Circumstance is often an eloquent expression of the imperative for action as perceived potential of double-digit growth has yielded to a veiled sense of foreboding
The Modi Sarkar completes seven years in power next week. There is much lather and debate about the fall in the approval ratings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from 63 per cent to 38 per cent as per the weekly tracker of C Voter and from 68 per cent in May 2020 to 33 per cent as per a poll by the global outfit Morning Consult.
The findings are unsurprising given the magnitude of despair and distress witnessed. In their management of the second wave of the pandemic, governments (Centre and states) have assigned vaccination the role of sole saviour. And the management of vaccine procurement has left millions in a queue of want. Undoubtedly, the response reflects the grief and anger among the people across India.
On the 72nd Republic Day, the International Monetary Fund forecast that the Indian economy would grow at 11.5 percent - the only large economy to record double-digit growth. In a hundred days since India has been witness to haemorrhaging of lives, livelihoods and confidence. The hopes of a V-shaped recovery are now stranded between a raging virus and a botched-up vaccination roll out.
The economy is under the long shadow of long COVID - as in the medical condition deleterious effects haunt the economy. In May, a parade of rating agencies as also economists have downgraded India’s growth - the best-case scenario as of now is 9 plus percent GDP growth and the worstcase scenario is 8.2 percent. To appreciate the setback, one must look at the timeline of the slide in economic prospects - where the economy was, where it is and when it could get back to where it was.
Grief hangs heavy in the air afflicted by death, distress, despair and depression.
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(For representational purposes) Mass cremation of COVID-19 victims at Old Seemapuri Crematorium as coronavirus cases surge in New Delhi, Friday, April 23, 2021. (Photo | PTI)
Grief hangs heavy in the air afflicted by death, distress, despair and depression. A flailing state left its people helpless. Pleas to save a life compete for attention with intimations of death in social and personal spaces. The eloquence of heartache is binding strangers in an uncommon intimacy of sorrow.
Desolation comes wrapped in haunting images – of the wife desperately trying to revive the husband in an autorickshaw in Agra, the grandson driving with his dead granny in the car struggling to find a crematorium, of the daughter who couldn’t get an ICU for her mother appealing for legalising of mercy killing.
Grief hangs heavy in the air afflicted by death, distress, despair and depression.
Share Via Email
| A+A A-
(For representational purposes) Mass cremation of COVID-19 victims at Old Seemapuri Crematorium as coronavirus cases surge in New Delhi, Friday, April 23, 2021. (Photo | PTI)
Grief hangs heavy in the air afflicted by death, distress, despair and depression. A flailing state left its people helpless. Pleas to save a life compete for attention with intimations of death in social and personal spaces. The eloquence of heartache is binding strangers in an uncommon intimacy of sorrow.
Desolation comes wrapped in haunting images – of the wife desperately trying to revive the husband in an autorickshaw in Agra, the grandson driving with his dead granny in the car struggling to find a crematorium, of the daughter who couldn’t get an ICU for her mother appealing for legalising of mercy killing.