Amit Sadhukhan | | Published 25.12.20, 12:28 AM
The Covid-19 pandemic could be seen as an experiment to test democracy’s responsiveness towards, and its ability to overcome, widespread sufferings through reasoned public opinion and elections. Elections have taken place amidst the pandemic, be it in the United States of America or in Bihar. Do these elections in the midst of the pandemic sufficiently reflect people’s anger, political discontent and, therefore, the sensitivity of democracy?
Comparisons of electoral outcomes between the US and Bihar might appear to be disproportionate in terms of State capacity to address the crisis. Nonetheless, the results, be they in the US or those in Bihar, raise more questions than answers about democracy’s sensibility in the hour of crisis. Institutions devoted to the safeguarding of democracy by upholding the rights of
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He added: “We are ready and pretty much at par with the world to roll out one of the largest vaccine programmes in the first half of 2021, under Prime Minister (Narendra Modi)’s leadership.”
At present, three Covid-19 vaccine candidates, developed by Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute of India and Pfizer, are under consideration of India s drug regulatory authority.
“Sometimes I wonder that if the pandemic had struck India just four or five years earlier, we would not have been in as good a shape as what we are today, with all the connectivity we have. The credit for that must go to our Prime Minister s Digital India vision, where he motivated the entire industry to roll out broadband in the first five years of his first term,” the RIL chairman said.