal for a digital COVID immunity passport, or what is officially being called the Digital Green Certificate. The Digital Green Certificate is actually a bundle of three: vaccination certificates stating the brand of vaccine used, data and[Read More…]
The slander campaign in India was meant to vitiate the atmosphere and undermine efforts for peace and friendship, and to aid the imperialists’ trade war against china, with India as a junior partner. The National Health Commission of China on March 15 released the full transcript of a joint China-WHO press conference on the WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of[Read More…]
The ongoing pandemic has deeply affected countries. The U.S. is no exception. Rather, impact of the pandemic on the U.S. is deeper than many countries. Three polls show a few aspects of the impact. Fewer than 10,000 A report said: One year ago, on the eve of the eventful day that signaled the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — March[Read More…]
By now, anybody speaking about vaccine equality and equity of access must surely be coming across as slightly deranged. In the field of COVID-19, traditional proprietorial instincts remain. Add to this the disparity in terms of manufacture, bureaucracy and the nasty flavour of politics, and we would all be entitled to long draughts of cynicism. The COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global[Read More…]
Written by Rahul Konapur, Nachiket Gudi, Oommen John Countries across the globe have been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Over the span of a year 2,320,497 lives have been lost and 106,125,682 infected as on date1. The scientific community across the globe are racing against time to administer safe and effective vaccines to save lives[Read More…]
The European Union has been keeping up appearances in encouraging the equitable distribution of vaccines to combat SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, COVID-19. Numerous statements speak to the need to back the COVAX scheme, to ensure equity and that no one state misses out. And EU member states could be assured of a smooth vaccine rollout, led by the EU apparatus,[Read More…]
To Shri Rajiv Gauba Cabinet Secretary Govt of India Dear Shri Gauba, It is the collective effort and a culmination of the human endeavour at the global level that has enabled the country to launch the ongoing national campaign, including the vaccination drive, against COVID. The credit should rightly go to the scientists across the world who studied the virus[Read More…]
‘They have discovered smart weapons. We have discovered something more important: people think and feel.’ [Read More…]
The COVID-19 outbreak has triggered a world economic disruption of significant magnitude with an escalating pace, resulting in steep recessions in many countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented global economic impact at an astonishing rate, leading to rapid economic downturns in many countries. Despite exceptional policy support, the baseline forecast envisages a 5.2 percent decline in global Gross[Read More…]
Economic crises shine a spotlight on a society’s inequities and hierarchies, as well as its commitment to support those who are most vulnerable in such grievous moments. The calamity created by Covid-19 is no exception. The economic fallout from that pandemic has tested the nation’s social safety net as never before. Between February and May 2020, the number of unemployed[Read More…]
Over half a million people have died of coronavirus in the U.S. Grasping the enormity — half a million people gone — is difficult to visualize. More people have died in the U.S. due to COVID-19 than any other country in the world. With 4% of the world’s population, the U.S. has 20% of all COVID deaths and one of[Read More…]
Written by Bhagyashree Dutta and Dr Chandrima Chatterjee In December 2019, in Wuhan, China, a cluster of unusual severe pneumonia cases with unknown causes were reported. These were later identified as caused by a novel strain of coronavirus [1]. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, coronavirus 2 (SARS_CoV-2) outbreaks, was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11th,[Read More…]
Among the first responders in times of emergencies or crises is often expected to be the police. This was no different when Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to a grinding halt. The public health emergency arising due to the pandemic, as well as cascading humanitarian crises in several countries and communities, only made the job of the police even more[Read More…]
It is probably not a good idea to write while in the grip of anger. But I am struggling to suppress my emotions about a wasted year, during which politicians and many doctors have ignored a growing body of evidence suggesting that Vitamin D can play a critically important role in the prevention and treatment of Covid-19. It is time[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic’s economic collapse in the UK is severe, worst in three centuries. The economy contracted by 9.9 percent in 2020, initial estimates from the Office for National Statistics showed on February 12, 2021. A study of historical data by the Bank of England shows that recession to be the worst since 1709, the year known as the Great[Read More…]
Written by Prabhu Dutta Shaw, Dr. Arathi P Rao COVID-19 is a disease that has indiscriminately affected individuals with unequal vulnerability. While the world is still suffering because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the risk of the emergence of a diabetes epidemic has started looming into view. On the one hand, it is seen that hyperglycaemia tends to increase morbidity[Read More…]
It began as a shudder through the scientific and public health establishments. A new variant of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 had been found, mutating in South African climes, potentially outwitting human responses to it. Vaccines such as Oxford-AstraZeneca’s would have to be brushed up. Rollouts would have to be reconsidered. The South African variant has been given a few designations:[Read More…]
Our mace shaped COVID19 enemy, and its mutations merrily popping up around the United States, ironically has opened up new possibilities for inching beyond the grimy confines of industrial capitalism to new modes of work, learning and being that were initially promised by technocrats at the dawn of the Internet/World Wide Web. Indeed, the Pandemic of 2020-21 (Pandemic) revealed that[Read More…]
The world has been on a roller coaster ride since March last year when coronavirus induces pandemic lead to the ‘closure’ of countries after countries. Now with the vaccine having arrived, and India reporting declining trends both in infection as well as mortality due to the dreaded virus, the confusion over the virus remains as before. Amidst the ecstasy of[Read More…]
The coronavirus student, a species brought forth in the world of education by a pandemic that has killed over 400,000 people in the United States and 100,000 in the United Kingdom, is a troubled creature. When universities and schools across the globe were given varying and often contradictory messages on the safety of continuing in class teaching and participation, the[Read More…]
Written by Bharat Dogra & Kumar Gautam While India had serious unemployment and livelihood protection problems even earlier, the Covid crisis accentuated these problems in unprecedented ways for some weeks, also leaving behind longer-term serious impacts. A report by Oxfam on Covid-time inequalities has highlighted this aspect of the crisis and recommended shorter as well as longer term measures to[Read More…]
Written by Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell The 2020-2021 coronavirus is by no means the first pandemic that has impacted people’s lives. Throughout history, philosophers have contributed to our understanding of what pandemics mean and how to fight them. Self-evidently, philosophers are dedicated to philosophy. Like the term pandemic originating in Greek’s pandēmos – “pan” or “all” linked to “demos”,[Read More…]
Not exactly Thermopylae. Not even close. The hundred thousand who have now been taken by COVID-19 in Britain were not determined warriors holding up the forces of a mighty empire to save their land. They were the innocent victims of infection, mismanagement and miscalculation. Central to the policy which led to such losses was a practised bumbling which has become[Read More…]
Global COVID-19 cases topped 100 million Tuesday as virus mutations continue to create new concerns, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. Although the U.S. makes up just over 4 per cent of the world’s population, the country remains the leader in recorded cases of the COVID-19, also identified as coronavirus, with more than 25 million infections. India ranks[Read More…]
Written by Bharat Dogra& Kumar Gautam India is known to have a highly unequal health system which creates problems even in normal times. However, in Covid times these problems created by inequalities and unequal access in health systems were greatly accentuated , reinforcing the need to reduce inequalities in health system. A report by Oxfam released very recently on January[Read More…]
Written by Bharat Dogra and Kumar Gautam An important report prepared by Oxfam titled ‘The Inequality Vitus’ ( as also its India supplement), released on January 25, has made a strong case for the economic recovery path to be led by reduction of inequalities. Similarly it argues that for strengthening the crucial health and education sectors inequalities in these sectors[Read More…]
The message from all scientists is very loud and clear that vaccines alone will not be able to stem the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even after getting vaccinated, we will have to continue to wear masks, maintain physical distancing, wash hands frequently and avoid congregated settings, to break the chain of transmission of the virus. Some leading scientists such[Read More…]
Madhu[1], 39, works as an electrician in a private firm in Bangalore. In July 2020, while the pandemic was still at its height, his wife, elderly mother and father and Madhu all tested positive for Covid 19. Madhu lives in a ward in Bangalore where the NGO Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) is actively working with communities in providing[Read More…]
The film industry people gathered in Mumbai on January 21 for the muhurat (initiation ceremony) of a biopic titled ‘Bangabandhu’. It is a joint collaboration between Bangladesh and India. This photo was given with the press release. From the above picture one can see more than a dozen people are gathered together who are not wearing a mask and standing[Read More…]
Written by Dr. Sudhamshi Beeram, Dr. Arathi P Rao and Prof. K Rajasekharan Nayar While the Government rolled out the much-awaited vaccination drive against the pandemic, the beneficiaries are hesitating to avail the vaccine due to mis-information and fear. The number of healthcare workers turning up for the vaccination have remained low in many states of India. The reasons[Read More…]
A few months back, I tried to imagine what set us up for such a worldwide disaster as COVID 19? I mean, if it started with fruit bats as most experts think, people have been hunting them for THOUSANDS of years! What has changed? Imagine, let’s say, in the year 1000 A.D., Hunter A goes hunting and sees bats eating[Read More…]
The global death toll from COVID-19, identified also as coronavirus, pandemic topped 2 million on January 15, 2021. The number of dead, compiled by Johns Hopkins University, U.S., is about equal to the population of Brussels, Mecca, Minsk or Vienna. It is roughly equivalent to the population of the Cleveland metropolitan area in the U.S., or the entire U.S. state[Read More…]
Israel’s decision to exclude Palestinians from its COVID-19 vaccination campaign may have surprised many. Even by Israel’s poor humanitarian standards, denying Palestinians access to life-saving medication seems extremely callous. Amnesty International, among many organizations, condemned the Israeli government’s decision to bar Palestinians from receiving the vaccine. The rights group described the Israeli action as evidence of the “institutionalized discrimination[Read More…]
After the Indian government approved two vaccines : Astra Zeneca launched by Seram Institute, Pune and Bharat Biotech which developed it with the help of ICMR and has the government of India backing it up fully, the dalal media has gone overboard to launch the maximum propaganda work for the government after it was found that Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin has[Read More…]
The Metropolitan Magistrate’s recent damaging observation vis-a-vis Delhi Police while acquitting 36 foreigners associated with Tablighi Jamaat who were accused of flouting Covid 19 protocols have largely gone unnoticed. The magistrate in the judgement acknowledged the possibility of the ‘[p]olice picking up these individuals with the malicious intention of implicating them under the directions of the Union home ministry.”(https://www.telegraphindia.com/opinion/justice-again-tablighi-acquittal/cid/1800862) Definitely[Read More…]
Written by Tanisha Nahar and Hadi Kangoo The coronavirus pandemic resulted in governments worldwide imposing strict lockdowns and enforced quarantines. It is common knowledge that ethical evaluations in policymaking are shunned due to political factors, and legislators, bureaucrats and policy analysts resist the challenges of moral evaluation. The Indian government’s one-day notice lockdown was a case-in-point of disregarding ethical considerations[Read More…]
As Covid and lockdowns increased distress and deprivation in many countries, governments in most countries including India responded with relief packages aimed at directly helping the poor and vulnerable sections as well as reviving the economy. However there are several indicators that the actual relief which reached needy people in India was much less than what was suggested by official[Read More…]
People are at the center in the pandemic now ravaging the world. It’s in terms of toll and contribution from the people. It’s in economy, and consequently, in life. Bangladesh is no exception. The stories of suffering are broadly the same in all lands: hunger/hunger-scar, less-/least-accessible health care, death. Reports from the country considered the world’s richest, smartest, wisest, most[Read More…]
There are increasing apprehensions worldwide that the ability to minimize pandemic related distress and damage is being compromised seriously by widespread corrupt practices at various levels. Several warnings have being voiced already that this is leading to very heavy costs and even loss of precious human lives. In order to appreciate how heavy such costs can be, some key information[Read More…]
The notion that the COVID-19 pandemic was ‘the great equalizer’ should be dead and buried by now. If anything, the lethal disease is another terrible reminder of the deep divisions and inequalities in our societies. That said, the treatment of the disease should not be a repeat of the same shameful scenario. For an entire year, wealthy celebrities and government[Read More…]
The International Movement for a JUST World (JUST) has published an ebook. “Exploring the Coronavirus Crisis”, a collection of articles contributed by the President, the Vice President, some members or the Executive Committee, some individuals within the general membership and certain staff of JUST. They run through the pandemic looking at the socio-economic consequences of the lockdowns and the persistence[Read More…]
All over the world there is increasing concern over the misuse of special difficult conditions created by Covid-19 pandemic by corrupt and authoritarian elements in various countries and societies. To counter this and to ensure a need and evidence based, honest response, many citizen groups and independent experts have called for increasing transparency and accountability in various aspects of Covid[Read More…]
While questions have been raised regarding the response to Covid19 in many parts of the world, it has still been rare for a medical journal of international repute to take a strong stand on this issue. It is in this context that the publication of a recent editorial in the famous medical journal BMJ has attracted a lot of attention.[Read More…]
As 2020 is almost drawing to a close, we’re still not sure exactly when and how the pandemic started. Now, a new study from the US adds more evidence to the idea that the virus was already circulating outside of China in December, when the Wuhan outbreak was first declared. Reports of a mysterious pneumonia spreading in Wuhan, China,[Read More…]
Along with everyone else, the fashion industry is also experiencing the effects of a global health crisis because of Covid-19. The $400 billion US fashion industry is in the middle of a huge crisis. The severe deterioration in fashion is having a serious impact on the global economy resulting in unemployment of millions of artisans, craftspeople, weavers, tailors and seamstresses[Read More…]
Ahead of the 6th International Academy for Autoimmunity, held at St. Petersburg State University on December 6, Russian scientists from Putin’s Alma Mater published a study on the direct link between slowing the spread of coronavirus in countries where mass vaccination against tuberculosis is carried out. The University of St. Petersburg, founded by order of Peter the Great, is one[Read More…]
A cursory observation and popular perceptions reveal a ‘fatigue’ with respect to the current trends. In plain language, people are fed-up with the unusual control on their lives and this is especially severe among young people and the children. The fatigued also include parents who have to manage the dichotomy with respect to professional and personal lives with extra efforts[Read More…]
The year coming within days, 2021, is shaping up to be a humanitarian catastrophe and rich countries must not trample poor countries in a “stampede for vaccines” to combat the coronavirus pandemic, top U.N. officials told the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on Friday. World Food Programme (WFP) chief David Beasley and World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke[Read More…]
As the year 2020, shattered by the Covid-19 pandemic since March, approaches the end India finds itself in an awkward situation as the south-Asian nation has lost over 50 working journalists to the severe health hazard till the first week of December. Thousands of journalists along with other media employees got infected with the novel corona virus as they have[Read More…]
Life always been and happened to be a hurdle race for every individuals in its pace; but it became merciless tyrant when the Covid-19 carved in it’s path. Casket of thoughts, some feeble vehemence and unspoken words tryst with ailing promises. Life always been and happened to be a hurdle race for every individuals in its pace; but it became[Read More…]
Co-Written by Disha Malik, Shubhangi Kandwal, Upasna Gaba and Dr. Swati Sapna COVID-19 outbreak was notified as the Public Health Emergency of International Concern by WHO. COVID-19 has spread to countries, territories, or areas around the world. Knowing the seriousness of the situation, all nations started taking steps towards the detection of the virus as well as preventing the spread[Read More…]
A group of public health experts in India including Dr Narendra Gupta, based in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan and Dr Gopal Dabade in Karnataka have urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider fully the as-yet-unknown consequences of large scale vaccination of the whole population against the SARS-COV-2 disease. This is not a “sound, rational, scientific or intelligent” approach for India, the experts[Read More…]
Co-Written by Disha Malik, Shubhangi Kandwal & Upasna Gaba In December 2019, several cases of pneumonia were reported with unknown aetiology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Since then the disease has spread in other parts of China and the world causing a global pandemic. (Hagert & Williams,2020). The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 led to an obligation to quarantine and increased[Read More…]
Masks can prove liberating. The hidden face affords security. Obnoxious authority breathes better, hiding in comfort. Behind the material, confidence finds a home. While tens of millions of jobs have been lost to the novel coronavirus globally, security services, surveillance officers and pen pushers are thriving, policing admissions to facilities, churning through health and safety declarations, and generally making a[Read More…]
With a confirmed caseload of more than 8.5 million as on 08 November 2020, India is the second Covid power in the world. The USA is of course on top of the heap with more than 10 million cases. Infection rate (cases per 1000 population) is 31 in the world, 6.1 in India, and 31 on the US. Andorra, an[Read More…]
“The worst case scenario is a new pandemic, starting all over again out of Denmark,” came the words of a grave Kåre Mølbak, director of the Danish health authorities, the State Serum Institute. According to the Institute, COVID-19 infections were registered on 216 mink farms on November 6. Not only had such infections been registered; new variants, five different clusters[Read More…]
The WHO Director-General Tedros Adhahnom Ghebreyesus has warned: The northern hemisphere is at a critical juncture in the Covid pandemic, and some countries are on a dangerous track. “Too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases,” putting hospital capacities at risk, he said. He urged leaders to take quick action to contain the virus’s spread. Europe is again[Read More…]
The U.S. Coronavirus (officially, Covid-19) cases have hit a record daily high as more than 83,000 new cases were reported in the U.S. on Friday. At the same time, scientists have warned that the U.S. approach to fight the Coronavirus pandemic and the inconsistent use of masks to prevent virus spread could lead to the cumulative loss of more than[Read More…]
Savita Kumari of Rasulpur village of Pindra Block of Varanasi District of Uttar Pradesh was blessed to be born in a lower middle class Other Backward Caste family. She is studying in 9th standard in the village high school. Since the family is engaged in agriculture and milk sale, she has enough to eat and carry on her studies. During[Read More…]
With the exception of decent New Zealand and arguably Australia, the rich, European countries of the US Alliance have been involved in deliberate, intentional Gerocide in which their sustained, deliberate, Covid-19 pandemic policies resulted in overwhelmingly elderly “Covid-19 deaths per million of population” that were 10-180 times greater than that obtaining in New Zealand. Indict Trump and Johnson for Gerocide[Read More…]
The public health experts, or at least some of them, have begun to put the cat among the pigeons. And the latter are not exactly happy about it. We can witness all the fluttering and flapping in countries such as UK, USA and India. In UK, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) is up against the Boris Johnson government[Read More…]
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and an expert in infectious diseases for the last four decades, told CNBC’s Shepard Smith Monday evening that it was more critical than ever to do these five things: wear a mask, social distance, avoid crowded spaces, do things outdoors where possible, and wash your[Read More…]
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against the idea of allowing Covid-19 to simply spread through society, calling this “herd immunity” approach to fighting the pandemic “unethical.” “Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding an outbreak, let alone a pandemic,” said WHO chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus said during a[Read More…]
The tide has been turning against UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Oafishly, he has managed to convert that tide into a deluge of dissatisfaction assisted by the gravitational pull of singular incompetence. Much of this is due to such errors of communication as committed last month, when he got into a tangle over new coronavirus restrictions in England’s northeast. In[Read More…]
The human civilization, as we know it, is facing its worst crisis. One that has bought the global village to a standstill, baffled world leaders, claimed thousands of lives and endangered millions more. Not many years ago, in 1967, United States Surgeon General, Dr. William H. Stewart allegedly made a famous (or rather infamous) remark “It is time to close[Read More…]
To Smt Nirmala Sitharaman Union Finance Minister Dear Smt Stharaman, Kindly refer to my letter dated 10-9-2020 regarding the problems faced by small businesses in repaying loans taken from NBFCs as a result of the lockdown restrictions and the fall in demand for services, an inevitable consequence of the COVID19 crisis. I have enclosed a copy of that letter for your[Read More…]
Well, the United States President becomes the third important leader to be caged. First, it was UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, then the Brazilian President Bolsonaro, and now President Trump. With more than 200,000 deaths, the United States is the worst hit Covid country in the world. With over 40,000 deaths, UK is the worst hit country in Europe. And[Read More…]
Covid-19 has brought free market juggernaut to a grinding halt; now if we are serious about changing the course of history, we can’t afford to lay waste to this pandemic It’s nearly ten months since the Covid-19 first broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and now with many parts of the world in the midst of a second[Read More…]
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. -Marie Curie The COVID-19 pandemic is a human tragedy of potentially biblical proportions and has convulsed societies like never earlier. Even as the world remains gripped in the fright of an invisible threat, Mother[Read More…]
The coronavirus has claimed more than 1 million lives around the world, the latest dark ‘milestone’ for the worldwide pandemic first detected some 10 months ago, which continues to spread across several hotspots. Infecting more than 33 million since first emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December, the global Covid-19 death toll surpassed the 1 million mark on[Read More…]
A Theater of Dark Fantasy Hearing a hushed commotion outside my room, 203 of the first-line Covid Care Centre at Makkiyad, I opened the door. A young woman with her husband and two small children, looking deeply hurt, confused and restless, was looking around the corridor. I asked if I could be of help. She was about to burst into[Read More…]
By the end of September 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic registered 34 million infection cases with one million deaths globally. Notwithstanding Donald Trump’s ultra-nationalistic “America Frist” policy, the USA had, for weeks on end, taken the lead when it came to total deaths with 210,000 deaths and by the end of September it had a total of seven million Coronavirus cases.[Read More…]
As people battle with the deadly Coronavirus, the world is sleep walking into an authoritarian future to keep capitalism alive with the help of brute force. The parliamentary and presidential forms of democracies are running the government without effective oppositions. The majoritarian governments in USA, UK, Brazil, India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other countries are busy in bending inclusive,[Read More…]
If Covid-19 was as lethal as Ebola, the six million US infections registered on 9/1/20, would have already resulted in 3 million Covid -19 deaths. This is the reality of the murderous; let them die “herd immunity” policy the administration is intentionally following, by forcing us back to unsafe work/school. How many deaths will they accept with this abuse and[Read More…]
This is a crucial time and an unprecedented crisis is unfolding where the worst-hit are the most neglected ones. The Government must find a way out with utmost dedication, even if it is an act of God, and look after the farmers, so that they do happy harvesting rather than committing unwelcoming suicides. How does the novel coronavirus travel from[Read More…]
The first of PUCL Maharashtra’s series of discussions on the impact of the lockdown on civil liberties, examined the rights of prisoners and the responsibility of the State to ensure the safety of all its citizens. The speakers for the session were Maja Daruwalla, Board Member and Senior Advisor, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and Mihir Desai, Senior Counsel and Convenor,[Read More…]
by Thomas Klikauer and Nadine Campbell Amidst 93,000 daily cases and 80,000 deaths, some cities in India are experiencing a lockdown because of the the Coronavirus pandemic also known as Covid-19. Just a few months ago, Germany’s capital Berlin experienced the very same. If Berlin’s experiences is anything to go by, here is what such a lockdown means for you[Read More…]
Have you heard the quote _ “Health is Wealth”? Recall it and it’s very high time to implement it now. Aren’t we creatures wearing masks since ages? “Covering ourselves – our real face and showing the fabricated image to this world, at times we hide our emotions and reveal ourselves as being so cool humans on this planet”. Yes that[Read More…]
During the initial months of the Covid-19 crisis, experts expressed their concern that this pandemic could set women back decades and rollover 50 years of progress in gender equality. As time passes, data from across the world are proving that the threat is real. With extra burden of childcare and household chores, unsecured jobs, job loss, risk-prone working conditions, hard to access[Read More…]
With every passing day, the corona pandemic is getting bigger and bigger; we have reached the figure of more than one thousand deaths and around 80 thousand reported cases every day. We are into 10 months of the pandemic, yet we seem to know little about the infectivity of the virus. Even highly protected people like Home Minster of the[Read More…]
An emergency meeting of the 50-member Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm – responsible for the selection of Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine – is having grave deliberations. Chairperson: An unprecedented situation has arisen after we received an email from the aforesaid aspirants for the Nobel Prize; the rules do not allow nomination by the potential laureates. I beseech[Read More…]
It baffles the mind whether it’s willful blindness or anterograde amnesia but while drawing parallels with coronavirus outbreak, mainstream media appears to vividly recall Spanish flu of 1918 from a century ago and doesn’t seem to have an inkling about a much more pertinent example of H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009-10, even though it shared a lot of[Read More…]
Yes, we, both me and my daughter became COVID 19 positive on August 19th after an Antigen test done. We had no major symptoms as such. I just had a chill and was feverish for a day and I became normal after that. My daughter had fever and body pain for a day or two. After that she developed total[Read More…]
The spread of Corona Virus in India has been on the upswing despite the measures undertaken by the state. In most parts of India the suffering has been immense. The central Government took up the issue of Covid 19, with great amount of delay. From early February WHO started warning the Governments all around about the impending dangers of the[Read More…]
How should one deal with COVID-19 pandemic? Certainly not with social distancing, which in South Asian context, has inbuilt casteist connotations of discrimination and exclusion. Introduction India has more than 3 million cases of coronavirus now. The situation is far from normal. It is time not only to talk about ways and means for ending the pandemic which so far[Read More…]
There are basically two different policy-approaches to the coronavirus problem: One is the passive approach, waiting for ‘herd immunity’ to develop naturally. And the other is the active approach, in which the Government does take action — not just wait while the most-vulnerable individuals die off from the disease. The “herd immunity” approach is libertarian; it assumes that “let nature[Read More…]
This is important for developing immunity to Covid and other infections and build resistance. Researchers are now pointing out the manifold benefits of rewilding of Nature for human health and well-being. This means we need to expose ourselves to more bio diversity, be in touch with a wide variety of plant life, not just manicured, artificial lawns. According to Jacob[Read More…]
The bastardization of liberty and freedom is nothing new in the United States. It extends far beyond the recent “Liberate” protests in response to pandemic lockdowns, the result of which have borne fruit in an earlier than predicted second wave of Covid-19. It is not confined to just the 21st century, during which all three presidents have directed acts of[Read More…]
Seventeen years ago, against the advice of my parents, I decided to become a public school teacher. Once I did, both my mother and father, educators themselves, warned me that choosing to teach was to invite attacks from those who viewed the profession with derision and contempt. They advised me to stay strong and push through when budgets were cut,[Read More…]
HM has been reportedly readmitted to the hospital for post-COVID care (and continues to work from there). Even as the whole country is praying for his speedy recovery, Sarkari facts and statements issued ad infinitum should give him a reason to cheer viz: The recovery rate for COVID-19 has improved and reached 73.64 % because of ‘active intervention treatment strategies’.[Read More…]
Jared Kushner, the U.S. president Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, once again gave a bullish assessment of the U.S.s’ coronavirus response on television, despite the nation leading the world in cases and deaths. The president’s son-in-law and senior adviser doubled down on comments from April, where he called the U.S. administration’s efforts a “great success story” and that the[Read More…]
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves -Lao Tzu This pandemic has inflicted the greatest pain on those who had already been rendered most vulnerable, spurring great hardship and growing unease among low income families and micro businesses. It has uncovered existing[Read More…]
As the Covid-19 lockdown kicked in March, Bangalore and most other cities in India witnessed an exodus of migrant workers returning to their homes in northern and eastern India, by every conceivable means including by cycle and by walking, with women carrying their small children. But there were some people who could not even leave, because they were not migrant[Read More…]
The current pandemic continues to have a large negative impact on most aspects of our lives. Over 20.6 million have been infected and almost 750,000 have died worldwide (about 5.3 million infections and over 168,000 deaths in the US) due to this pandemic. Besides these horrific impacts, this pandemic has also made clearer the failure of the bipartisan neoliberal economic[Read More…]
The World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks a global pandemic. In India, during the last six months had a tough time for everyone as government had announced the lockdown in the month of March because of day by day increasing in the number of cases of coronavirus. Pregnant women have more stress about the effects[Read More…]
Latin America has surpassed more than 5 million Covid-19 cases to overtake North America, with 4.8 million Covid-19 cases, as the region worst-hit by the Coronavirus pandemic. This astronomic increase in Covid-19 cases has been accompanied by a corresponding economic catastrophe of great magnitude. According to a United Nations Policy Brief entitled “The Impact of COVID-19 on Latin America and the Caribbean”, “Parts of Latin America and[Read More…]
We would like to think that we can eliminate COVID-19, but doing so is far from certain. The medical system has not been successful in eliminating HIV/AIDS or influenza; the situation with COVID-19 may be similar. We are discovering that people with COVID-19 are extremely hard to identify because a significant share of infections are very mild or completely without[Read More…]
The pandemic driven lockdowns have triggered worldwide growth of unemployment, hunger, homelessness and poverty. The speed of economic descent in world economy is extraordinary. The world is sleep walking into greater economic depression of the century and its impacts will reverberate for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic led economic crisis has been used by ruling and non-ruling classes to reconfigured the[Read More…]
Co-Written by Abass Rather & Aqib Yousuf Ever since the outbreak of Covid 19 pandemic, the fear of getting infected was always there. No matter how courageous one pretends to be. Everyone utilised all resources to save themselves from it in the first stage of it and in the first lockdown period. As the days progressed, different stories among the[Read More…]
In India recently, there is all the hype in mainstream media about a probable 30 second rapid COVID-19 detection system by collaboration of DRDO with the Israeli military R&D. Reportedly, there are four developments that are planned to be tested: Online voice test along with Artificial Intelligence (AI) Breath analyser based on Terahertz waves along with AI Isothermal test using[Read More…]
The struggle against Covid-19 has often been compared to fighting a war. Much of this rhetoric is bombast, but the similarities between the struggle against the virus and against human enemies are real enough. War reporting and pandemic reporting likewise have much in common because, in both cases, journalists are dealing with and describing matters of life and death.[Read More…]
As on 6th August 2020, the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has affected 213 countries and territories around the world infecting over 19 million people of whom 0.7 million died. The US is on top with 5 million cases and 163,000 death. Brazil and India holds the second and third slots with 2.9 and 2 million cases. In terms of infection rates, Qatar,[Read More…]
It is time to stop irresponsible finger-pointing. All over the world, as this essay is being written, well over 17 million COVID-19 cases have been reported, and 676,000 people died. And instead of concentrating on serious research, trying to save human lives and attempting to stop the global calamity, ‘residents’ of the White House are spending all the energy on[Read More…]
Amit Shah in Medanta: Are our leaders born with forked tongues or they cultivate it when they become public figures? Satyendra Jain, Delhi’s Health Minister, was on television every night for over two months harping on the impressive Covid hospitalisation facilities created in the national capital by the Kejriwal Government. He especially showcased the Lok Nayak Jaya Prakash (LNJP) Hospital[Read More…]
An NBC News report by Ben Popken said on July 31, 2020: “A $600 per week lifeline is about to run out of rope, threatening to leave millions of American families at the end of theirs. “The pandemic unemployment assistance payments, which were approved in March as part of the government’s fiscal stimulus package, known as the CARES Act, are[Read More…]
Notes on the Utter Cruelty and Obscene Irrationality of Capitalism-Imperialism [W]hile there is certainly a legitimate and positive desire on the part of people everywhere to get beyond the scourge of this virus, taking into account what is the actual situation for the masses of humanity under the “normal” domination of this system, no one should desire a return to[Read More…]
As per a recent news, a senior bureaucrat in Lucknow said, “The increase in female infection (of COVID-19) ratio is a clear indication that women are going out in the market and not following the precautions [for COVID-19 prevention]”. This statement is not only devoid of any scientific evidence but also reeks of a deep-rooted patriarchal mindset. It also assumes[Read More…]
This could be the stuff of fiction. But then again, many legal principles began, at some point or rather, in the sludge of speculation before hardening into legal briefs and prosecutorial documents. Holding heads of state to account for crimes against their people remains a perennial project with a patchy record. This is particularly the case when it comes to[Read More…]
There were 16.9 Million Covid-19 cases in the world as on 28 Jul 2020. This represents about 0.22% of the global population. Among the countries, the USA is on top with 4.5 M, closely followed by Brazil – 2.5 M and India 1.5 M. In short, these three countries with a total population of 1.9 billion have about half the[Read More…]
Five months into the pandemic, it is evident that the government is in denial. The political rhetoric is harking back a failed status quoism, with grand delusions of recovery. Rather than call for a complete reset and reconfiguration of the prevailing order, the Indian government’s approach to tackling the pandemic betrays an overwhelming faith in business-as-usual. The economic fallouts of[Read More…]
All around the world, the coronavirus and its restrictions are pushing already hungry communities over the edge, cutting off meager farms from markets and isolating villages from food and medical aid. Virus-linked hunger is leading to the deaths of 10,000 more children a month over the first year of the pandemic, according to an urgent call to action from the[Read More…]
A senior World Health Organization (WHO) official has said that coronavirus pandemic is likely to be “one big wave” as they warned people to remain vigilant despite lockdowns being eased. Margaret Harris, the WHO spokesperson, said the idea of a “second wave” is flawed since infection rates do not seem to be affected by the seasons. Instead, Harris said, people[Read More…]
Co-Written by Dr. P. S. Sahni & Shobha Aggarwal Bayer being allowed to hawk its drugs and agri-products in India like any other multinational corporation is one thing; being permitted to have COVID facility right within its plant premises leaves room for mischief given its track record since the Holocaust days. Bayer’s parent company – Bayer AG became a[Read More…]
I don’t trust you. Don’t take it personally. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a friend or a stranger. I don’t care about your identity or your politics, where you work or if you work, whether you wear a mask or carry a gun. I don’t trust you because you are, for the time being, a potential carrier of a deadly[Read More…]
Australia has done vastly better than other rich European countries in the Covid-19 pandemic because (a) it is a large island that accordingly could readily minimize Covid-19 importation, and (b) while notoriously anti-science over climate change, Australia’s neoliberal government chose in this instance to listen to the health experts. However an Australian Senate Covid-19 Inquiry noted but declined to publish[Read More…]
On 23rd March 2020, I was packing my bag to leave for Kashmir (my hometown) from Pune as the threat of Covid-19 was increasing and everyone wanted to stay with their families in this time of distress. I was happy and sad, happy because it was an unexpected visit to home and sad because the disease was spreading rapidly,[Read More…]
As on 26 July 2020, there are 16.5 million confirmed cases and 0.65 million deaths of Covid-19, an infectious disease caused by the virus- SARS-Cov-2 in 214 countries and territories under the United Nations system. In India, Kerala State reported the first laboratory confirmed Covid-19 on 30 Jan 2030, ten days after the eminent Chinese epidemiologist Dr Zhong Nanshan announced[Read More…]
Co-Written by Shobha Shukla, Bobby Ramakant and Sandeep Pandey “COVID-19 has exposed the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all, the fiction that unpaid care work isn’t work, the delusion that we live in a post-racist world.We are all floating on the same sea, but some are in super-yachts and others clinging to drifting debris” said Antonio Guterres,[Read More…]
Health Care is a fundamental right of each individual. Every person irrespective of his race, creed, colour, religion or community has a right to avail basic health Care . The initiative of primary health Care started by the government of India is one of the crucial and most important steps taken towards the achievement of ‘’Health For All Goal’’ through[Read More…]
Co-Written by Shivangini Piplani and Sandeep Pandey ‘Madam, Jhooth nahi bolenge, ‘1500 pada hai, hum 75 aadmi ek truck me aae the (Madam, I’ll not lie, we came back in Rs. 1,500 per head, 75 of us packed in one turck),’ Ram Kishore confessed to the first writer when she called him up in his village Dalkheda in Unnao District[Read More…]
Covid_19 has been changing a lot of things. We are trying to get used to the ‘new normal’. Most of us are still indoors, working from home, trying to deal with things in the best way we can. Those of us who are into teaching are working from home too and trying to learn new ways of engaging with our[Read More…]
To Shri Naveen Pattnaik, The Chief Minister, Odisha SUB: PRISONERS AND PRISON CONDITIONS IN ODISHA – AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CHIEF MINISTER Sir, We, in Jan Adhikar Manch, Odisha, are deeply concerned that the Covid-19 pandemic is rapidly spreading in Odisha too. While reports in the mass media state that jail inmates are getting increasingly affected by[Read More…]
“Don’t Need A Weatherman….. to know which way the wind blows.” Yes, another snippet from Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues where Dylan, as only a few great lyricists can do, lays it all out so succinctly. As usual, Dylan’s assessment is right on! I don’t need to be an expert, or sometimes not even relying on experts, to[Read More…]
An unusual increase in SARS CoV-2 infections and an enhancement of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States are disturbing and dangerous. Disturbances come from President Trump’s cavalier and inept handling of the epidemic, emphasized by his constant prevarications, departure from reality, misleading the American public, and sidetracking the important health issue into becoming an economic issue. Danger arises from the nation losing[Read More…]
Auto rickshaws are a dominated transportation of Kolkata. According to a record of 2018, about a half lakh registered auto rickshaw (and a few thousand unregistered) used to ferry a few lakh passengers daily in different routes of the city before the lockdown. From unlock 1.0, government has been allowed to play auto rickshaw with some strict rules. i.e. regular[Read More…]
The buzzing tunes of a crisis at the starting of 2020 have encompassed the whole globe within a realm of euphoria setting apart new discourses of predicament, accumulating every section of the population for visualizing the unseen, thinking of the unthinkable ever. The subalterns of the working class have played a major role in today’s times of pandemic, settling differences[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic is set to get “worse and worse” if countries do not stick to strict healthcare guidelines, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned. The disease has already killed more than half-a-million globally. Speaking on Monday during a press briefing from the WHO headquarters in Geneva via videolink, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave an alarming prognosis on[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic has caused an “unprecedented education emergency” with up to 9.7 million children affected by school closures at risk of never going back to class, warned Save the Children Monday. The British charity cited UNESCO data showing that in April, 1.6 billion young people were shut out of school and university due to measures to contain COVID-19 –[Read More…]
The COVID-19 virus gets the blame for almost every problem we are facing today. We are too focused on the temporary immediate problem caused by the virus and don’t pay any attention to deeper and more dangerous systemic problems. It is a natural human tendency to pay more attention to acute problems that appear suddenly than slow-developing problems that develop[Read More…]
Japanese authorities have demanded answers from the U.S. after a large scale COVID-19 outbreak among U.S. Marines stationed in Japan’s southern prefecture of Okinawa. The U.S. military officials told the two bases have since been put in lockdown. In recent days, 61 U.S. Marines have been infected with the virus, spread across two bases in the archipelago — which[Read More…]
United States governments have sent their children to kill and to be killed in many wars. Freely using mendacious stories, such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, where Vietnam torpedo boats (motorboats) supposedly attacked U.S. warships close to the Vietnam shores, and the false allegation that Saddam Hussein was ready to manufacture nuclear weapons and wreak havoc on the United[Read More…]
It should surely be taken seriously that Bharat till date is distanced from community transmission of Corona virus 2019/2020 or COVID-19, as reported by the Government of India. This is notwithstanding the fact of death of persons exceeding 20,000 and affected persons more than 7,00,000 while around 10 million had already been Corona-tested. There remains 1290 million to be tested,[Read More…]
As the pandemic continues to dominate public politics around the world, a single number – the reproduction rate (R) – has become the focus of policy-making and public communication. Keeping R below 1.0 appears to be the primary objective of public health policy. In the case of climate change the number 2°C (or 1.5°C) operates in a similar way. And[Read More…]
We have been seeing and hearing a lot of visual and print media news and statistics of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. This will continue for some time to come. Almost all reports give the absolute number of cases and deaths. As on 7 Jul 20, with nearly 3.1 million cases and 134,000 deaths the USA is on top, Brazil with[Read More…]
The United States is famed for doing things, not to scale, but off it. Size is the be-all and end-all, and the coronavirus is now doing its bit to assure that the country remains unrivalled in the charts of infection. In time, other unfortunates may well catch up. Brazil, with a president freshly diagnosed as having COVID-19, is currently on[Read More…]
“No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.” – Nuremberg Code The ABVA (AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan) views with serious concern the manner in which the alleged n-coronavirus vaccine in India is being[Read More…]
Introduction Frank Snowden[i] defines Covid-19 as the first pandemic of globalization which exploits massive population growth, crowding and mega cities; an industrial model that encourages rapacious growth without counting the environmental cost. Spillover events are becoming more and more common. All these vulnerabilities are man-made. Humans provide the conditions for epidemic to flourish. In his view, “each epidemic is unique,[Read More…]
In the month of March, people got lined up for ‘miracle drink’ in Delhi at a Sabha organised by Akhil Bhartiya Hindu Mahasabha, to have their share of Gaumutra (cow’s urine). The craze for this madness was created by an infodemic, which said: ‘Covid is an avatar, which has taken form of virus to kill non – vegetarians and people[Read More…]
Gotabaya Rajapakshe the first time President, an Army veteran has proved himself as guardian of Sinhala Buddhist heritage and champion of the Armed forces. He openly and loudly said NO to Tamil political party TNA} for devolution or power sharing and the full implementation of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987. In his vocabulary devolution has become a bad[Read More…]
India has become the third worst affected country globally in relation to COVID-19 pandemic; the triad consists of India, USA and Brazil. Quite early in the course of the pandemic the Indian government either gifted or sold the drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) – a drug primarily used against malaria and a host of other diseases including autoimmune diseases like SLE. A[Read More…]
The freedom of press comes from the Right to Speech which is guaranteed to all the citizens by the constitution of India vide article 19 (1) (a). The media has been recognised as the fourth pillar of democracy, four in row to save and to strengthen it. In the last seventy years of independence, we have seen exponential growth in[Read More…]
California is seeing a surge in coronavirus infections, and most of our government misleaders, from Governor Gavin Newsom on down, are trying to sweep the true story under the rug with the same kind of blowhard fake news that we hear from the Trump administration. The politicians don’t want to admit that the real problem is a serious lack of[Read More…]
In the absence of a pharmaceutical remedy to the outbreak of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), non-pharmaceutical interventions have become necessary. Physical distancing, containment of areas by restricting movement of people, and a nationwide lockdown have been the strategies adopted globally. In India, after about two months of nationwide lockdown and the subsequent unlocking process, most of us are hoping for a[Read More…]
The horrors of deaths, destitutions and common vulnerabilities due to the pestilence of COVID-19 has brought back the ideals of universal unity, peace and solidarity into the center stage of a fragile world. These ideals are historically proved shelter during every crisis created by colonial, imperialist and reactionary nationalist adventures during 19th century, and productivist plunders of capitalism during 20th[Read More…]
The country has been going through an unprecedented health crisis. There is despair and desperation all around. We are constantly getting news about uncontrolled virus spread, rising death tolls and collapsing health systems. Add to this chaos the unimaginable levels of sufferings of the workers walking hundreds of kilometres to reach back their homes, sights of police beating up or[Read More…]
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that no matter how polarized they might be politically, Americans finally seem to agree on something: that everything about America is getting worse. In his 1989 farewell address, President Ronald Reagan famously described the United States as a “shining city on a hill” — a beacon of hope and a model for the rest[Read More…]
To this writer’s mind wherever one is at anywhere in the world – given the yet unknown first, second, third, fourth or however more waves of Covid-19 are yet to come, with no vaccine in sight, for perhaps another 18 months or more, if ever, one literally must continue as if they daily are taking one’s life into their[Read More…]
The Covid-19 pandemic is a deadly and contagious disease. There is no preventive medicine or vaccine available till now. We are faced with an unprecedented public health crisis situation. However, the manner in which our government is dealing with this public health crisis by announcing a lockdown and implementing it by unleashing brute force and police repression on ordinary citizens[Read More…]
Co-Written by by Simran Kaur, Vasundhra Kaul, Varsha Sharma and Sandeep Pandey While the entire world faced the threat of the coronavirus, India was witness to a peculiar phenomenon. Hundreds of migrant workers poured into the streets, despite explicit warnings -and passionate appeals- by the Prime Minister to stay indoors. India saw numerous deaths during this time, many of which[Read More…]
Very few people actually enjoy elbowing their way into a crowded bus or train, but this seems to be like a faraway nightmare. Paradoxically, it’s one we’re sorry we won’t be able to get into again in the near future. Perhaps we look back with nostalgia at how we used to queue for hours to get a foot in the[Read More…]
On June 24, 2020, an Arab News report from Riyadh said: The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday welcomed Saudi Arabia’s decision to greatly limit the number of Hajj pilgrims this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Kingdom said just 1,000 people, who are already living in Saudi Arabia, would be able to perform the pilgrimage. Last year almost[Read More…]
Many among us, more so in the western world, smug with the scientific breakthroughs of recent years, predict the unbelievable for the human race. Yuval Noah Hariri is a Professor of History at the Hebrew University in Israel. In his best-selling ‘Homo deus – A Brief History of Tomorrow’, Hariri goes to the extent of predicting that humans with ‘mastery over[Read More…]
Chennai June 24 – A Muslim group in Tamil Nadu is actively involved in conducting proper funeral rites of dead bodies mostly of Corona victims belonging to different faiths. The volunteers of Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK), a Muslim non-governmental organization have performed the last rights of about 139 dead bodies belonging to different religions commencing from March 25,[Read More…]
The continuing coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the economic and political problems of the United States and Europe, which are becoming increasingly hard to ignore. Dozens of experts from various countries attending the “COVID-19 Global Challenges” international summit, held by public organizations of India, Germany, Britain, Russia and Serbia on June 15-19, discussed the challenges that the world has faced[Read More…]
Many of our daily life events are governed by dichotomies. The world is witnessing a reorientation and reconsideration of such dichotomies and even several assumptions regarding human existence and outlook. This is not just in terms of moral aspects like honest or dishonest, love and hate, good and bad, right and wrong etc. In the backdrop of the pandemic, the[Read More…]
When Coronavirus hit China worst and then moved to Europe and the US India still had less number of Covid-19 cases and deaths due to Coronavirus. However, India had an early lockdown along with most of the worst hit countries and even after a month of lockdown India’s total number Covid-19 cases remained around 100000. That was very impressive figure[Read More…]
Co-Written by György Széll and Thomas Klikauer Free image download from: https://pixabay.com/de After each crisis we ask ourselves, can we learn from it? We will ask this question again after the major effects of the on-going Covid-19 pandemic will be over. Perhaps, one might like to look back into the history of pandemics. Every human being on earth has about[Read More…]
In the midst of the worldwide COVID Pandemic, responsible individuals and families are protecting themselves and each other by wearing protective masks so they won’t infect family members, friends or anyone else with whom they may come in contact. But there also are many more individuals and whole families who don’t care a whit about protecting themselves, their families[Read More…]
A spectre is, right now, haunting the world. The spectre of a pandemic – COVID-19. COVID-191,2,3 is a viral disease – both infectious and potentially fatal, belonging to the SARS family, caused by a zoonotic – i.e. transmitted from animals to humans, virus. It, mainly, affects the human respiratory system. While old infectious diseases – including cholera, typhoid, small pox,[Read More…]
Using the coronavirus to score political points has only made the global health crisis worse, claimed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) director-general. Some observers have interpreted the WHO chief’s claim as a broadside against U.S. President Donald Trump. The politicization of the pandemic has “exacerbated” the effects of the disease, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during an online conference on Monday,[Read More…]
Co-Written by Atul and Sandeep Pandey The COVID 19 lockdown in India has witnessed an unfathomable scale of internal migration, displacement, tragedies, and human sufferings not seen since the time of partition 70 years ago. The haphazard manner in which the government implemented the lockdown resulted in absolute chaos when crores were forced by cruel circumstances to go back to[Read More…]
Risk communication has been considered as an inevitable part of the Public Health Program which has the capacity of addressing public health issues if implemented judicially. Effectiveness has been widely accepted by the public health professionals during the vigilance & outbreak response of severe acute respiratory syndrome(SARS-CoV-2), Middle East respiratory syndrome(MERS) and Ebola in different parts of the world. Public[Read More…]
More people have now died during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States than American soldiers died on the battlefields of World War I. The acknowledged death toll of U.S. soldiers in the “Great War” is 116,516. As of this writing, 119,112 have died from a coronavirus infection in the U.S. World War I is over. The COVID-19 pandemic marches[Read More…]
The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 on June 17, 2020 informed: The world has now recorded more than 8 million cases of COVID-19. In the first two months, 85,000 cases were reported. But in the past two months 6 million cases have been reported. There have been more[Read More…]
Co-Written by Abhay Singh, Divyansh Prakash, Isha Garg, Jeevan Joseph, Ram Karthikeyan, Stuti Khandelwal The first traces of SARS-CoV-2 virus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) were discovered in November, 2019 in Wuhan, China. Since then, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has transformed from a local disease into a global pandemic. While countries across the world, rich and poor, are[Read More…]
Since the first case of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was diagnosed in December 2019 in Hubei province of China, it has swept across the world and galvanized global action. This has brought unprecedented efforts to institute the practice of physical distancing called in most cases “social distancing” in countries all over the world, resulting in changes in[Read More…]
Health is one of the basic human rights of a human being. But this has always been undermined by the governments everywhere in the world, even though the UN has proclaimed–Health is a right. Some of the States have incorporated it in their constitution but it stands as a customary one. Majority of the countries don’t guarantee that none of[Read More…]
Flunked out of the shramik special, dignity of labour wails! It breathed its last when a toddler tugged at the corpse of his (or her) dead mother at the railway platform. It died when a 20 something was found dead not before four days, in the toilet of a shramik special. It has died a thousand deaths ever since the [Read More…]
Over 44 million U.S. citizens lost jobs as authorities introduced lockdown measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, officially COVID-19, disease. The U.S. is finding a decline in the jobless rate. Lines in front of Food Banks are increasing. The U.S. Federal Reserve forecast on employment and the overall economic situation, which is said to be the most[Read More…]
Putting your destiny into the hands of a drug company is much like seeking reassurances from an opportunistic pimp. The returns are bound to mixed, dressed up in deceptive language. The promises, however, are always remarkable. The back-breaking pace in finding a vaccine for COVID-19 is something that is bringing out the pimps of industry, notably those in Big Pharma.[Read More…]
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected the functioning of colleges and schools all over the world since March. However, these educational institutions are expected to be re-opened after August 2020. But these campuses are needed to take measures to prevent students getting affected by the pandemic. Several countries have successfully combated the challenges brought by the pandemic. Taiwan is one[Read More…]
The world wide covid19 outbreak has once again exposed the hopelessness of Western capitalist economies. While the socialist one prioritizes public health and social welfare, the other seeks profit even in the time of pandemic. The magnitude of the repercussions of this greed for profit is yet to be understood. Why is there such a drastic difference in responding to[Read More…]
On 24 March 2020, the Prime Minister of India ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days, suddenly limiting the movement of 1.3 billion Indians as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of urban migrant workers lost their livelihoods and were trapped thousands of miles away from their native villages. Due to the lockdown, more than 350 deaths were[Read More…]
Invisible millions In urban life, the hard physical, often demeaning and life-threatening work (cleaning out sewage manholes/drains or handling stinking garbage) is done by the lowest paid workers. These occupations are vital for urban life. For example, if urban garbage (thousands of tonnes per day in a big city) is not cleared regularly, life becomes unbearable and lays urbanites open[Read More…]
CO-Written by Surabhi Agarwal, Shobha Shukla, Bobby Ramakant and Sandeep Pandey It is becoming increasingly obvious that the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic over the last 3 months has failed on almost every front. Not only has the government been unsuccessful in containing the exponential spread of the disease but has through its actions given rise to one of[Read More…]
The number of infections apart – 298283 till date –, glaring still is the monumental tragedy affecting the working class. Migrant workers got battered; Muslims scapegoated; slum dwellers damned for not maintaining social distancing norms. The Union Home Ministry abdicated its responsibility of getting the workers safely to their home states right at the commencement of lockdown I. The Union[Read More…]
Malappuram, Kerala’s lone Muslim-majority district, made history recently. The 5,000 mosques in the district would remain closed indefinitely. Logic behind this decision is simple. As the state is witnessing spike in Coronavirus infection recently, it was found more prudent to keep the doors closed for devotees. (https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/mosques-unite-to-stay-closed/cid/1779566?ref=search-page) Panakkad Sayyed Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, a leading Islamic Scholar and Malappuram district[Read More…]
Co-authored by K Rajasekharan Nayar, Anant Kumar, Arathi P Rao, and Lekha D. Bhat When unknown entities affect humans, they become unsteady especially during crucial times. This leads to ambiguous decision-making with respect to a number of key issues and factors. What happened when COVID-19 struck the world in the form of a pandemic is not different. A number of[Read More…]
In written Chinese, the word “crisis” is represented by two characters. One of these, taken alone, means “danger”. The other, by itself, means “opportunity”. A crisis nearly always leads to great change. There is a danger that this will be a change for the worse. But there also is the opportunity to change society for the better – to reform[Read More…]
Beginning in December 1951, Ernesto “Che” Guevara took a nine-month break from medical school to travel by motorcycle through Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. One of his goals was gaining practical experience with leprosy. On the night of his twenty-fourth birthday, Che was at La Colonia de San Pablo in Peru swimming across the river to join the lepers.[Read More…]
In Jakarta, doctors are dying, while common people do not know which data to believe, anymore. It appears that even some government officials do not trust government statistics. People in the slums are attacking ambulances, preventing patients infected with COVID-19 from being taken to hospitals. The novel coronavirus is a stigma. Tests are resisted, death certificates falsified. Social distancing, even[Read More…]
“We hope to have a vaccine ready for testing in about two years” was a bold, hopeful and overoptimistic statement made in April 1984 by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler about an HIV vaccine, based on a conversation she had with the virus’s co-discoverer, Robert Gallo. After three and a half decades of incessant struggle by scientific[Read More…]
“I could not count the times during the average day when something would come up that I needed to tell him. This impulse did not end with his death. What ended was the possibility of response.” (Joan Didion) From their initial pairing in 1927, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made up one of the 20th century’s most beloved comedy duos. Upon[Read More…]
The birth and death of the novel coronavirus will be never ending folklores and probably we all get to know now or we must all be habitat to walk parallel with this epidemic disease in India and of course globally too. But how the one particular community is at stake? Why is that one particular community labelled and targeted? When[Read More…]
Sayama co-written by Tehzeeb Anis History is witness that every epidemic left a negative impact on the people who suffer from such diseases or who are suspected to have such diseases and COVID-19 is one such pandemic which has caused an enormous negative impact on health, economies, and even national security globally. India has witnessed many pandemics since the 1990s,[Read More…]
At global centre-stage, “Corona” is one of the most commonly used words worldwide, and the volumes of information and misinformation on it have caused doubts and fears among the public. This article discusses the fear that Coronavirus and Covid-19 have induced in society, and therefore begins with facts. Viruses and bacteria (1) Viruses outnumber cellular life at least 10:1, and[Read More…]
Co-Written by Hemraj P Jangir & Mamta Yadav It has been more than four months but the whole world is still grappling with the pandemic. Every day we are getting distressing news and images on social media. The COVID-19 has brought many changes in our daily lives. These changes have not only been of staying at home, dining at[Read More…]
“At my lowest points, the unsettling realization came to me that given the ferocity and rapidity of change with this virus, a further plunge could mean that I might not survive. Indeed, I felt so close to total suffocation that there seemed little room for further decline. I was determined to fight my way through this, but at the same[Read More…]
The coronavirus pandemic has released an unprecedented level of actions and reactions that has shaken the world. In this article we will focus only on India and see what good can come out of this major shakeup. As you can see we are optimists! We will consider the following aspects: 1. The lock down 2. The sufferings of migrant labour[Read More…]
Much has been written in academic and trade publications on leadership. This is a topic which is always current and relevant. Harvard Business Review has dedicated a Special Summer 2020 Issue on “How to LEAD in a Time of CRISIS.” This is indeed the biggest crisis facing America in recent memory. With death attributed to COVID-19 exceeding the 100,000 mark,[Read More…]
There is something weird fact about pandemic or world catastrophe: it always and invariably benefits the Crony capitalists the most. Incidentally this time the pandemic has been named to sound like Crona, as if it were the male counterpart of Crony. Remember the pandemic Y2K of 1999? Yeah, everywhere there was a propagated fear; let come 1st January 2000, all[Read More…]
Rohingya people, who have no identity of their own, are now facing another danger. Pandemic COVID-19 took away one of the Rohingya, who took shelter at a camp at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh on the wake of genocide in their own land in Myanmar. United News of Bangladesh reported that the man died from coronavirus infection while undergoing treatment at[Read More…]
It is inevitable that the virus will spread anywhere people gather in numbers. India went for the world’s toughest lockdown in March, when just about 500 Covid-19 cases had been reported. And it has started withdrawing the lockdown when India has become the seventh-worst pandemic-affected nation, with over 1.91 lakh infections and close to 5,500 deaths. India is registering giant[Read More…]
Introduction Birds are chirping, highways have quieted, rush hour traffic follows easily, airports have been shut down, smog has disappeared, reviving sunny and blue skies. COVID-19 has left this earth with dramatic drops in air pollution and a hope to solve the climate crisis by putting a halt to several harmful practices. It has drastically changed life on a global[Read More…]
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic over the last 3 months has failed on almost every front. Not only has it been unsuccessful in containing the exponential spread of the disease, but has through its actions given rise to one of the biggest humanitarian crises our country has ever seen. It has violated[Read More…]
About a month ago, when, as it seems now, the covid-19 world was still young and economy reopenings were still few, Mike Davis, the American labor organizer, wrote an ominous piece titled, Reopening the Economy Will Send Us to Hell. It almost seemed contrary to the common wisdom that the world needed to reopen as it was choking because of[Read More…]
Health Ministry and Home Ministry Failed The Masses Early on in the epidemic the Prime Minister of India exhorted the corporate media to inform the masses that countries in Europe; the USA; and a few others were facing the brunt of the Pandemic. Hardly a few hundred Indians were infected with the virus then. Not so any longer. The powers[Read More…]
Co-Written by K. Rajasekharan Nayar and Arathi P. Rao The possibility of developing vaccines and drugs against COVID-19 is being closely watched by the world. The journal ‘Nature’ reports that there are about 115 vaccine development initiatives in the world of which 78 are confirmed as active and 37 are unconfirmed and of the 78 confirmed active projects, 73 are[Read More…]
The Parque Taruma cemetery during the coronavirus outbreak in Manaus, Brazil. Brazil now has the second-highest number of reported coronavirus cases, surpassing Russia. Blue, turquoise, and white crosses mark the dead in mass graves in Manaus, Brazil, a visual reminder of the toll the novel coronavirus has had on the country. The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and[Read More…]
The epidemic is almost over in Italy. After almost three painful months of lockdown and the loss of about 30.000 lives, the daily number of victims of the coronavirus is slowly dwindling to zero. In a couple of weeks at most, the epidemic will be completely gone. It is time to restart, but the damage has been terrible. The lockdown[Read More…]
New Socialist Initiative (NSI) on India’s ‘war against Covid 19’ # Today, India has emerged as a new epicentre for the novel coronavirus in the Asia Pacific region.With 1,58,333 confirmed cases of Covid 19 and deaths of total of 4,531 people after contracting the virus, it has already crossed China’s COVID-19 numbers. # New Socialist Initiative (NSI) feels that the[Read More…]
Abstract There are so many articles, reports and research on covid-19 (corona) by different institutions, researchers and banks of various countries. There are economic research on it there are physiological researches on it and in coming time there will be more psycological researches also conduct on it. But as we know to prevent to cure or to procure for any[Read More…]
Co-Written by Tehzeeb Anis & Prof. Mohammad Akram After three consecutive lockdowns, the countrywide lockdown got extended again for another two weeks in the form of Lockdown 4.0. This episode of lockdown is witnessing extended relaxation related to travel, market and permission to work in specific sectors. Lockdown is used by the union government as the main instrument to combat[Read More…]
In days to come, social scientists will write varied accounts on the responses of the Indian state to the ongoing pandemic called Covid-19. Academicians will deploy the visible categories of class, caste, race, gender, religion, economy, centre, state, region, demography and many more to enquire and weave multiple narratives. Each study would offer us new perspectives to look into ourselves,[Read More…]
Manish Azad is a political activist. That is why he has been a victim to State repression. On February 29, he returned from prison after 8 months. Even before this, he has been writing for Dastak. Here is his article, presenting all the aspects related to the corona virus pandemic. This article is especially important in the context that while[Read More…]
Globally, three million children a year die of hunger or malnourishment according to theworldcounts.com. The site also notes the number is dropping steadily. In a May 2019 editorial ,Voice of America reports, “Today, some 821 million people suffer chronically from hunger. And although this is significantly fewer people than the numbers we saw a decade ago, hunger still kills more people than AIDS,[Read More…]
I was born and bred in Dehra Dun. Then, in search of job and a future, for some years of my life I worked and lived in Delhi and Ahmedabad. In the twelve or so years at the time, no one in Delhi nor Ahmedabad ever called me a “migrant”. Today many young women and men, having studied engineering, medical,[Read More…]
The pandemic is helping to understand a few facts of the current state of geo-politics. One of these facts is China’s voice – voice with all its meanings. China has called for international cooperation against COVID-19, popularly named coronavirus, to tide over darkest hours. China has said: Cooperation and solidarity are the most powerful weapon to prevail over the epidemic.[Read More…]
Co-Written by Akhter Hussain Bhat & Dr. Mohammad Akram The novel COVID-19 has caused widespread concern, fear, anxiety and stress among millions of people worldwide. The virus has affected more than 5 million people causing more than 3.3 lakh deaths while many are battling for recovery around the globe. Owing to the stern and infectious nature of the virus, the[Read More…]
The spread of COVID-19 infused crisis has huge impact on all aspects of life and economy across India. It is particularly posing a serious challenge to the social and economic development of rural poor, migrants and farmers. The local businesses and communities are significantly affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. The Government of India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced[Read More…]
Co- Written by Kamala Tamirisa, Ritu Thamman and Martha Gulati Health care professionals need more support. Based on a survey of 553 health care professionals in mid-April, 2020. The death by suicide of Dr. Lorna Breen, the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in New York City, is just the beginning of yet another health care[Read More…]
COVID-19 Pandemic: Surpassing Islamic Republic Of Iran, India Now 10th – Out Of 188 Countries – Worst-Affected Globally! The number of n-Coronavirus cases in India has raced past the cases in Islamic Republic of Iran. It may be recalled that Iran was the worst hit country in the middle-east; outside China it was the 2nd hardest affected. In the beginning[Read More…]
Two months after imposition of the most stringent and large-scale lockdown in the world, with the pandemic still undefeated, it is the Indian Republic that is looking more and more like a struggling COVID-19 patient. It is running low on oxygen in its blood, several organs are already failing, costs of treatment shooting up and the country’s leadership looks utterly[Read More…]
Letter to the Prime Minister To Shri Narendra Modiji Prime Minister Dear Shri Modiji, I forward here a copy of my last letter dated 15-5-2020 and copies of the previous letters addressed to you on the excruciating problems faced by crores of the migrant workers across the length and the breadth of the country. I am not sure whether my letters have[Read More…]
Remember when you were a kid, locked within that monster called a grade school, at dismissal time? You must recall how the seas just opened and the throng descended on the schoolyard… like , well… ants at a picnic. Thus, the expression becomes almost timeless. So it is with so many of our Amerikan public whenever the opportunity reveals itself[Read More…]
Introduction COVID-19 pandemic, its emergence, global spread and the crisis therefrom are inseparably linked up with the character of neoliberal accumulation today. As is widely recognised, its origins are rooted in profit-driven corporate capital’s unbridled plunder of nature and consequent invasion and intrusion in to wild life ecosystem leading to spill-over of viruses to humans and their subsequent mutations. That[Read More…]
As a student of political science we have been familiar with Samuel Johnson’s amazing words on patriotism, an essential ingredient of nationalism. He wrote: ‘Patriotism is last refuge of scoundrel.’ History has been witness to the truthfulness of this dictum multiple times globally. Back at home what does it mean could be witnessed personally and closely by observing what RSS-BJP[Read More…]
Co-Written by Abass Rather & Aqib Yousuf Covid-19 Pandemic has brought the world under a precarious situation as the millions of people have been rendered jobless. Over 122 million people in India lost their jobs in April, according to estimates from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Around 75% of them were small traders and wage-labourers. The sudden and unexpected outbreak[Read More…]
Co-Written by Asmita Verma, Surabhi Agarwal and Bobby Ramakant The Epidemics Act, 1897 gives the central and state governments authority to impose any regulations which may be necessary to contain the outbreak of a disease. Some state governments such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh have already used this power to bring private healthcare facilities in their state under government[Read More…]
Wuhan-based virologist Shi Zhengli has identified dozens of deadly SARS-like viruses in bat caves, and she warns there are more out there. Scientificamerican.com Editor’s Note (4/24/20): This article was originally published online on March 11. It has been updated for inclusion in the June 2020 issue of Scientific American and to address rumors that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from Shi Zhengli’s lab[Read More…]
The above is the title of news release by WHO. The two-day meeting of the 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) was held in Geneva on May 18-19, discussed Covid-19 and how the world is coping with that. Even as the media in India is engaged 24×7 on Covid-19, this historic session was given poor coverage, and many of those that[Read More…]
As a singular event, Covid-19 could be an opportunity for a total political and economic reconfiguration. Instead, Modi capitalizes on daily fatality statistics (short term chaos) and uses the fear of death as the basis of his strategies; best exemplified by his death discourses directed at the nation. Faced with an emerging humanitarian catastrophe (long term focus), the national response[Read More…]
The world’s progress in eliminating poverty is set to suffer a major setback due to the coronavirus pandemic, forcing more people to survive on less than $1.90 per day, the World Bank has said in a recent statement (Press release no.: 2020/193/EXC). “The pandemic and shutdown of advanced economies could push as many as 60 million people into extreme poverty[Read More…]
The novel corona virus has infected more than 100,000 people in India. WHO has declared the virus to be pandemic. But pandemics have always been anti-urban. Coronavirus undermines the most basic notions of the urban life that is the idea of ‘public’. It undermines the idea of shared spaces- one shouldn’t be coming out in large numbers. One shouldn’t be[Read More…]
It is not only about physically surviving the pandemic. People miss people, and places, sometimes desperately. And they die, when separated. We are bombarded by briefings and numbers. We are scared into submission by horrifying medical stories, by shocking images, and then, simultaneously, by predictions of economic and social downfall. Day and night, day and night. But somehow, so often[Read More…]
Is something as basic as being with your loved ones and being able to maintain social distancing a privilege in this pandemic? Walking for miles in the scorching heat of May, with minimal water and food to reach a place that would make one feel a little more comfortable than the rest of the world, a place we all[Read More…]
Edouard Louis’ novel, Who Killed My Father, is a collection of short and riveting letters addressed to his 50-years-old father resting on his deathbed. The author, with splendid eloquence and brevity, put forth the plight of working-class of France, who has been rendered redundant in an era of unregulated capitalism. The sheer contempt for the political elite is clearly visible[Read More…]
Co-Written by Vijaya Ramachandran and Sandeep Pandey Lockdown in the wake of coronavirus threat has seriously affected the livelihood options for the migrant workers and daily wage earners. While the government has announced that they will be given free ration, even if they are not linked with local Fair Price Shop part of the Public Distribution System, which is the[Read More…]
SARs Cov-2, the virus that has caused the lockdown of 1.3 billion human beings in India has also caused an unprecedented humanitarian crisis across the country. The International Labour Organization estimated in April that around 400 million workers were at risk of slipping into poverty due to sudden and unplanned stringent nationwide lockdown. However, a lockdown of such magnitude has[Read More…]
Trump is blaming China for the Covid-19 pandemic to hide his criminal negligence during the crisis. A detailed Timeline of the disaster reveals that China informed the WHO and the World of the Wuhan outbreak on 31 December 2019 but Trump spent the following 4.5 months minimizing the seriousness of the pandemic and slagging both China and the WHO. With[Read More…]
This spring, the novel coronavirus pandemic has raised the issue of the relationship between the blindest kind of religious faith and rational skepticism — this time in two countries that think of themselves as polar opposites and enemies: Supreme Leader Ali Khameini’s Iran and Donald Trump’s America. On the U.S. side of things, New Orleans pastor Tony Spell, for instance, has[Read More…]
As the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 continues and the nation staggers in its recovery from the debilitating impact of the pandemic, many are left stranded away from home and battling hunger every day. Many migrant workers and students walked hundreds of kilometres to reach home but several others couldn’t and they are left without shelter and[Read More…]
Barack Obama speaking on 16th May spoke for the first time about the coronavirus pandemic and the responses of the ruling elite. He observed that, “More than anything this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” Obama told graduates from several dozen historically black[Read More…]
The working class, which successfully accomplished revolutions in many countries in the modern age, which played its invaluable role in productive growth in India, too, since freedom movement, undergoing such tragic and inhuman suffering today in the days of Corona pandemic, is a matter of shame for independent India. However, it can’t erase the role of working class from history.[Read More…]
How could the Great Patriotic War in which the Soviet people (including many members of my own family) lost at least 25 million lives, have anything in common with the latest outbreak of the novel coronavirus? You think this is an absolutely insane question? However, before you dismiss it, think twice. There are similarities how they are being portrayed. There[Read More…]
Co-Written by Sanghmitra S Acharya, Sunita Reddy & Nemthianngai Guite The COVID-19 pandemic, which has engulfed the world, has betrayed the informal sector migrant labour stranded all over the country. The dreams which were nurtured by the pull factors exerted by the ‘citylights’, were further fueled in the wake of ‘Jandhan’, which heralded a new chapter in the lives of[Read More…]
Co-Written by Tehzeeb Anis & Prof. Mohammad Akram COVID-19 is highly contagious infection and has already affected more than 4.5 million people globally. India is also setting up new records in spike of Covid-19 cases almost daily. Within 24 hours, India has recorded biggest single day spike in number of cases with 5242 new patient as of 17th May 2020.[Read More…]
Political speeches are often scripted. They not only reveal intentions and priorities, but also the politician’s art of communicating with the people. It is in this context that Prime Minister Modi’s two recent speeches, one on March 24 and the other on May 12, gain significance. To be sure, Prime Minister’s two speeches focused on different themes. The March 24[Read More…]
No doubt the clarification that India will not map Covid-19 infections on the basis of religion has many heaving sighs of relief. But will the peace last? “Move for community-based mapping of coronavirus?” a recent news item in a prestigious daily asked, getting tongues wagging about “closed-door meetings at the highest level”, though no “official” decision had been taken in them. The Ministry of Health declared that any such news is “baseless, incorrect and[Read More…]
The last most remembered pandemic can be traced to the general crisis facilitated by the First World War. The “Spanish Flu”, as it was popularly known, was connected to a strain of the influenza viruses, which was in circulation among troops from 1916 onwards. By 1918, the virus strain triggered a full-blown pandemic, spreading in waves that lasted up till[Read More…]
If you cannot discover or create something, best steal it. It has been the operating principle for everything from wealth to technology. With the efforts to discover a vaccine to the novel coronavirus being all but bound by solidarity, the race on plundering secrets has already begun in earnest. No one party can claim particular innocence in this endeavour. All[Read More…]
We are living in the time of Covid-19 pandemic caused by a newly identified coronavirus. This pandemic along with collateral economic crisis has threatened human life all around the globe. However, in these tough times, there is another shadow epidemic of domestic violence, which is putting the physical and mental health of many women in Indian households in danger. The[Read More…]
Odin, the Norse All-Father, is said to have hung from a tree for 9 days and sacrificed one of his eyes to acquire the knowledge of the world. These days, thankfully, all the Nordic people have to do to acquire knowledge is… well, live in the Nordics. The five countries which make up the Nordic region are: Denmark, Finland,[Read More…]
Co-Written by Arundhati Dhuru and Sandeep Pandey All the narratives of a progressing nation, Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘marching into the 21st century,’ Atal Behari Vajpayee’s ‘shining India,’ A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s ‘providing urban amenities in rural areas,’ Manmohan Singh’s achievement of 8-9% Gross Domestic Product growth rates and Narendra Modi’s ‘smart cities’ have crumbled in the wake of national level migrant workers’[Read More…]
Two recent reports deserve our attention: The first one is the case of a young labourer named Amrit, s/o Ramcharan and his friend Mohammad Yakub was travelling to Basti, UP from Surat, Gujarat. Suddenly Amrit became unconscious. Since the passengers in the truck protested, the boy was dropped on the road side in the middle of the night. Amrit’s friend,[Read More…]
Misfortunes never come singly, do they? The pandemic which has turned us into emotional cripples illustrates our culpable sin of negligence of duties and obligations to the environment. Like old age, it has diminished our power to live our life as we used to see fit. To speak of the growing sense of pessimism that has taken hold of us[Read More…]
Indicative of the multi-layered responses on ‘worker-employer-government’ problematic that characterises the Covid-19 lockdown days, the Central trade unions have declared a day of protest on 22 May 2020. CTUOs call has come in the wake particularly of the radical changes in the labour laws being initiated by various state governments. COVID-19, besides the health risks it entail, has also brought[Read More…]
Biden’s Drone Wars 
Earth Abuse and the Next Pandemic 
Neither the Israeli Elections nor the Palestinian Elections are about Democracy 
35th Anniversary of Arwal Massacre 
Measures Beyond Present Anti-Defection Law Needed to Check Sabotage of Democracy 
Gandhian Concept of Swadeshi Has An Increasing and Wider Relevance Today 
Tightening The Noose Around Syria 
Portland police disperse protesters Saturday night, riot declared Friday night 
Corporate ‘listing’ of ‘powerful’ voices 
Dr.Ambedkar: Current Political and Economic Scenario 
Rally in support of Ambedkar’s grandson-in-law held outside Indian Visa and Passport Application Center 
Coronavirus Strikes Papua New Guinea 
Pam Africa: As Mumia Awaits Heart Surgery, I am Issuing a Challenge to CNN’s Michael Smerconish and DA Larry Krasner 
How to Make a Gulf Monarchy All-American Increasing Need for Early Availability of More Reliable Mortality Data 
Chronicle of the unavailing Afghan war 
Reactions to U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan 
Educate, Agitate, Organize: Self-reflections 
Surveillance Capitalism threatens public university in India 
Gates Unhinged: Dystopian Vision for Agrifood Must Not Succeed 
The Pandemic: death toll reaches 3 million, crisis deepening in Brazil, India, France 
Rising Garden Film Festival reaches wider audience virtually amidst pandemic 
‘Sholay’ was a landmark film but not a classic with a social theme 
The British Prime Minister, Oxford MPs and the Green Party MP on Farmers Protest in India. 
Uniforms 
A Taste of Patriarchy in Speech: Language and Gender 
Contribution of Urban Gardening Can Improve Greatly with A Few Changes 
Comparing Response to Two Important Diseases—Tuberculosis and COVID-19 
Fight against Covid-19: Incompetence or deliberate negligence 
Ultimate Success 
Empire’s Afghan War: A lost war, a profitable war 
Raul Castro steps down, next generation of anti-imperialist leaders take responsibility 
Does Historiography Transcend Anachronism? 
Thrissur Pooram – 2021 
The Dirty Campaign Underlying Ecuador’s “Free and Fair” Election 
The Myth of Peace in the Middle East: Deconstructing the Naturalization Narrative 
U.S. Joins Past Empires In Afghan Graveyard 
India should welcome the end of US occupation of Afghanistan 
Centre’s ordinance: A big blow to cinema 
Indian monsoons becoming more chaotic 
When I founded Countercurrents.org in 2002, Disha Ravi who was arrested for sedition yesterday was a two-year-old toddler. In 2002, the CO2 level in the atmosphere was 370 ppm. Now it is 415 ppm. In just 19 years CO2 levels increased by just over 2ppm/year. The level of cumulative greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including Methane, Nitrous Oxide etc is[Read More…]
