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‘India much better placed than other nations in fight against Covid-19’: PM Modi

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India is much better placed than many other nations with respect to the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, prime minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday. PM Modi’s comments came during his inaugural address on the occasion marking the 90th birth anniversary celebrations of Rev. Dr Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan.

“The world is fighting a strong battle against a global pandemic. Covid-19 is not only a physical sickness that is a threat to the lives of people but also takes away our attention to unhealthy lifestyles,” the prime minister said during his virtual address.

The prime minister said that earlier this year, some people had predicted that the impact of the virus in India would be very severe but due to the lockdown, various initiatives taken by the government and a people-driven fight, “India is much better placed than many other nations”.

“India’s recovery rate is rising,” he added.

PM Modi started his speech by wishing a “long life and best health” to Rev. Dr Joseph Mar Thoma Metropolitan and described him as someone “passionate about the removal of poverty” and working for women empowerment.

The virtual event saw several followers of the Mar Thoma Church from India and abroad in attendance.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...-19-pm-modi/story-eOhqOtet5H50ibVkpCFzXM.html
 
India cases surge past 500,000

India's confirmed coronavirus cases crossed half a million on Saturday with another record 24-hour jump of 18,552 infections.

The Health Ministry also reported 384 new deaths, raising the total to 15,685.

The surge prompted authorities in the north-eastern state of Assam to impose a two-week lockdown in the state capital of Gauhati. About 700 new cases were reported there in just four days.
 
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India reported over 17,000 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours, pushing the country’s total above 500,000, federal health ministry data showed on Saturday, with infections surging in major cities including the capital New Delhi.

India has the world’s fourth-biggest outbreak of the virus that causes COVID-19, below only the United States, Brazil and Russia in confirmed infections, according to a Reuters tally.

Infections are expected to continue rising steadily in India. Experts advising the federal government say the authorities should now prioritise reducing mortality over containing the spread of the virus.

“Our focus should be on preventing deaths and not really getting bogged down because of the numbers. Numbers are going to increase,” said Dr Manoj Murhekar, a member of India’s main coronavirus task force and director of the National Institute of Epidemiology.

The COV-IND-19 study group, led by Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatistics professor from the University of Michigan, forecasts that India could see between 770,000 and 925,000 cases by July 15.

As infections mount swiftly and hospitals become stretched, some cities like New Delhi are scrambling to build temporary facilities with thousands of beds to quarantine and treat COVID-19 patients.

The city of around 20 million people only has around 13,200 beds for COVID-19 patients and will add at least 20,000 in coming weeks, with some facilities manned by army and paramilitary doctors.

Staff shortages are likely to be a concern as hospitals are swamped and more temporary facilities open, experts warn, although health authorities in some Indian cities are pushing for improved risk-based categorisation of patients.

“We have to ensure those who really require treatment aren’t denied services,” said Dr Giridhar R. Babu, an epidemiologist at the Public Health Foundation of India who is advising the southern state of Karnataka.

https://in.reuters.com/article/us-h...0-as-big-cities-reel-from-surge-idINKBN23Y06U
 
The reality is that the virus is impossible to control for 3rd World countries. Lockdowns are not practical, and social distancing is impossible in places. Education is the only solution.
 
The reality is that the virus is impossible to control for 3rd World countries. Lockdowns are not practical, and social distancing is impossible in places. Education is the only solution.

Death rate in India is much less compared to other first world countries. Due to severe heat or pollution whatever, its not "Novel" coronavirus in India. Death per 1M population in India is only 11 compared to 386 in USA, 684 in UK, 574 in Spain etc. So PM is right that India is better placed than other countries during this pandemic.

Either way, this didnt deserve a seperate thread since we already have 'Coronavirus in India' thread and umpteen threads on Modi.
 
Death rate in India is much less compared to other first world countries. Due to severe heat or pollution whatever, its not "Novel" coronavirus in India. Death per 1M population in India is only 11 compared to 386 in USA, 684 in UK, 574 in Spain etc. So PM is right that India is better placed than other countries during this pandemic.

Either way, this didnt deserve a seperate thread since we already have 'Coronavirus in India' thread and umpteen threads on Modi.

Whats the death rate of india as per infected people (not the population)?? And also in other countries?
 
While India created another unenviable record of registering highest single-day spike in coronavirus cases in the country with over 18.5 thousand cases registered in the last 24 hours, the Union health ministry on Saturday provided a more optimistic appraisal of the state of affairs in the country’s fight against Covid-19 pandemic outbreak.

Health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan underlined India has 58% recovery rate from the disease, which translates to close to 3 lakh recoveries out of the total caseload of 5,08,953 recorded so far since the outbreak. His ministry also pointed out that India’s mortality rate due to the contagion was only 3% and the doubling rate was close to 19 days, a big departure from 3-days recorded before a nationwide lockdown was clamped in the country earlier this year on March 25.

“Our recovery rate has gone above 58% and around 3 lakh people have recovered from COVID19. Our mortality/fatality rate is near 3% which is very less. Our doubling rate has come down to nearly 19 days, which was 3 days before the lockdown,” Harsh Vardhan was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

India is currently the fourth worst affected country in terms of total number of infections with the United States, Brazil and Russia faring even worse on that count. However, if one were to look at the total number of casualties, India ranks 8th on the list with Russia being the only country with fewer deaths but a higher number of cases than India. Death toll in India is at 15,685, according to the latest health ministry data released on Saturday.

While the government has cited figures to show that the doubling rate has increased, it remains worrying that while it took 110 days for coronavirus infections in the country to reach one lakh mark, it took just 39 days more to go past the five-lakh mark on June 27. There has been a rise of 3,18,418 infections in just 17 days beginning June 1, according to data put out by PTI.

India still has 1,97, 387 active cases and the rising trend of the disease is showing no signs of abating. The silver lining comes from the relatively low fatality rate and high recoveries of patients, which stands at 2,95,880 as of Saturday. India is also 4th on the list of recoveries behind USA, Brazil and Russia as per data available on Worldometers.info. Experts have pointed out that a high recovery rate sometimes can be misleading as it can have a direct relation with a high number of positive cases in a territory. For example, the USA’s recovery rate is currently over 40% but it also has the most number of infections at 2,553,068. Brazil with 1,280,054 cases has even a better recovery rate of over 54%, which translates to close to 69 thousands recoveries, as per data available on Worldometers.info.

India definitely ranks better than the USA, Brazil and Russia when it comes to total cases per million of population, while the USA has 7,714 cases per million, Brazil has 6,023 cases per million and Russia has 4,301 cases per million against India’s 370 cases per million, which is amongst the lowest in the world. On this parameter, India ranks 117th amongst the over 210 countries, affected by the virus.

Experts, however, have said that this should be seen in the context of the total number of tests conducted per million of the population.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, India has tested 79,96,707 samples up to June 26 with 2,20,479 samples being tested on Friday, the highest in a day since the beginning of the pandemic. Despite the increasing number of tests being conducted, India ranks 139th in terms of tests conducted per million of the population. India has conducted 5,795 tests per million of the population which is significantly low in comparison with other table toppers like the USA- 94,733 tests/million, Brazil- 13,766 tests/million and Russia- 128,140 tests/million.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...daily-spike/story-SuwefQuJ1vliA2mCBBoLUP.html
 
The chief minister of India's capital Delhi has said the speed at which coronavirus has spread has severely challenged its health system.

Arvind Kejriwal said a surge in cases in early June had led to a shortage of hospital beds and rising fatalities.

Delhi is now the country's worst-hit area, with about 73,000 recorded cases of Covid-19 and at least 2,500 deaths.

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India was "much better placed than many other nations" to tackle the virus.

In a virtual address, he said this was due to a strict nationwide lockdown ordered in March and various measures taken by people.

"India's recovery rate is rising," he added.

More than 500,000 Covid-19 cases have been recorded across the country. About 15,000 people have died after testing positive for the virus.

But infections in Delhi - a city of some 20 million people - have been rising much faster than in the rest of country. About of third of the total number of infections there have been reported in the past week alone.

Chief Minister Kejriwal said: "The cases increased more than we would have expected and in the first week of June we witnessed a shortage of [hospital] beds.

"We were lagging behind in testing in Delhi. And because of the shortage of beds, when some people were not getting beds, the death rate also increased."

Delhi authorities have begun mass testing to determine the extent of spread in the capital.

"The only way to put a lid on infections is early diagnosis and quarantine," Dr Sundeep Salvi, a leading researcher in respiratory care, told CBS News.

In early June - four months after its first recorded Covid-19 infection - India emerged from one of the world's harshest lockdowns. Most businesses were allowed to re-open.

Schools also re-opened in many states, although they remain closed in Delhi.

But the easing of the lockdown led to a surge in new infections. India now has the world's fourth-highest number of confirmed cases, behind Russia, Brazil and the US.

However, with a population of more than 1.3 billion it still has a low rate of infections per capita - fewer than 400 per million people.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53205718
 
Everyone is talking about recovery rate what about testing rate? How many tests per million are they doing? Even in my local area 7 out of 10 tests are coming out to be positive. :inti
 
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Everyone is talking about recovery rate what about testing rate? How many tests per million are they doing? Even in my local area 7 out of 10 tests are coming out to be positive. :inti

India and Pakistan have decided to test less and still huge numbers, imagine if the testing increases, US will be left far behind :(
 
Everyone is talking about recovery rate what about testing rate? How many tests per million are they doing? Even in my local area 7 out of 10 tests are coming out to be positive. :inti
Apparently, we are amongst the countries which has lowest testing rates, 2 tests done per lakh population per day.

Now you may see the actual reason behind our 'low' Covid numbers.
 
Isn't this a little too pre-emptive? A lot of places that were patting themselves in the back for not having a lot of cases are now seeing a surge. India is also seeing a surge that only appears to be accelerating.
 
The Telangana government is planning to reimpose lockdown in Greater Hyderabad municipal corporation limits for at least 15 days in the wake of a sharp spike in the number of Covid-19 positive cases.

A decision to this effect will be taken in a couple of days after discussing the proposal in the state cabinet meeting, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said, after a high-level meeting on Sunday.

According to a statement from the chief minister’s office (CMO), health minister Eatala Rajender pointed out that several medical and health department officials and medical experts were asking for another 15-day lockdown under the GHMC limits.

Already, several shops, commercial establishments and markets had shut down their business operations voluntarily in view of the sharp rise in the Covid-19 cases in the city.

With the highest single-day jump of 1,087 Covid-19 cases on Sunday, Telangana’s tally crossed 13,000, overtaking Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, according to a news agency. Of the fresh cases, 888 were reported in Greater Hyderabad, the biggest hotspot, it added.

“Hyderabad is a metropolitan city with a population of nearly one crore. It is but natural that like other cities in the country, the spread of Corona is also high in the city. People started moving around after the lockdown was lifted. This led to the spread of the virus,” the minister pointed out.

In Tamil Nadu’s Chennai, lock down was re-imposed to contain the spread of the virus. Other cities in the country are also thinking on these lines. The medical and health department have also said that the re-imposition of lock down in Hyderabad will be good, Rajender said.

However, the chief minister said re-imposition of lock down was a very major decision, which had to be discussed in the state cabinet. The government machinery and people should be prepared for this, especially the police department, he added.

“A decision on lock down should be taken by soliciting views from all the concerned. Let us examine the situation keenly for two to three days. If need be, a cabinet meeting will be convened in three to four days to discuss the proposals for the lockdown, alternatives and other related issues and a decision will be taken,” KCR said.

The chief minister, however, said that there was no need to get anxious or entertain fear about the increasing number of positive cases in the city as the government had made all the arrangements for proper treatment of the needy.

The health minister said that compared to the national average, the death rate in Telangana was less and there was no need to fear. “We have kept thousands of beds ready in both government and private hospitals and colleges. Patients who are in critical conditions are treated in the hospitals. Asymptomatic patients are given treatment in their homes,” Rajender explained.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...cases-spike/story-ch34ShtPSM4ljUGq4LnDuO.html
 
‘PMGKAY extended till November, 80 crore people to get free ration for 5 more months’: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced the extension of the key central scheme to help the poor during the coronavirus crisis.

“PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) will be extended till the end of November in which free ration will be provided to the poor. The extension will cost over Rs 90 thousand crore,” PM Modi said in his address to the nation.

The prime minister said that 80 crore people will get free ration for five more months. He also highlighted the work done by the Centre since the lockdown came into force.

“Under the PMGKAY, we announced a package of Rs 1.75 lakh crore. In the last three months, Rs 31,000 crore have been deposited in the bank accounts of 20 crore poor families. Also, Rs 18,000 crore deposited in bank accounts of more than nine crore farmers,” PM Modi said.

His short address, sixth since the pandemic began in March, entirely focussed on India’s coronavirus battle and the steps the government took to minimise the impact of the crisis.

PM Modi also reiterated the fact that India has a low fatality rate as compared to the world, a fact which he attributed to the government’s decision to impose an early lockdown.

He also hailed farmers and honest tax payers for their contribution in making the welfare scheme successful.

PMGKAY is a Rs 1.7-lakh crore financial package announced by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to minimise the impact of lockdown on economy and poor.

The existing National Food Security Act provides 5kg of foodgrain per person monthly at a subsidised rate of Rs 2-3 per kg to the country’s poor. Under the PMGKY, the ration quota was enhanced by another 5 kg for free for the next three months in March.

The lockdown announced on March 24 shuttered shops, factories, and construction sites, rendering millions of migrant workers jobless.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...ths-pm-modi/story-L69DCOiPJ4IJqTWYtux7PJ.html
 
India's Modi warns of coronavirus 'negligence' as some cities extend lockdowns

CHENNAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India’s prime minister on Tuesday warned citizens against flouting rules to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, as he extended a vast social security scheme until November.

Several Indian cities prepared to extend their lockdowns to combat the spread of the infection on Tuesday, with daily new cases in the country remaining close to 20,000.

“Ever since (easing of restrictions) started in the country, negligence in personal and social behaviour has been increasing,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a televised address, adding citizens were ignoring guidelines on social distancing and hand washing.

Under pressure for leaving the poor to fend for themselves early in a stringent lockdown that began in March, Modi also announced the extension of a scheme providing free food grains to 800 million Indians, at a cost of around $12 billion.

The opposition Congress Party, led by Rahul Gandhi, said the measures were inadequate, calling for direct cash transfers to the poorest in the country.

India reported 18,522 new cases over the previous 24 hours, according to federal health data released on Tuesday, down slightly from Sunday’s record of 19,906.

With more than 550,000 total infections, India lags only the United States, Brazil and Russia in total cases.

More than 16,000 people have died in India - a low figure when compared with countries with similar numbers of cases - though experts fear its hospitals will be unable to cope with a steep rise in infections.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...as-some-cities-extend-lockdowns-idUSKBN241135
 
20 lakh crores
90000 crores

Feku at its best. Has anyone in India tried taking a loan from banks in the last couple of weeks? Just give it a try lol. Even government employees are not getting their salaries on time. Reality is lot different than what is being displayed by Modi govt. All this jumlebaazi is good enough to keep bhakhts and NRI's happy but not those who know the harsh reality. :inti
 
A fund set up by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fight Covid-19 is now mired in controversy and concern over an alleged lack of transparency, writes the BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi.

On 27 March, just days after India began a country-wide lockdown to halt the spread of the coronavirus, Narendra Modi set up the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund. The PM Cares Fund, for short.

A day later, Mr Modi appealed to "all Indians" to donate.

"It is my appeal to my fellow Indians, kindly contribute to the PM-Cares Fund," he tweeted, telling the nation that their donations would strengthen India's fight against Covid-19 and "similar distressing situations" in future.

"This will go a long way in creating a healthier India," he wrote.

Donations poured in - from industrialists, celebrities, companies and the common man. Within a week, reports said, donations had reached 65bn rupees ($858m; £689m). The fund is now believed to have exceeded 100bn rupees.

But PM Cares has been controversial from the start. Many questioned the need for a new fund when a similar one - PM National Relief Fund or PMNRF - has existed in the country since 1948.

Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the opposition Congress Party, suggested that the money raised should be transferred to PMNRF. Congress also suggested that the fund be used for the welfare of migrants.

On the day PM Cares was set up, a massive humanitarian crisis began to unfold in India - millions of migrant workers, some of India's poorest people, began fleeing the cities after Mr Modi imposed a sudden country-wide lockdown. For weeks, they walked hundreds of miles, hungry and thirsty, to reach their villages. More than a 100 died.

It was thought that the government would spend at least some of the money helping those forced to travel, but that did not happen, prompting one opposition MP to rebrand the fund the "PM Does Not Really Care".

In the weeks since the fund was set up, questions have also been asked about how it is constituted and managed, how much money has been collected, from whom, and how it is being put to use?

There are no answers to any of these queries on the PM Cares website, and the prime minister's office (PMO), which is managing the fund, has refused to provide any information. Now opposition politicians, independent activists and journalists are asking whether the government has anything to hide?

Petitions have been filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act and in the courts, seeking more transparency. But so far, the fund has avoided any public scrutiny by insisting that PM Cares is not a "public authority", which means it's not controlled or substantially financed by the government and so does not come under the RTI Act. It also means that it cannot be scrutinised by government auditors.

"It's absurd to say the PM Cares is not a public authority," Kandukuri Sri Harsh, a law student, told the BBC. "Millions of people did not donate to the fund thinking it's a private trust. The money has been collected upon the strength of the prime minister's name."

Mr Kandukuri was among the first to seek information with an RTI application, filed on 1 April, requesting documents on how the trust was constituted and how it's operated.

He offered several arguments as to why the fund should be a public authority:

It's controlled by the government - the prime minister is the chairperson, three of his cabinet colleagues are trustees and the remaining three trustees are nominated by the PM
The PM Cares website is hosted by "gov.in" - the official government domain
The fund uses the national emblem of India, which only government entities are allowed to use
It is "substantially financed" by the government - all BJP MPs have been asked to donate 10m rupees from their constituency fund which is a constitutionally established fund; public sector companies controlled by the government have donated hundreds of millions of rupees; and a day's salary of soldiers, civil servants and judges have been compulsorily donated into the fund.
"Why is the government stonewalling?" Mr Kandukuri said. "What can there be to hide in it?"

A lot, said Saket Gokhale, an activist and former journalist, who described the fund as "the Achilles Heel of the government, a blatant scam".

Mr Modi's party colleagues have denied any wrongdoing in relation to the fund. Recently, after weeks of questioning about how the money was being used, the prime minister's office said it was spending 20bn rupees to buy 50,000 ventilators, 10bn rupees for the welfare of migrants, and 1bn rupees for vaccine development.

But the funding allocated for migrants has been criticised for being "too little, too late", and the choice of ventilators has also run into trouble.

"There were no tenders for ventilators, no competitive bidding process, it was all very arbitrary," Mr Gokhale claimed.

And last week, a report said two government-appointed panels had flagged concerns about the reliability and capability of 10,000 ventilators bought under PM Cares.

Mr Gokhale has also questioned the choice of SARC & Associates, the private company that has been chosen to audit the fund. The firm was appointed by Mr Modi to audit the PMNRF in March 2018 without a bidding process.

"The only thing it has going for it is its deep connections with the BJP," Mr Gokhale said. "SK Gupta, who heads it, is a vocal advocate of BJP policies, he's authored a book on Make in India which is Mr Modi's pet project, and he organises quasi-government events abroad. And he's also contributed 20 million rupees to the PM Cares fund. It raises fears of suspect auditing."

Mr Gupta personally announced the 20 million-rupee contribution via his Twitter account. The BBC asked him to respond to allegations that SARC & Associates was chosen to audit the fund because of its ties to the BJP but he declined to comment.

Nalin Kohli, a spokesman for the BJP, defended the fund.

Mr Kohli said the PMNRF was generally used for natural calamities, and the reason for setting up PM Cares was to have a more focused approach to dealing with a pandemic. He pointed out that the PMNRF, set up by India's first PM Jawaharlal Nehru, included the Congress party president among the trustees.

'There are many political parties in the country and why should any one party be included in something that involves public funding for public purposes?" he said.

He said Mr Modi and the other top ministers were involved with PM Cares because of the positions they hold, not as representatives of any political parties.

Mr Kohli also rejected the charge that the fund lacked transparency. He insisted that the SARC & Associates had been "engaged purely on merit" and that the fund would meet all the statutory compliances.

Concerns about the fund were being raised by a select few from the opposition, he added. "It's a new fund, what is this urgent need for public accountability at a time when everyone is busy battling a pandemic?"

But questions about the fund's opacity are not only being raised by the opposition. Supreme Court lawyer Surender Singh Hooda, who had filed a petition in the Delhi high court, described the apparent reluctance of the fund managers to divulge information as "unfathomable".

Mr Hooda had to withdraw his petition because he hadn't first contacted the PMO as required by law. He has now emailed them and is preparing to go back to the court to seek answers.

"I want them to display information on their site - how much money they have received, from where, and where have they spent it," he said.

"It's well known that sunlight is the best disinfectant and all the undesirable activities are done under the cover of darkness. Transparency is the bedrock of rule of law, and opaqueness smells of ulterior motive."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53151308
 
Narendra Modi is selling a failed Covid lockdown as a success

The idea of a complete lockdown was to “flatten the curve” — stop people from interacting with each other, maintain social distancing and the number of Covid-19 cases will start coming down.

There are many places in the world that succeeded in using the lockdown to this effect. These include Denmark, Slovakia, Greece, Austria and Australia. Some countries used their lockdown so well that they managed to completely become Covid-free, such as New Zealand. A few managed to defeat Covid even without a lockdown, such as Iceland.

European countries badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic in March were able to use the lockdown to flatten the curve. These include the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. Even China, the country where Covid-19 originated, flattened the curve through a strict lockdown. It has now imposed another lockdown.

Vishwa Guru no more

This is the point where we will be told that all these countries are rich and have low population density. It’s funny how quickly we go from pretending to be a superpower (or ‘vishwa guru’ as the BJP prefers) to resigning to our fate as a poor, third-world country that has a long way to go before it can catch up with global averages of human development.

All the talk of being the third-largest economy, world’s fastest-growing economy, $5 gazillion-trillion-zillion economy just goes out of the window when it’s pointed out that India has failed to do what countries from South Korea to Iceland succeeded in doing.

However, we suddenly become comparable with rich countries when we are doing better. We cherry-pick the data we like. So Narendra Modi lauds Yogi Adityanath by observing that Uttar Pradesh has only 600 Covid deaths so far whereas four European countries with a comparable population have had 1.3 lakh Covid deaths.

The Prime Minister should try and compare Covid numbers of Vietnam and Uttar Pradesh, or Kerala and his home state Gujarat. No matter which way you slice it, that graph is only going up, up and up.

The truth is that Narendra Modi’s lockdown was a failure even by his own publicly declared goal.

Announcing a nationwide lockdown in March, PM Modi had said India would defeat Covid in 21 days, just three days more than what it took to win the Mahabharata war.

If we had a media with a spine and a conscience, if we had a functioning Parliament or an effective opposition, the Modi government would have been forced to explain why its Covid Mahabharata is a losing battle about a hundred days later.

PM Modi has been claiming that we would have lost a lot more lives without the lockdown. That is true. But it is not good enough. We have lost over 17,000 lives and if we continue at this rate, we could easily lose nearly a lakh lives by the end of this year.

Another justification being touted is that the idea of the lowdown was only to buy time so that our hospitals are not overwhelmed with more patients than beds. With a few exceptions here and there, we failed on that front too. Nevertheless, this is shifting the goalpost as usual. It’s a bit like that eternal mystery of the ‘real purpose’ of demonetisation.

It is important and useful to loopback and ask, why did our lockdown fail to flatten the curve? Even if we know the answers, they bear repetition because the ‘war’ against Covid is far from over. It may well have just begun. And it isn’t about the death rate or the recovery rate alone. Unless we can bring Covid under control, our factories, offices and markets are not going to be able to function normally. And unless they do, economic recovery will remain a chimera.

Why the lockdown failed

If we care about the money in our pockets and the tax revenues needed to buy more fighter planes, we need to ask: why did India’s strict lockdown fail to flatten the curve?

1. We didn’t start early enough. Places that were able to get the better of Covid have one thing in common: they started early. This is as true of Vietnam and Thailand as it is of Bhutan and Kerala.

Kerala health minister K.K. Shailaja started as early as 20 January! The state was ready with the protocol of test, trace, isolate and support before most of Europe. By contrast, Narendra Modi and state governments other than Kerala took Covid seriously only when it heard scary stories about Italy and Spain. Except for thermal screening of visitors from China, we did nothing of consequence in February.

2. We didn’t give people notice. A four-hour notice before the national lockdown didn’t give people time to prepare for it. This meant that the world’s largest lockdown came as a shock to people who didn’t have time to adjust to a new way of life, make arrangements and stock up on essentials. Anxious and uncertain, many people tried to go about their lives normally, disobeying lockdown rules.

Today, we are in an ‘unlock’ situation with a far greater spread of the coronavirus. Perhaps, what a country of our size and diversity needed was a slow, graded, gradual lockdown, to begin with.

3. We used police rather than persuasion. To enforce the lockdown on poor hapless citizens, police coercion was used. This led to many incidents of people hitting back at the police. What we needed instead was a lockdown driven more by persuasion and reasoning. This would have ensured greater, wilful participation in the lockdown.

4. We couldn’t enforce the lockdown on much of the population. People living in crowded crawls and slums, people living in distant villages, people allowed to travel for essential services, people allowed to move around for seasonal harvest — all of this added up to a lot of people not following the lockdown and mingling with each other.

On paper, it was one of the world’s harshest lockdowns, in practice, it was one of the loosest. Just one example: a village in Andhra Pradesh, which had weddings and cricket matches during the lockdown, is now paying a heavy price for it. The kind of strict lockdown that most of the middle classes and the rich experienced, was not experienced by everyone.

The worst example of this was of course migrant labourers, whom we should have allowed to return home in the first place. Trying to prevent them from returning home initially only spread Covid further among them, and now they’re spreading it in their home states.

5. We deliberately under-tested. This was perhaps the greatest mistake we made. From the very first day, India has been under-testing for Covid, perhaps just to keep numbers artificially low. Central and state governments were complicit in this. They feared political backlash — they feared people saying the government has failed to control Covid. Ironically, not testing spreads Covid even more, because you don’t know who to isolate.

State after state has realised the gravity of this mistake. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are still making the same mistake, but they will realise it the hard way, as other states did.

With large-scale testing, we would have been able to isolate more people, whether at home or at quarantine centres. But we were told there was no such thing as testing “enough”. We were told it wasn’t possible to test everyone. With such lack of self-doubt, we defied global scientific wisdom. The way Covid is spreading, we might end up having to test everyone. And the saddest joke is we will still not admit there’s community transmission because political expedience decides what’s true and what’s false in Modi’s India.

6. We just gave up on contact-tracing. Once someone is identified as Covid-positive, you ask them to name all places they’d visited in the last few days and all people they met recently. This is called contact tracing, and widespread testing helps create a detailed map of it. This has to be explained like a new concept because India forgot all about it.

Kerala did such a good job of it that they had ‘Corona detectives’. India’s failure to carry out contact tracing at mass scale was partly a reflection of poor state capacity, and partly a deliberate choice to show low Covid figures. These poor choices only made the problem much worse, like letting a wound fester.

The government’s magic wand for contract tracing is a smartphone app in a country where nearly 75 per cent of the population doesn’t have a smartphone.

The power of propaganda

Even now, India is not being honest itself about its failure to contain Covid. Nobody cares: we are used to the idea that our lives are expendable. As long as we can cherry-pick data to show all is well and Modi can win the next election.

Just as the failure of demonetisation and the pain of GST didn’t hurt the BJP electorally, the failure to contain Covid won’t hurt Modi either. The opposition, especially Rahul Gandhi, has been rather good in raising these points but their voice just won’t reach the people. The opposition neither has party workers, nor millions of WhatsApp groups, nor a media that questions the government.

With such absence of democratic checks and balances, India’s failed lockdown is being sold by Narendra Modi as a success. And by the time Covid ends, many Indians will indeed come to remember a failure as success. Such is the power of propaganda.

https://theprint.in/opinion/narendra-modi-is-selling-a-failed-covid-lockdown-as-a-success/452191/
 
Excellent article. Pity about most of our media being sellout and most of our population being illiterate despite being literate.
 
This PM Cares stuff seems shady as anything
 
This PM Cares stuff seems shady as anything
Like everything else linked to him.

A lot of celebrities donated a lot of money to this bottomless pit initially. But haven't heard of anyone coming forward for quite some time now.
 
More than him dislike his supporters that go out of the way to support anything, worst is hate seeing his memes where he is taking on Xi just by banning apps, just when you think you can't go lower.
 
Bejon Misra responded quickly to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal in March for donations to a new fund to strengthen the country's fight against the coronavirus.

The next day, the 69-year-old retired management professor made a donation. "It was a generous contribution because Modi is the face of it," Misra said.

Such trust in Modi is common in India, the prime minister enjoying a very high approval rating, despite coronavirus infections spiking in recent weeks.

India on Tuesday recorded more than 28,000 cases for the second consecutive day, taking the tally to 906,752, according to the country's health ministry. More than 23,000 people have died from COVID-19.

So when the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund, or PM CARES, was launched days after India started a countrywide virus lockdown in March, donations began pouring in and have not stopped.

Retirees like Misra, industrialists, Bollywood stars and foreign companies have all pitched in. But the fund, now valued at more than $1bn, has run into controversy over issues of transparency and accountability.

PM office denies fund information

The Associated Press requested a list of donors and payments from Modi's office under the Right to Information Law, which entitles citizens to access information from India's often opaque bureaucracy. The request was denied.

Modi's office, which manages PM CARES, has refused to disclose the information, arguing that even though it is administered by the Indian government, the fund is not a public authority and therefore is not subject to right-to-information laws.

As a result, there is little transparency about the money the fund is receiving and spending in the middle of India's still-raging virus outbreak.

"It's not a state secret, and the government must answer the questions that are being raised," said Saket Gokhale, an independent activist who was one of the first to question the fund. "They are stonewalling."

Legal experts are challenging the response by Modi's office.

Surender Singh Hooda, a lawyer at India's top court, filed a petition on June 5, arguing that the fund's website must display details of the money received and how it is used.

The Delhi high court told Hooda to withdraw his petition and contact Modi's office first, as required by law.

Modi's office denied Hooda's request for information.

"The money has been collected under the name of the prime minister, and millions of ordinary citizens have donated to it. The least we expect is some transparency," Hooda said.

Modi is the fund's chairman, while the powerful Home Minister Amit Shah, as well as the ministers of defence and finance sit on its board.

The ventilators 'scam'
But unlike other government-administered funds, this is not audited by India's Comptroller and Auditor General.

Instead, Modi appointed a private business consulting firm, SARC & Associates, to audit the fund 12 days after it donated $212,665 to it.

Sunil Kumar Gupta, head of SARC & Associates, has been a vocal supporter of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, appearing in photographs with Modi and top party leaders at various events.

Gupta also wrote a book in 2018 about "Make in India", Modi's project to increase manufacturing and domestic consumption of Indian-made products.

"On what merit was this private company, which is so close to Modi's party, given the job to audit the fund?" asked Gokhale. "It's shady, and the activities are very suspect."

Gupta declined requests for comment.

Modi's party colleagues have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing by the fund. Party spokesperson Nalin Kohli said it was "transparent" and was helping India fight the virus.

PM CARES has also run into other controversies.

After Modi's office said it had spent $26m from the fund to buy 50,000 ventilators, two top hospitals in Mumbai and New Delhi described shortcomings in the products and concluded they were prone to failure.

The company that made the ventilators rejected the findings.

The main opposition Congress party called the ventilator purchase a scam.

About $13m from the fund was allocated for impoverished migrant workers, millions of whom were stranded without work or transportation home during the two-month countrywide lockdown. Many say the allocation came too late.

Modi's party said the $13m was given to state governments to provide food, shelter, medical treatment and transportation for the migrants.

Former Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, a Congress party member, was critical that the money did not directly "go to the hands of the migrant workers".

Others see the fund as a thinly veiled marketing device for the prime minister.

"It looks like Modi wants to put a stamp of his own on everything," said Aseem Katyal, an independent activist who has been demanding transparency from Modi's office.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...ised-india-covid-19-fund-200714064351908.html
 
Coronavirus: Why won't India admit how Covid-19 is spreading?

Rajesh Kumar, 45, started coughing in early June. Within days, he was running a high fever.

He didn't get tested for coronavirus. Instead he took anti-fever medication for five days. But the fever persisted, and soon he had difficulty breathing.

His family asked him to get tested, but he refused. His rationale was that there was no way he could have contracted Covid-19 because he had hardly stepped out of his house in Delhi, and he had not met anybody who had the virus or was even suspected of having it.

Eight days after the symptoms first appeared, his condition deteriorated. He was rushed to hospital, where he tested positive.

"I survived, but doctors told me that any more delay in hospitalisation could have cost me my life," he says.

Mr Kumar hasn't been able to track the source of his infection and is still unsure how he caught it.

Experts say there are many such cases - proof that "full-blown" community transmission is happening in India.

But the government refuses to accept that community transmission has begun, saying there is no clear definition of the term, and each country can define it based on local conditions.

So far, Kerala and West Bengal are the only two states to accept that they have entered this stage.

But global understanding on the subject is simple: when the source of infection can't be traced in a large number of cases, it's safe to define it as community transmission.

The WHO's guidelines say the same: "community transmission is evidenced by the inability to relate confirmed cases through chains of transmission for a large number of cases".

This is certainly happening in India, according to Dr Arvind Kumar, chairman of the Centre for Chest Surgery at Delhi's Sir Gangaram Hospital.

He says that more and more patients are turning up at hospitals whose source of infection cannot be traced. And, he adds, the rising case numbers support this.

India has recorded more than 1.2 million cases and nearly 29,000 deaths.

"These stats don't lie," Dr Kumar says. "You have state after state where infection rates are going up rapidly. There is no point in denying what is right in front of you."

acknowledged that India was in the community transmission phase, but the IMA retracted the statement two days later, saying it was the doctor's "personal opinion".

The turnaround baffled many.

Virologist Dr Shahid Jameel says the government needs to listen to doctors and experts, and acknowledge the evidence.

There is no denying that the virus is more widespread now than a month ago. More states - such as Andhra Pradesh and Bihar - and more districts beyond dense urban areas are now reporting a surge in cases.

Many of them were not prepared because they largely relied on quarantining and testing people coming from other states to halt the spread. But they did not take enough steps to curb the spread locally.

Even the former strategy had gaps, because it's not possible to completely man porous borders between states. And many states also lack the means to track and test each person entering their territory.

Dr Jameel adds that there was a sense that the virus could be contained within big cities and certain hotspot states, preventing it from reaching other parts of the country.

"That hasn't happened and now Covid-19 is spreading unchecked," he says.

The virus is travelling fast, often leaving no trace to establish the chain of transmission.

Dr Jameel points out that the government's own survey showed that 40% of the respondents who had respiratory illnesses did not know how they got sick.

"We have enough evidence to accept there is community transmission," he says.

But experts say this didn't happen overnight. Rather, it happened over several weeks as the government continued to deny it.

"We had localised community transmission in early stages of the pandemic. But now it's spread across the country, it's there for everybody to see," Dr Kumar says.

So why is the government so reluctant to accept the obvious?

Experts say they "can only guess" since the government hasn't said much on the matter, and has not released an official definition of the term to support its stance.

One reason could be that the government sees accepting the existence of community transmission as a failure of its policies.

The government can't be blamed for community transmission, argues Dr Jameel, adding that it needs to be more forthright with data and accept what science proves.

He adds that community transmission is often a possibility with such a highly infectious virus in densely populated countries like India.

Denials only add more pressure, say experts, and spark an unnecessary debate around the topic.

And the argument is pointless now, according to leading epidemiologist Dr Lalit Kant, who has worked with the government.

He says "we have to keep improving our strategy", whether we call it community transmission or not.

"India is a large country - you may control the virus in one state and then another state will flare up. So, we really don't need a definition to understand the ground reality," he says.

"It's getting worse, and that is the harsh truth."

But accepting community transmission may require significant policy changes.

The WHO says " individual case identification, contact tracing, and quarantining are no longer necessary " in a "large-scale community transmission scenario".

Instead it advises countries to focus on tracking the geographical spread of the virus through data and deploy healthcare facilities accordingly.

Dr Kant says it's possible that the government may not want to announce a shift in policy at the moment.

Possibly because it's taken months for governments - both federal and state - to ramp up testing, and to implement test and trace protocols. The other challenge is that the pandemic is in different stages in different parts of India, which makes it difficult to overhaul the policy altogether.

"But it still doesn't justify their constant denials. They need to say what their long-term approach is or what their definitions are about community transmission," he adds.

The public has a right to know, Dr Kant says, and the government should be transparent.

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-india-53510307?__twitter_impression=true
 
https://m.rediff.com/news/report/recite-hanuman-chalisa-to-eradicate-covid-bjp-mp/20200726.htm

Bharatiya Janata Party MP Pragya Singh Thakur on Saturday appealed people to recite the Hanuman Chalisa five times a day till August 5, which she believes will rid the world of the coronavirus pandemic.

"When people... Hindus from across the country recite the 'Hanuman Chalisa' in one voice, it will definitely work and we will be free from coronavirus...This is your prayer to Lord Ram," said Thakur.
 
So the vaccine for Covid has been found.... By the terrorist.....
 
When you elect an illiterate to lead you, this is what you get as your representative.
 
My colleagues and I have been working with GOP and doctors in Pakistan to control and treat the covid 19 infection. I think with limited resources and with less then cooperative public and particularly religious groups , doctors, nurses , all healthcare providers and government have done a great job to control covid 19 infection in Pakistan .

The fact that both in Punjab and at fed, we have doctors ( not surprisingly ) heading the health ministry , it has been easy to work with them.

Now everyone is worried about a post Eid and post Muharram surge.
 
Modi warns of rapid coronavirus spread as caseload nears 1,400,000

The novel coronavirus is spreading rapidly in several parts of India and the public should remain extremely vigilant, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

"We must understand that the virus is as deadly today as it was at the beginning and we need to be even more careful," Modi said during his monthly radio address.

He advised people to continue wearing masks, washing their hands and upholding social distancing and hygiene rules, referring to the measures as "our weapons to fight the virus". India's Health Ministry reported 48,661 new infections and 705 deaths on Saturday.
 
When you elect idiots like Modi and folks within his party that are even worse then this is what you get. You reap what you sow..All the blind Modi Bhakts will still think that they are doing wonders.
 
Modi warns of rapid coronavirus spread as caseload nears 1,400,000

The novel coronavirus is spreading rapidly in several parts of India and the public should remain extremely
vigilant, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

"We must understand that the virus is as deadly today as it was at the beginning and we need to be even more careful," Modi said during his monthly radio address.

He advised people to continue wearing masks, washing their hands and upholding social distancing and hygiene rules, referring to the measures as "our weapons to fight the virus". India's Health Ministry reported 48,661 new infections and 705 deaths on Saturday.
 
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/as-...ndra-modi-says-we-dont-lack-awareness-2269635

India "Better Off Because Of Right Decisions At Right Time": PM On Covid

New Delhi: India is in a "better position than other countries" regarding the coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday as the country recorded close to 50,000 new cases for the second straight day. Speaking at a virtual programme to mark the opening of the "high throughput" COVID-19 testing facilities in Noida, Mumbai and Kolkata, PM Modi said the death rate in India from coronavirus is far lower than that of the other large nations. "The recovery rate is better than most countries and already getting better," he added.
"The world is praising us because of the efforts of the foot soldiers. We don't lack awareness," the Prime Minister said.

The country, he said, has taken big strides to set up infrastructure and now needs to "strengthen demand-supply chains in the block, village and zilla levels".

"We want to save each and every Indian," the Prime Minister said, adding that the country now has more than 11,000 COVID facilities and more than 11 lakh isolation beds.
 
So many right decisions, like asking hapless migrant labours to stay put at the time of such an ill-thought out lockdown, and then asking them to go when the cases started rising, opening up everything despite having 50K cases on daily basis, keep on exporting PPE kits till late March, leaving everything on the states after taking all the decisions on their behalf when going went really tough? Did I mention his decision to bang thalis? That surely helped, didn't it?

Another right decision is to physically go for bhoomi poojan of Ram temple, along with his cronies. Because that is what we require most at the moment.

Really? The bigot surely lives in a cocoon, surrounded by his blind Bhakts.
 
Mamata Banerjee Thanks PM Modi For Cooperation In Tackling Covid Crisis

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his cooperation in tackling the COVID-19 crisis in West Bengal but alleged that "a few people holding constitutional posts' are disturbing the state government regularly.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/cor...-cooperation-in-tackling-covid-crisis-2269798

Looks like Modi's approval rating is not only high among masses. Even opposition leaders are thanking him on the brilliant job. Kejriwal, Jaganmohan and now Mamata. Good going....sab changa si.
 
Mamata Banerjee Thanks PM Modi For Cooperation In Tackling Covid Crisis

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his cooperation in tackling the COVID-19 crisis in West Bengal but alleged that "a few people holding constitutional posts' are disturbing the state government regularly.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/cor...-cooperation-in-tackling-covid-crisis-2269798

Looks like Modi's approval rating is not only high among masses. Even opposition leaders are thanking him on the brilliant job. Kejriwal, Jaganmohan and now Mamata. Good going....sab changa si.

Himmler used to thank Hitler all the time too.
 
US survey shows 87% Indians trust Modi government

2020 Edelman Trust Barometer, in a survey conducted by a global communications and PR firm headquartered in the US, revealed that 87% in India trusted the current government.

The Edelman Barometer trust and credibility survey, trust level on the government of India has shot up by 7% since January 2020. According to the report, China has 90% approval ratings.

Countries such as Japan and the US ranked at the bottom of the top 10 list with trust ratings of 48% or lower. The survey was conducted between April 15-April 23 and is carried out biannually.

https://indusscrolls.com/us-survey-shows-87-indians-trust-modi-government/
 
US survey shows 87% Indians trust Modi government

2020 Edelman Trust Barometer, in a survey conducted by a global communications and PR firm headquartered in the US, revealed that 87% in India trusted the current government.

The Edelman Barometer trust and credibility survey, trust level on the government of India has shot up by 7% since January 2020. According to the report, China has 90% approval ratings.

Countries such as Japan and the US ranked at the bottom of the top 10 list with trust ratings of 48% or lower. The survey was conducted between April 15-April 23 and is carried out biannually.

https://indusscrolls.com/us-survey-shows-87-indians-trust-modi-government/

This is hardy proof of modi doing a good job (he may be doing but that is independent of this)

What this probably shows is power of the modi cult
 
US survey shows 87% Indians trust Modi government

2020 Edelman Trust Barometer, in a survey conducted by a global communications and PR firm headquartered in the US, revealed that 87% in India trusted the current government.

The Edelman Barometer trust and credibility survey, trust level on the government of India has shot up by 7% since January 2020. According to the report, China has 90% approval ratings.

Countries such as Japan and the US ranked at the bottom of the top 10 list with trust ratings of 48% or lower. The survey was conducted between April 15-April 23 and is carried out biannually.

https://indusscrolls.com/us-survey-shows-87-indians-trust-modi-government/

Lol, top ones

82 China
79 India
73 Indonesia
65 UAE

https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/440941/Trust%20Barometer%202020/2020%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Global%20Report.pdf?utm_campaign=Global:%20Trust%20Barometer%202020&utm_source=Website
 
More than half the residents of slums in three areas in India's commercial capital, Mumbai, tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus, a new survey has found.

Only 16% of people living outside slums in the same areas were found to be exposed to the infection.

The results are from random testing of some 7,000 people in three densely-packed areas in early July.

Mumbai has reported more than 110,000 cases and 6,187 deaths as of 28 July.

The survey was carried out by the city's municipality, the government think-tank Niti Aayog and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

It found that 57% of the people tested in slum areas of Chembur, Matunga and Dahisar had been exposed to the novel coronavirus.

Some 1.5 million people live in these three areas located in the western, eastern and central parts of the city.

Scientists involved with the study told the BBC that the results pointed to a number of things about the prevalence of the infection in one of India's worst-hit cities.

For one, the virus has spread more widely than was earlier believed in the city's slums, where more than half of Mumbai's 12.5 million people live.

Scientists believe the sample tested was "statistically robust" and representative.

"The three areas we chose for the tests had a varying number of reported coronavirus infections, and they were a mix of slums and stand-alone houses and housing complexes. The idea was to see whether population density was driving changes in the prevalence of infection," Dr Ullas S Kolthur of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) told the BBC.

Scientists say the survey does not claim to be representative of the prevalence of the coronavirus infection in the entire city - it was carried out in three of the 24 "wards" or administrative unit areas.

"But we believe the prevalence rate in other areas should not be terribly far away from the numbers in the survey," Dr Sandeep Juneja, who is also at the TIFR, said.

City-wide surveys in other big cites have found a lower prevalence rate among the population.

One of every six London residents, and one in five in New York City, tested positive for antibodies, according to surveys in May and July respectively. A government survey in Delhi in July found that nearly one in four residents in India's capital had been exposed to Covid-19.

The high prevalence rate in the Mumbai slums could partly be explained by the fact that residents share common facilities such as toilets.

"The results showed how crowding plays a key role in the spread of the infection," Dr Juneja said.

The study also found that a large section of people had been infected and survived with no or little symptoms, leading to a low fatality rate in these areas - one in 1,000 to one in 2,000. This also lowers the city-wide death rate from Covid-19.

And more women were found to have been exposed to infection by the virus in both slum and non-slum areas.

"This is very interesting. We do not know the reason. It could be anything from social behaviour to underlying physiological differences," Dr Kolthur said.

With the cases slowing down in Mumbai, the survey also raises the question whether the city is approaching herd immunity to the infection. Mumbai reported 717 new infections on Tuesday, the lowest in three months. Herd immunity is achieved when enough people become immune to a virus to stop its spread.

"The jury is still out on that. For one, we still don't know how long the immunity to the infection lasts. We will only know the answer after repeat surveys," says Dr Kolthur.

The survey is to be repeated in the three areas in August to find out whether the prevalence of the infection had increased or waned, which would offer clues to the trajectory of Covid-19 in the city.

Scientists say the presence of antibodies does not necessarily guarantee protection against the disease, and that the amount of the all powerful neutralising antibodies decides the level of immunity to the infection.

The other problem with Covid-19 antibodies, say scientists, is that their levels have been reported to decline in 90 days. "What will that do to herd immunity or vaccines?" wrote K Srinath Reddy, president of the think tank Public Health Foundation of India, recently.

He says we simply don't know enough yet on how the ongoing encounter between us and the virus is shaping our immune response. All we can do, Dr Reddy writes, is "wait in hope".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-53576653
 
This is hardy proof of modi doing a good job (he may be doing but that is independent of this)

What this probably shows is power of the modi cult

What it actually shows is how worthless the Indian opposition parties are at the present moment. The Congress, TNC, SP, BSP, NCP, AAP, the Communists and the other assorted 'secular' clowns have all failed miserably and have no clue how to counter Modi.

If nothing else, Modi has shown himself to be a strong leader with a huge party apparatus rallying around him. It is only such people who can get something done in India. The people of India can either choose a strong leader like Modi, flaws and all, or go for a bunch of incompetent opportunists with no ability to lead, govern or do any useful work. The choice is a no-brainer.

The only hope is that the Congress, the only other party with a pan-India appeal, will get rid of its Gandhi family fixation and allow other capable leaders in its ranks to come to to the forefront. As long as Rahul Gandhi and mamma mia keep clutching the party to their bosoms, a third term for BJP with Modi at the helm is a near certainty.
 
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