Modi is right: Government deserves no credit for bringing Covid under control in India
It is not government action or even the people’s resolve that brought Covid under control in India. It’s just luck, and herd immunity.
Shivam Vij 10 February, 2021 9:37 am IST Text Size:
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament recently that no government should be given credit for fighting Covid, only the nation deserves praise. He is partially right.
If Covid has come under control in India, with daily deaths now in double digits, it is not because the government was able to control the pandemic. It is at best a mix of herd immunity and good luck. The government doesn’t get credit for either. It wasn’t national resolve, given how people did not wear masks in large swathes of India, how they did not follow social distancing.
A small little tweet by an American pop star has become a matter of public debate in India. It seems to be a graver threat than anything on our borders. Lo and behold! India is defending itself against an attack from Rihanna! Hope we’ve banned her Fenty beauty products already.
Rihanna’s tweet, bringing global attention to ongoing farmers’ protests in India, has been followed up by similar copycat expressions of concerns by various other global celebrities. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has urged these global celebrities to inform themselves better about the ongoing protests.
They’re all missing the woods for the trees. Rihanna’s tweet was less about farmers and more about internet shutdown in the area around Delhi’s borders where the protesting farmers have decided to stay put.
Itâs 2021 and the Indian bureaucracy remains the greatest impediment to progress
Covid has exposed the worst of Indian bureaucracy, which puts paperwork over making peopleâs lives easier.
Shivam Vij 19 January, 2021 9:52 am IST Text Size:
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Barack Obamaâs comments on Rahul Gandhi in his recently released book made headlines. But thereâs another indictment that should be a cause for discussion in India. Obama writes of the countryâs bureaucracy as an impediment in its progress: âDespite its genuine economic progress, though, India remained a chaotic and impoverished place: largely divided by religion and caste, captive to the whims of corrupt local officials and power brokers, hamstrung by a parochial bureaucracy that was resistant to change.â
This article is an exploration into the self-representation of online Muslim youth and their engagement with contemporary politics. It is based on an analysis of responses to tweets on the recent Bihar assembly election.
On 11 November, immediately after the Bihar election results were declared, the Twitter community became active in analysis. Why did the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)–Janata Dal (United) (JD[U]) win and why did the Mahagathbandhan lose despite all polls strongly suggesting otherwise? A well-known Delhi journalist, Shivam Vij (2020), tweeted, “AIMIM was supposed to be the vote cutter but won five seats. A vote cutter is not supposed to win seats only cut votes. Either AIMIM is not the BJP-backed vote cutter Congress accuses it to be or it is a bit over-efficient!”