Twitter groups offer Covid-19 Lifeline to India
Srinagaran, The city where I live in Kashmir under the administration of India, the streets are blocked. But through Twitter I hear cries of despair from all over India: the son is asking for an oxygen cylinder to save the mother; a daughter with a parent pumping her breast out of the hospital; the dead wife was riding a bicycle to find a place to cremate an elderly man; Turning all of India into a pyre from massive incineration.
As the number of new Covid-19 cases jumps by the hundreds of thousands, Indian Twitter, with its 18.9 million users, is now a compendium of despair. However, it has become something else: a kind of emergency telephone for citizens, where neighbors call their neighbors for help. Using tags like #CovidSOS and #SOSIndia, a message gets traction. Other users respond with resources or tag other people, hoping someone …