Another lockdown will not go down well. It will lead to anger, frustration, immense financial strain.
Has Kalyug arrived?
A wholly unexpected deadly health hazard has gripped the globe, enclosing us in fear, dread, chilling uncertainty, sleepless nights, with no cure, so far, available for coronavirus. Its proliferation is overwhelming. It is decimating cultures and civilizations. But for the lockdown, millions of Indians would have died.
Has time come to start preparing for writing the obituary of history? No. Human will and resilience cannot be underestimated. Nor should it be overestimated. The media—electronic and print—devotes most time and space to give the progress and spread of the coronavirus. Also, its long-term consequences, and in many cases, irreversible damage.
Faith healers, astrologers, quacks are having a field day, suggesting weird cures. Some of our “pundits” are assuring the gullible that the best and quick cure was to drink cow’s urine.
His Excellency John Magufuli of Tanzania suggests that the virus could not survive in the body of Christ. It will be burnt.
A Brazilian, who is also a preacher, says that fasting could check the virus. In the same country, a Pentecostal priest is proposing an anti-Covid day. President Jair Bolsonaro is for the controversial and unproven benefits of the drug hydroxychloroquine. So apparently, is US President Donald Trump.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have come up with a device which can detect coronavirus at a distance of one hundred yards “using a field magnet”.
One unnamed source has pronounced that 5G mobile phones can spread coronavirus. In Israel, the ultra-orthodox rabbis say that Torah protects and saves lives. Regulations announced by the state are flouted. The Torah contains the law of God as revealed to Moses and recorded in the Pentateuch (in Judaism).
The President of Venezuela proposes that lemongrass and elderberry tea could ward off the virus.
In Kenya, public figures asked people to drink cognac with their food.
Nigeria’s Health Minister’s recipe includes eating onions, African pepper, and neem tree leaves.
* * *
The Chief of Protocol in the Ministry of External Affairs should send for the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and tell him politely but firmly that diplomats should strictly follow the instructions laid down for the implementation of the lockdown.
The other day, a lady diplomat from a South American embassy situated in Vasant Vihar was going out of the colony on a bicycle. Two policemen stopped her, asked her to show her identity card. This she refused to do. They told her that she could not go out of the colony. She was rude to them and rode off on her bicycle. Her attire, to say the least, showed her in a very poor light.
Diplomats should set an example, and not abuse their diplomatic privileges.
* * *
There are few dates in the past 50 years for which the people of India have so eagerly looked forward to as 20 April 2020.
No one doubts that the Prime Minister, his minister colleagues and officials are fully aware of the health and economic tragedies the country faced in the past three months.
The economic consequences of the lockup will be really felt after 3 May. Our economic percentage will be drastically reduced—1.9%—in the coming months. Government must ensure that Bandra, Surat, Hyderabad and Moradabad are not repeated.
If immigrant labour continues to face joblessness, no salaries etc., they will starve. We will then have not one Moradabad, but many. Crooks and rogues will incite riots, disrupt law and order. Our economy will not recover in months, but in years.
The PM had rightly said that the coronavirus is both a national and international tragedy. He should—unless he has already done so—ask his very many eminent economists to sit with Manmohan Singh; Montek Singh Ahluwalia; Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University; Abhijit Banerjee, Nobel Laureate in Economics and Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, currently Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago.
Post 3 May, another lockdown will simply not go down well with the people. It will lead to anger, frustration, immense financial strain on business and the jobless. Even the phased unwinding of the 3 May lockdown will produce nationwide dissent. So far, jan hai to jahan hai has resonated, but it cannot do so for an indefinite period.
A wholly unexpected deadly health hazard has gripped the globe, enclosing us in fear, dread, chilling uncertainty, sleepless nights, with no cure, so far, available for coronavirus. Its proliferation is overwhelming. It is decimating cultures and civilizations. But for the lockdown, millions of Indians would have died.
Has time come to start preparing for writing the obituary of history? No. Human will and resilience cannot be underestimated. Nor should it be overestimated. The media—electronic and print—devotes most time and space to give the progress and spread of the coronavirus. Also, its long-term consequences, and in many cases, irreversible damage.
Faith healers, astrologers, quacks are having a field day, suggesting weird cures. Some of our “pundits” are assuring the gullible that the best and quick cure was to drink cow’s urine.
His Excellency John Magufuli of Tanzania suggests that the virus could not survive in the body of Christ. It will be burnt.
A Brazilian, who is also a preacher, says that fasting could check the virus. In the same country, a Pentecostal priest is proposing an anti-Covid day. President Jair Bolsonaro is for the controversial and unproven benefits of the drug hydroxychloroquine. So apparently, is US President Donald Trump.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have come up with a device which can detect coronavirus at a distance of one hundred yards “using a field magnet”.
One unnamed source has pronounced that 5G mobile phones can spread coronavirus. In Israel, the ultra-orthodox rabbis say that Torah protects and saves lives. Regulations announced by the state are flouted. The Torah contains the law of God as revealed to Moses and recorded in the Pentateuch (in Judaism).
The President of Venezuela proposes that lemongrass and elderberry tea could ward off the virus.
In Kenya, public figures asked people to drink cognac with their food.
Nigeria’s Health Minister’s recipe includes eating onions, African pepper, and neem tree leaves.
* * *
The Chief of Protocol in the Ministry of External Affairs should send for the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and tell him politely but firmly that diplomats should strictly follow the instructions laid down for the implementation of the lockdown.
The other day, a lady diplomat from a South American embassy situated in Vasant Vihar was going out of the colony on a bicycle. Two policemen stopped her, asked her to show her identity card. This she refused to do. They told her that she could not go out of the colony. She was rude to them and rode off on her bicycle. Her attire, to say the least, showed her in a very poor light.
Diplomats should set an example, and not abuse their diplomatic privileges.
* * *
There are few dates in the past 50 years for which the people of India have so eagerly looked forward to as 20 April 2020.
No one doubts that the Prime Minister, his minister colleagues and officials are fully aware of the health and economic tragedies the country faced in the past three months.
The economic consequences of the lockup will be really felt after 3 May. Our economic percentage will be drastically reduced—1.9%—in the coming months. Government must ensure that Bandra, Surat, Hyderabad and Moradabad are not repeated.
If immigrant labour continues to face joblessness, no salaries etc., they will starve. We will then have not one Moradabad, but many. Crooks and rogues will incite riots, disrupt law and order. Our economy will not recover in months, but in years.
The PM had rightly said that the coronavirus is both a national and international tragedy. He should—unless he has already done so—ask his very many eminent economists to sit with Manmohan Singh; Montek Singh Ahluwalia; Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University; Abhijit Banerjee, Nobel Laureate in Economics and Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, currently Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago.
Post 3 May, another lockdown will simply not go down well with the people. It will lead to anger, frustration, immense financial strain on business and the jobless. Even the phased unwinding of the 3 May lockdown will produce nationwide dissent. So far, jan hai to jahan hai has resonated, but it cannot do so for an indefinite period.
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