Taking the cess route to raise more revenues by the states and central governments was expected. As the pandemic hit a year's mark in March, 2021 it was clear that the people will be paying for the pandemic for years to come and in a variety of ways. Uttar Pradesh government is levying a covid … Continue reading Covid Cess: We will be paying for the pandemic for years
Tag: Pandemic
Day 415: What’s wrong?
03/05/2021 Day 415: What's going wrong? More of watching the pandemic unfolding and governments’ response today. The trend maintains itself - as a state climbs up the chart of number of infections and deaths there begins a rapid regulatory failure of its key agencies. Drug regulator failed long back when the run on remdesivir began. … Continue reading Day 415: What’s wrong?
Pandemic, politics and realities
The day got flooded with news on election results and breathless debates on the outcomes. As it looks, election outcomes and political futures are more important than miscellaneous matters of a pandemic raging through the county. Switched to reading all day. Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes on Vaccine Darwinism - India has always been a tough … Continue reading Pandemic, politics and realities
May Day, 2021: The long road home
May Day of 2021 is unique in its context at least for Indian workers, if not for those around the world. Never in the history of independent India have we had such a large scale pauperisation, destruction of livelihoods and repeated displacement under distress. This was triggered by the two waves of Covid-19 pandemic. But … Continue reading May Day, 2021: The long road home
Day 411: Numbers
Source: Press Information Bureau of India 29/04/2021 Day 411: Numbers These days life is back to the same rhythm of early days of the pandemic. In between reading, writing, cooking and work calls there is a stream of situations and news updates. There is a constant need to keep a tab on how people and … Continue reading Day 411: Numbers
What does scientific evidence mean in the Covid-19 pandemic?
In a rush to comment on SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19, many experts have erred. Throughout the course of this pandemic there have been several prescriptive pieces based on scientific research, typically on the lines of ‘what must the government do’. This piece Majority Indians have natural immunity. Vaccinating the entire population can cause great harm is … Continue reading What does scientific evidence mean in the Covid-19 pandemic?
Day 407: Overwhelmed
Data Dashboard of India. Source: news.google.com 25/04/2021 Day 407: Overwhelmed This morning, on the 407th day of the pandemic in India, the numbers look as though Covid-19 has just begun showing its potential and possibilities of what it can do to a population. The lockdowns are back. The central government has made it clear that … Continue reading Day 407: Overwhelmed
Day 400: Second Wave
18/04/2021 It is the 400th day since the first lockdown and official pandemic response began in India. Where are we today? In the depths of an intense second wave of Covid-19! India has reported more than 200,000 positive cases and about 1185 deaths today. Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh … Continue reading Day 400: Second Wave
Books Read in 2020
This comes in after a quarter of 2021 has already slipped by. I could only draw a blank when I tried to recollect all the books that I read in the past year. It had to wait until I returned to Bangalore and look at the shelves and pull out all of them. Visual memory … Continue reading Books Read in 2020
Keeping Count
Day 347 Keeping a count was an instinctive move when the pandemic began. It served the limited purpose of having a sense of temporal distance in these extraordinary times. It is the 347th day since the first lockdown. A month more and it will be a year of the pandemic. India has moved from initial … Continue reading Keeping Count
Contested Realities 