This past week has been harrowing in India. You pick up the phone, and find that almost every close friend or relative has tested positive for COVID 19. Social media posts are utterly depressing to read, nearly all tweets are about people asking for help, for a hospital bed, for basic life saving drugs. A doctor friend of mine says he has been seeing 25 covid patients in a span of two hours.
Don’t ask me for a bed, he says, I can’t help anyone. This is how dire the situation has become. All around us, the callous response of our governments both at the centre and states- is widely visible. With cases reaching well over 230,000 a day, India is in the middle of a health emergency.
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Hyderabad: As the country battles the second wave of Coronavirus and subsequent partial lockdowns, fear looms large upon the revival of the economy in the aftermath of the pandemic. Catching on the sentiment of the nation, GITAM (Deemed to be University) hosted a webinar titled “After the Pandemic: How can India’s Economy Recover?” under their newly launched initiative”, ‘The Changemakers’. The session threw light on the alarming situation and drew stimulus on future, in the presence of the guest speaker, Mr. Amitabh Kant CEO, NITI Aayog and moderated by Ms. Nidhi Razdan, visiting faculty, Kautilya School of Public Policy & Former Executive Editor, NDTV 24×7.
Just as we thought things were getting better, India is reeling from a huge surge in covid cases. This time, every peak that was reached in the first wave in 2020, has been crossed both nationally and in many states, which are reporting all time high daily cases.
We initially took comfort in the fact that the fatalities were on the lower side, but those statistics are also changing. Nothing therefore is more critical at this time than the vaccination drive and that is why, the petty political finger pointing we have seen this week, is both shameful and frankly plays with the lives of millions of Indians.
“The Congress must die. If it could not stop the BJP in this election to save the idea of India, this party has no positive role in Indian history. Today it represents the single biggest obstacle to creation of an alternative.”
These were the stinging words of Swaraj India Chief Yogendra Yadav soon after exit polls in 2019 predicated another huge win for Narendra Modi and the BJP in the general election.
At that time, Yadav faced a huge pushback from congress supporters who felt his comments were exaggerated and out of line. Today, nearly two years after that election, the Congress party is still floundering, unsure of who its leader is, unsure of what it stands for, and unsure of the road ahead. The upcoming state elections are another test for the party, where it has been reduced to a side show in states where it once played a key role.