India Reports 10000000 Covid Cases. Who Will Save Indians?
As most Indian bureaucrats and politicians are extremely callous, careless, and corrupt, they will not be able to contain the Covid contagion.
By Rakesh Raman
Despite constant lies and understatements by the Indian authorities to hide the Covid devastation, the reported coronavirus cases crossed the 10-million mark on Saturday (December 19, 2020). The actual number of cases and the deaths may be far higher than what is being reported.
You can click here to read my letter sent to Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India to collect actual Covid data, which was not provided to me.
Although it is said that India is under-reporting the coronavirus disaster information, even with understated data, India is the second worst-affected country after the U.S. But India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi keeps saying without any basis that the situation in India is better than most other countries.
According to Oxford Economics, India will be worst-affected among the world’s major economies even after the pandemic wanes with output 12% below pre-virus levels through the middle of the decade.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also predicts that India’s GDP will shrink 10.3% in the year to March 2021 as PM Modi’s sudden lockdown has paralyzed the economic activity in the entire country.
Modi had announced a sudden coronavirus lockdown for 21 days on March 24, 2020. While Modi’s blind followers had thought that coronavirus would disappear as Modi had asked them to burn candles and hit their kitchen utensils, Modi’s totka (superstitious mischief) did not work.
When the devastation caused by the virus was increasing exponentially in the country, Modi had lifted the lockdown restrictions without any medical inputs. Since Modi is behaving as a Hindu sect preacher instead of a wise leader, he is taking random decisions without any scientific support to deal with the disease.
As Modi failed to manage the Covid crisis, in an ongoing RMN Poll, 81% people say that PM Modi is not handling the coronavirus crisis effectively.
While the Modi government is hiding the real extent of damage being caused by the virus, the State governments are equally dishonest. In India’s capital New Delhi, for example, the Delhi Government has been telling repeated lies to downplay the effect of the virus.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is one of the most incompetent politicians in India, has failed miserably in handling the coronavirus (Covid-19) in the national capital.
As a result of his negligence, thousands of people are dying in Delhi. Instead of controlling the virus, Kejriwal is delivering misleading messages to confuse people so that they should not blame Kejriwal’s Delhi Government for the catastrophic damage in Delhi.
In a recent meeting with chief ministers of a few States, Modi talked about the expansion of testing and treatment networks and noted that special emphasis of the PM-CARES Fund has been to make available oxygen to patients.
While the PM-CARES Fund was created by PM Modi in a secretive way to collect money to deal with coronavirus, the Modi government refuses to reveal the details of money collected and spent through this account. In the absence of transparency in the PM-CARES Fund, it is believed that a large amount of money has been siphoned off.
Instead of improving the health care facilities to treat Covid patients, the Modi government is giving totally irrelevant information such as recovery rate, plan for vaccine distribution, and so on.
The government is again hiding the fact that vaccine is not a real remedy to treat patients, as the success of vaccines depends on a number of nebulous factors. The vaccines can also have serious side-effects on consumers.
In fact, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has said that Covid vaccine could turn people into “crocodiles” or make women bearded, emphasizing the fact that vaccines cannot be trusted.
But in order to divert people’s attention from the increasing number of Covid cases and deaths, Modi has mischievously changed the narrative to vaccines.
As most Indian bureaucrats and politicians are extremely callous, careless, and corrupt, they will not be able to contain the Covid contagion. Therefore, coronavirus will keep wreaking havoc on Indians until God himself (or herself) comes down to rescue them.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of a humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society. He also runs The Outbreak magazine, which covers global coronavirus news and views.
