Indian medical staff indict Modi government, authorities for catastrophic mishandling of pandemic
India is the global epicentre of the pandemic, with a tsunami of cases and deaths sweeping across the country. On Friday, India’s Health Ministry reported a record daily increase of 414,188 cases, with deaths rising by 3,915. There have now been 21.49 million officially registered cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and 234,083 deaths. Both of these figures are widely recognised to be vast undercounts.
India’s emergence as the world’s COVID-19 epicentre accounting for more than 45 percent of all new cases worldwide in the past week is the direct product of the “profits before lives” policy enforced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. This policy has been supported by state governments throughout the country, including those led by the Congress Party and other opposition parties. Despite warnings from epidemiologist