Coronavirus in India

[King-Misbah]

Pakistans testing rate was dangerously low. just my state was testing twice the number that of Pakistan.

You can not hide dead bodies like India is experiencing now. Corona was controlled last summer in Pakistan.

 

[the Great Khan]

You can not hide dead bodies like India is experiencing now. Corona was controlled last summer in Pakistan.

yup..you can fudge the numbers when it comes to testing but when people start dying you cant hide things as India is now finding out. Pakistan had alot of recoveries and continues to have a large amount of recoveries.

 

[Itachi]

You can not hide dead bodies like India is experiencing now. Corona was controlled last summer in Pakistan.

You don't need to hide dead bodies. you just need to change the cause of death and it won't come up in statistics.

 

[OMB]

Fewer SOS calls from hospitals, but new Covid patients facing oxygen crisis

Dozens of new oxygen generators are expected to start functioning the Capital, and more tankers are expected to be pressed into service to bring in stocks from large plants in neighbouring states.

SOS calls for medical oxygen have reduced from Delhi’s hospitals over the past two days, with most of them now able to maintain stocks till replenishments arrive, but this has also come at the cost of not being able to offer critical emergency support even if they have beds available for fear of not being able to get the oxygen required to care to a larger pool of patients.

With the procurement of more cryogenic tankers to transport liquid oxygen from the central pool, and the creation of more plants in the city to create medical oxygen from ambient air, the situation is likely to stabilise slightly over the week, according to government officials and calculations by HT. Dozens of new oxygen generators are expected to start functioning the Capital, and more tankers are expected to be pressed into service to bring in stocks from large plants in neighbouring states.

“The oxygen supplies are still reaching hospitals just a couple of hours before they run out of their stock. However, the coordination has improved. Still, some smaller hospitals in need of filling cylinders are facing challenges,” said a government official who asked not to be named.

The situation is an improvement from last week, when hospitals – crushed by an unprecedented surge in Covid-19 cases – began running out of their medical oxygen supply. The crisis came to light when GTB Hospital, with 500 Covid-19 patients, received its replenishments with minutes to spare in the early hours of April 21.

The crisis deepened over the next few days, with the worst of it hitting the Jaipur Golden hospital, where 20 Covid-19 patients died after their oxygen support stopped.

The matter reached the courts on multiple occasions, after hospitals exercised all options they had, including by raising alarm on social media. The Union as well as Delhi government were pulled up on several occasions, and have since announced several steps to ease the crisis.

“We are working extensively on procuring cylinders, which a lot of the smaller hospitals are facing a shortage of. We are also now working on regulating a lot of the refilling stations. Just like we managed to stabilise the oxygen flow in the main hospitals, we will be able to stabilise them as well in the next few days itself. We are working on fixing this to help smaller hospitals resume oxygen supply as well,” said a Delhi government spokesperson.

But while patients already admitted to hospitals may be getting oxygen now, a major problem still persists for new patients who are in need of urgent care.

Officials in several hospitals said that new admissions have been halted for now. “The situation is still the same; hospitals are anxious about their oxygen supply. We have had to stop new admissions now because we are not sure when and how much oxygen we will receive,” said an official at one of the biggest private hospitals in Delhi.

“The situation is much the same even though a lot has happened on paper. The problem is that the government has directed the oxygen companies to fulfil the quota of oxygen, but the companies refuse to comply. I had received a refill day before and then again today, which was half the promised supply. We have been told that we will get another supply by tonight, but I do not know,” said Dr SCL Gupta, medical director of Batra hospital, while adding: ”Of course hospitals will have to restrict admissions if there is no surety of oxygen supply.”

An official at another hospital said there was some improvement. “I think the situation is improving slowly, quotas have been fixed and suppliers have been fixed for each hospital by the government. There is still some anxiety and uncertainty; we have experienced this for a week, it will take time for the nerves to settle down. Earlier the distribution was completely haphazard,” said Dr PK Bharadwaj, chief executive director, Saroj hospital and secretary of Delhi Voluntary Hospital’s Forum.

Officials and Delhi Police personnel have also launched crackdowns after receiving reports of black marketing and pilfering of oxygen supplies.

The Delhi government on Tuesday received five cryogenic tankers from the Centre, which were being fitted on to trucks and pressed into service.

The state expects to receive 18 more such tankers from Bangkok, which were scheduled to arrive on Wednesday but got held up due to formalities, according to another government official.

A second significant difference is likely to be when 48 pressure swing adsorption (PSA) medical oxygen generation plants begin functioning in tranches over the next month. These devices work by drawing oxygen from ambient air and concentrating them to medical grade.

According to an official, the generators being installed by the Union government at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (main), Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, Lady Hardinge medical college hospital, AIIMS Jhajjar, Safdarjung Hospital, GTB Hospital and Lok Nayak Hospital are expected to be in place between April 30 and May 10.

According to official documents, the eight plants being set up by the Union government have a cumulative capacity of 4,700 litre per minute day, which translates roughly to 10MT of liquid oxygen per day.

Among the generators being installed by the Delhi government, two are set to be in place by the first week of May and roughly 19 others by the middle of the month. By the end of April, officials may be better poised to increase critical care capacity, although this will depend on the evolution of the outbreak and if more turn critical.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/fewer-sos-calls-from-hospitals-but-new-covid-patients-facing-oxygen-crisis-101619651640592.html

 

[the Great Khan]

Firstly yes it is a national emergency and the central government/ Modi are equally accountable.
No 2 ways about it.

However you seem to draw equivalence between govt structure in Pak and India. In Pak obviously everyone knows army runs the show and decides who should do what. India doesn’t work that way.

If Modi goes to Bengal, it becomes Modi vs Mamta, in TN it is Modi vs DMK etc, Modi vs Kejriwal in Delhi . there are strong regional leaders who are as powerful or influential as Modi on their turf.

They have defied Modi’s decisions before too.

So these guys are no dummies and they are equally if not more accountable as much as the central government.

In fact can’t even blame politicians entirely because this is mostly and unfortunately the public’s fault for violating SOP’s. I am not saying this to defend Modi but that’s pretty much the biggest reason for this pandemic any where in the world . People being idiots.

just a correction with regards to your unashamed dig at the pakistan army, if they were truly running things the way you Indian conspiracy nuts think, Bilawal zardari and o would be all six feet under and a Sindh would not be the mess it is now. Also your friend pashteen and the rest would all be swimming with the fishes. But I dont want to derail the thread.

 

[King-Misbah]

You don't need to hide dead bodies. you just need to change the cause of death and it won't come up in statistics.

More deaths will flag up sooner then later. What will you gain by equating Pakistan with India? Pakistan may get worse but doing okay at the moment. Need to focus on vaccine drive though.

 

[OMB]

India reports 3.79 lakh Covid-19 cases, more than 3,600 deaths in last 24 hours
India on Thursday recorded more than 3.79 lakh new cases of Covid-19 and over 3,600 daily deaths in the last 24 hours. As per Union health ministry data, more than 1.8 crore people have fallen ill due to the coronavirus with over 2 lakh succumbing to the pandemic.

India saw a record single-day rise of 3,79,257 new coronavirus infections pushing the total tally of Covid-19 cases to 1,83,76,524, while active cases crossed the 30-lakh mark.

Registering a steady increase, the active cases have increased to 30,84,814 comprising 16.79 per cent of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate has further dropped to 82.10 per cent.

Covid: Russian flights with emergency humanitarian aid land in India
Two Russian flights with oxygen concentrators, lung ventilation equipment, bedside monitors, medicines, including Coronavir and other essential pharmaceutical items landed in India to help the country in its fight against the Covid-19 surge.
The information was shared by the ambassador of Russia to India, Nikolay Kudashev.

US delivering supplies worth over $100 million to India; first flight to land on Thursday: White House

The United States will be delivering Covid-19 relief materials worth over $100 million to India in the coming days, the said as the first flight carrying urgent health supplies left for the country.
The flight took off from the Travis Air Force Base on the world's largest military aircraft on Wednesday night, the US Agency for International Development said.
The shipment includes 440 oxygen cylinders and regulators, generously donated by the state of California, USAID said.
In addition, on this first flight, USAID is sending 960,000 Rapid Diagnostic Tests to identify infections early to help prevent the community spread of Covid-19, and 100,000 N95 masks to protect India's frontline healthcare heroes, it added.

India approaches Egypt, UAE, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh for Remdesivir
While US pharma giant has agreed to provide 450,000 vials of Remdesivir, the government is also looking to procure it from countries like Egypt, Uzbekistan, UAE and . Official sources said Indian missions in these countries are working to facilitate purchase of the Covid-19 drug which
remains in high demand in India as the pandemic runs riot.
Faced with an acute shortage of the antiviral drug, India had earlier this month waived import duty on import of Remdesivir and the raw materials used to manufacture it. Official sources here described as a diplomatic victory Remdesivir owner Gilead's decision to donate 450 vials of the drug and also provide raw materials for ramping up local production.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india

 

[Bigboii]

Pakistans testing rate was dangerously low. just my state was testing twice the number that of Pakistan.

Nah stabilized the situation with smart lockdowns
The death rate was bad at first but cause of smart lockdowns things stabilized and it didn't become a catastrophe (In covid times you can't hide deaths, hospitals fill up when deaths are happening-and it did happen but there was potential for more damage but smart lockdowns controlled it)

 

[Ahmad-GERMANFC]

You don't need to hide dead bodies. you just need to change the cause of death and it won't come up in statistics.

No this doesn’t work.

India is under reporting numbers right now but everyone knows that several thousand people are dying everyday

Right now Pakistan’s testing is still low but deaths are highest ever so if Pakistan was really ‘managing’ then this wouldn’t have happened

 

[MenInG]

India's total COVID-19 cases passed 18 million on Thursday after another world record number of daily infections, as gravediggers worked around the clock to bury victims and hundreds more were cremated in makeshift pyres in parks and parking lots.

India reported 379,257 new infections and 3,645 new deaths on Thursday, health ministry data showed,the highest number of fatalities in a single day since the start of the pandemic.

The world's second most populous nation is in deep crisis, with hospitals and morgues overwhelmed.

Mumbai gravedigger Sayyed Munir Kamruddin, 52, said he and his colleagues were working non-stop to bury victims.

"I'm not scared of COVID, I've worked with courage. It's all about courage, not about fear," he said. "This is our only job. Getting the body, removing it from the ambulance, and then burying it." read more

Each day, thousands of Indians search frantically for hospital beds and life-saving oxygen for sick relatives, using social media apps and personal contacts. Hospital beds that become available, especially in intensive care units (ICUs), are snapped up in minutes.

"The ferocity of the second wave took everyone by surprise," K. VijayRaghavan, principal scientific adviser to the government, was quoted as saying in the Indian Express newspaper.

"While we were all aware of second waves in other countries, we had vaccines at hand, and no indications from modelling exercises suggested the scale of the surge."

India's military has begun moving key supplies, such as oxygen, across the nation and will open its healthcare facilities to civilians.

Hotels and railway coaches have been converted into critical care facilities to make up for the shortage of hospital beds.

India's best hope is to vaccinate its vast population, experts say, and on Wednesday it opened registration for all above the age of 18 to receive shots from Saturday.

But although it is the world's biggest producer of vaccines, India does not have the stocks for the estimated 800 million now eligible.

Many who tried to sign up for vaccination said they failed, complaining on social media of being unable to get a slot or even to simply get on the website, as it repeatedly crashed.

"Statistics indicate that far from crashing or performing slowly, the system is performing without any glitches," the government said on Wednesday.

More than 8 million people had registered, it said, but it was not immediately clear how many had got slots.

A local official in Mumbai said the city had paused its vaccination drive for three days as supplies were running short, while officials said the worst-hit state of Maharashtra was likely to extend strict coronavirus curbs by another two weeks.

DEATHS LIKELY UNDER-REPORTED

Only about 9% of India's population of about 1.4 billion has received a dose since the vaccination campaign began in January

However, while the second wave overwhelms the health system, the official death rate is below that of Brazil and the United States.

India has reported 147.2 deaths per million, the Reuters global COVID-19 tracker shows, while Brazil and the United States reported figures of 1,800 and 1,700 respectively.

However, medical experts believe India's true COVID-19 numbers may be five to 10 times greater than the official tally.

At Delhi's Holy Family Hospital, patients arrived in ambulances and private vehicles, some gasping for air as their oxygen cylinders ran out. In the ICU, patients lay on trolleys between beds.

"Someone that should be in the ICU is being treated in the wards," Dr Sumit Ray, head of the unit, told Reuters.

"We are completely full. The doctors and nurses are demoralised, they know they can do better, but they just don't have the time. No one takes a break."

The U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory on Wednesday against travel to India because of the pandemic and advised its citizens to leave the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been criticised for allowing massive political rallies and religious festivals which have been super-spreader events in recent weeks.

"The people of this country are entitled to a full and honest account of what led more than a billion people into a catastrophe," Vikram Patel, a global health expert at Harvard Medical School, said in the Hindu newspaper.

AID STARTS ARRIVING

India expects close to 550 oxygen generating facilities from around the world as medical aid starts pouring in, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Thursday. read more

Two planes from Russia, carrying 20 oxygen concentrators, 75 ventilators, 150 bedside monitors, and 22 tonnes of medicine, have arrived in Delhi.

The United States is sending supplies worth more than $100 million, including 1,000 oxygen cylinders, 15 million N95 masks and 1 million rapid diagnostic tests, the White House said on Wednesday. read more

The supplies will begin arriving on Thursday, it added.

The United States also has redirected its own order of AstraZeneca (AZN.L) manufacturing supplies to India, to allow it to make more than 20 million doses, the White House said.

India will receive a first batch of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine on May 1. Russia's RDIF sovereign wealth fund, which markets Sputnik V globally, has signed deals with five Indian manufacturers for more than 850 million vaccine doses a year. read more

Bangladesh said it would send about 10,000 vials of anti-viral medicines, 30,000 PPE kits, and several thousand mineral and vitamin tablets.

Germany will send 120 ventilators on Saturday, and a mobile oxygen production facility next week, its defence ministry said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-coronavirus-infections-cross-18-million-2021-04-29/

 

[Colorblind Genius]

Pakistans testing rate was dangerously low. just my state was testing twice the number that of Pakistan.

Perhaps yes but another indication, and perhaps a more factual one is, people are not flocking to the hospitals, folks are not dropping dead on the side walk, there is no shortage of medical supplies and hospitals and shortage of oxygen and pp, there is not as big of a chaos as it is in India.

 

[Colorblind Genius]

"A man cried and begged policemen not to take away the oxygen cylinder he arranged for his mother in critical condition. The cylinder was reportedly confiscated from private hospital in Agra to supply it for a VIP"


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">भईया मेरी मां चली जाएगी... A man cried and begged policemen not to take away the oxygen cylinder he arranged for his mother in critical condition. <br><br>The cylinder was reportedly confiscated from private hospital in Agra to supply it for a VIP. (1/2) <a href="https://t.co/OHjR5Xvhcj">pic.twitter.com/OHjR5Xvhcj</a></p>— Deepak-Lavania (@dklavaniaTOI) <a href="https://twitter.com/dklavaniaTOI/status/1387385303866888197?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 28, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Itachi]

Perhaps yes but another indication, and perhaps a more factual one is, people are not flocking to the hospitals, folks are not dropping dead on the side walk, there is no shortage of medical supplies and hospitals and shortage of oxygen and pp, there is not as big of a chaos as it is in India.

Pakistan has small population. the extend will also be minimal if compared to india.

 

[finalfantasy7]

Pakistan has small population. the extend will also be minimal if compared to india.

itachi - you keep coming up with pathetic excuses - smart lockdown do work - simple they will help reduce cases and deaths - far better than your current situation.

Roll the army out for food disposals

 

[Itachi]

itachi - you keep coming up with pathetic excuses - smart lockdown do work - simple they will help reduce cases and deaths - far better than your current situation.

Roll the army out for food disposals

What excuse?

In a gemotrical progression, the minimal the sample size, the minimal affected people will be. it's simple mathematics that we learn in schools.

 

[finalfantasy7]

What excuse?

In a gemotrical progression, the minimal the sample size, the minimal affected people will be. it's simple mathematics that we learn in schools.

itachi - u really need a better schooling system then, ur cases r through the roof and yet people are still hanging in large crowds in public - if its work or government elections / hindu religious events .

use ur brain - u have to implement something - the only thing u can impleent is smart lockdowns due to how large and poor the population is

 

[Itachi]

itachi - u really need a better schooling system then, ur cases r through the roof and yet people are still hanging in large crowds in public - if its work or government elections / hindu religious events .

use ur brain - u have to implement something - the only thing u can impleent is smart lockdowns due to how large and poor the population is

case to case basis. do you believe if it works for US or Europe, it will work on India too?

smart lockdown isn't an isolated entity and it depends on various external factors which are variables from country to country. it'll be really naive to think what works in one system is destined to work the same in another.

 

[Ahmad-GERMANFC]

The sad thing is that a lot of the people dying (in mostly the unofficial category) are as much victims of bad infrastructure and pooor Governance as they are victims of covid. It didn’t have to be like this

 

[finalfantasy7]

case to case basis. do you believe if it works for US or Europe, it will work on India too?

smart lockdown isn't an isolated entity and it depends on various external factors which are variables from country to country. it'll be really naive to think what works in one system is destined to work the same in another.

why are you using usa / uk - why aint you using pakistan as the example as were deemed as identical - regarding density / poverty/ attitude / culture

 

[Technics 1210]

I don't understand why money is being sent to India by Western governments as financial aid to tackle this crisis in India. Doesn't the Indian government haven any money? Are rich Indians donating to the cause? Or is India's wealth sensationalised/exaggerated?

 

[King-Misbah]

I don't understand why money is being sent to India by Western governments as financial aid to tackle this crisis in India. Doesn't the Indian government haven any money? Are rich Indians donating to the cause? Or is India's wealth sensationalised/exaggerated?

India is sat on reserves but does not want to spend on its citizens it seems.

 

[MP2011]

I don't understand why money is being sent to India by Western governments as financial aid to tackle this crisis in India. Doesn't the Indian government haven any money? Are rich Indians donating to the cause? Or is India's wealth sensationalised/exaggerated?

They're spending money on statues and building Central Vista, new parliament building.

 

[OldWarHorse]

Covid: Yogi orders crack down on hospitals flagging oxygen shortage
Many hospitals in Lucknow and other parts of the state had put up notices declaring an oxygen shortage and advising families to shift patients elsewhere

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has sent out a clear message to the state’s hospitals: keep your mouth shut about any oxygen crisis or face action.

At an online meeting on Sunday evening, Adityanath asked senior administrative and police officers, including divisional commissioners and inspectors-general, to crack down on hospitals that discharge patients citing an oxygen shortage or complain to the media about the crisis, a senior health department official said.

“The chief minister said that action must be initiated against hospitals that put up notices saying they had no oxygen and the patients should be shifted elsewhere. He said there should be a probe to establish whether they deliberately tried to create panic,” the official said.

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“He (Adityanath) said there is no scarcity of oxygen in Uttar Pradesh. He said the government was ensuring the availability of the gas at every public and private hospital, but its misuse has to be stopped.”

According to the official, some of Adityanath’s subsequent directives, however, appeared an indirect acknowledgement of the problem.

“He asked the officials to ensure that every government or private hospital with 100 or more beds had an oxygen plant. He told them to prepare proposals and send them to the chief secretary,” the official said.

Many hospitals in Lucknow and other parts of the state had put up notices at their gates over the weekend declaring an oxygen shortage and advising families of Covid patients to shift them elsewhere.

An executive of a private hospital in Lucknow, who asked not to be named, said: “I invite him (Adityanath) to visit every hospital and audit the oxygen supply. If he does so honestly, he would find himself guilty of having left the hospitals and the people in the lurch.”

He added: “The chief minister has no problem that graveyards and cremation grounds are running out of space. All he wants is that the hospitals fulfil his agenda of hiding the truth.”

Several doctors from the Lakhimpur Kheri, Firozabad, Bareilly and Meerut districts on Monday told local reporters they continued to face an oxygen crisis.

Dr Sanjay Jain of Anand Hospital, Meerut, said: “We shifted 20 patients from our hospital to Aryavart Hospital because of the oxygen shortage. We need 300 to 400 cylinders a day but are getting only 150.”

Dr Rohit Kamboj of Meerut’s Nutema Hospital said: “We have 80 (Covid) patients. The oxygen shortage is hampering their treatment.”

A government doctor from the Firozabad district hospital, seeking anonymity, said: “We don’t have oxygen. When we demand 100 cylinders, officials give us 10. The patients’ relatives are restless and are taking them to other places.”

On Saturday, 10 hospitals in Agra were forced to discharge all their Covid patients —about 1,000 in all — because of a lack of oxygen, Dr O.P. Yadav, district president of the Indian Medical Association, had said.

Dr Surendra Singh of Yashwant Hospital, Agra, had told reporters on Saturday: “We were promised 50 oxygen cylinders a week but the government gave us only 5 cylinders over the last 10 days. We discharged our (Covid) patients when we had no option left.”

https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/india/coronavirus-outbreak-yogi-orders-crack-down-on-hospitals-flagging-oxygen-shortage/cid/1813775?__twitter_impression=true

 

[Ahmad-GERMANFC]

Yogi Adityanath literally seems an Indian Twitter troll who wants to hide problems and thinks that by not acknowledging them it would mean that the problem doesn’t exist.

 

[OldWarHorse]

Unions say 577 teachers died on Uttar Pradesh panchayat poll duty

Earlier this week, the Allahabad HC had sent a notice to the SEC seeking explanation on the alleged deaths of govt employees due to Covid-19 during panchayat poll duty.


Teachers' unions in Uttar Pradesh have submitted a list of 577 teachers and support staff who died while on panchayat poll duty to the state election commission (SEC). The unions have requested the election commission to postpone the counting day, May 2.

Dinesh Chandra Sharma, president of UP Shikshak Mahasangh (UPSM), said they had given names of 577 basic education teachers from 71 districts who died amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, the Allahabad High Court had sent a notice to the SEC seeking explanation on the alleged deaths of government employees due to Covid-19 during panchayat poll duty.

On Wednesday, Special Work Officer SK Singh issued a letter to all the DMs, SPs and district electoral officers to verify reports about deaths of teachers in their districts and provide a report within 24 hours.


Speaking to India today, Sharma said they were yet to receive information on the health of teachers on election duty from several districts. "The situation is extremely critical. Earlier, the union had requested the state election commission, after there was a big increase in cases on April 12, to postpone the polls but the request was ignored," Sharma said.


He further said they might be forced to boycott duty on counting day. "Lakhs of people have suffered the curse of Covid-19 because of election duties and the Election Commission has not taken this seriously," he said

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/uttar-pradesh-teachers-unions-577-teachers-died-panchayat-poll-duty-1796282-2021-04-29

 

[WhenSultansBowled]

I don't understand why money is being sent to India by Western governments as financial aid to tackle this crisis in India. Doesn't the Indian government haven any money? Are rich Indians donating to the cause? Or is India's wealth sensationalised/exaggerated?

Rats are first to abandon a sinking ship...

Rich Indians have left country days ago or are leaving at a very rapid pace.

Government is more focused on Twitter trends than oxygen shortage.

Their "media", instead of reporting deaths are trying to somehow pin it all on Muslims.

IPL is still going on somewhere

What a sad circus. Genuinely feels sorry for people who are losing their family members due to the Muslims Killer Modi and his psychopath goons.

Bonus:

Spoiler

This is the true face of India, its ruthless society and extremist animals who run it...

 

[kabbirann]

Unions say 577 teachers died on Uttar Pradesh panchayat poll duty

Earlier this week, the Allahabad HC had sent a notice to the SEC seeking explanation on the alleged deaths of govt employees due to Covid-19 during panchayat poll duty.


Teachers' unions in Uttar Pradesh have submitted a list of 577 teachers and support staff who died while on panchayat poll duty to the state election commission (SEC). The unions have requested the election commission to postpone the counting day, May 2.

Dinesh Chandra Sharma, president of UP Shikshak Mahasangh (UPSM), said they had given names of 577 basic education teachers from 71 districts who died amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, the Allahabad High Court had sent a notice to the SEC seeking explanation on the alleged deaths of government employees due to Covid-19 during panchayat poll duty.

On Wednesday, Special Work Officer SK Singh issued a letter to all the DMs, SPs and district electoral officers to verify reports about deaths of teachers in their districts and provide a report within 24 hours.


Speaking to India today, Sharma said they were yet to receive information on the health of teachers on election duty from several districts. "The situation is extremely critical. Earlier, the union had requested the state election commission, after there was a big increase in cases on April 12, to postpone the polls but the request was ignored," Sharma said.


He further said they might be forced to boycott duty on counting day. "Lakhs of people have suffered the curse of Covid-19 because of election duties and the Election Commission has not taken this seriously," he said

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/uttar-pradesh-teachers-unions-577-teachers-died-panchayat-poll-duty-1796282-2021-04-29

Each and every of these deaths was preventable- the U.P government has blood on its hands.

These slow witted, short sighted,callous sanghi's cannot see beyond short term gains.

Hinduvta is all about adharma- there is no bottom to their neechta.

 

[Technics 1210]

(Click the link for the charts)

---------

COVID-19 crisis in India: Record number of cases and deaths - but are mass gatherings to blame for COVID surge?

At the beginning of March, it seemed that India had the COVID-19 pandemic under control.

But a number of public events over the past few weeks have seen the virus take hold with devastating consequences.

India's health ministry has announced yet another record number of cases and deaths in the last 24 hours, with 379,257 new cases and 3,645 new deaths.

Live COVID updates from across the UK and around the world

World Health Organization (WHO) experts and leading doctors say large gatherings have played a major part in a dramatic rise in cases.

A religious festival lasting several weeks, which began on 11 March, saw more than three million people gather on the banks of the River Ganges.

Pilgrims to Kumbh Mela, which is celebrated about once every 12 years by Hindus, believe a dip in the holy river will wash away their sins.

Regional governments throughout the country have now asked those who have taken part to self-isolate and get tested.

The chart below shows how the number of cases has risen as major events have been held.

https://news.sky.com/story/did-mass-gatherings-contribute-to-indias-covid-surge-12289555

Modi is toast.

 

[pillionrider]

Every one looking sick on the roads is a paid actor out to defame our great country.

 

[pillionrider]

Their "media", instead of reporting deaths are trying to somehow pin it all on Muslims.

Don't think this is happening now. The Godhi media has been relatively quiet about the Kumbh Mela though, but the other media are galvanized and have been going berserk.

This blame-game is a two-way street though. Quite a few posters here have been living in a lala land too where Pakistan had reached the endgame of their battle with Covid and somehow it was the Indian pilgrims who were bringing the virus back into the country. So ....

 

[Bigboii]

Don't think this is happening now. The Godhi media has been relatively quiet about the Kumbh Mela though, but the other media are galvanized and have been going berserk.

This blame-game is a two-way street though. Quite a few posters here have been living in a lala land too where Pakistan had reached the endgame of their battle with Covid and somehow it was the Indian pilgrims who were bringing the virus back into the country. So ....

This is what I thought they would do but surprisingly no

most know something like this is just around the corner if something doesn't change drastically

But if you're judging off of odd troll posters than yeah ofcourse they'll say something like that...

 

[WhenSultansBowled]

Don't think this is happening now. The Godhi media has been relatively quiet about the Kumbh Mela though, but the other media are galvanized and have been going berserk.

This blame-game is a two-way street though. Quite a few posters here have been living in a lala land too where Pakistan had reached the endgame of their battle with Covid and somehow it was the Indian pilgrims who were bringing the virus back into the country. So ....

Pakistan is a different beast altogether. We never had a competent healthcare system to begin with. If y'all are looking for inspiration from Pakistan....

But in India things shouldn't have been this worse. This is as close to committing murder a government can get without directly spraying bullets on its own people.

 

[Ahmad-GERMANFC]

Don't think this is happening now. The Godhi media has been relatively quiet about the Kumbh Mela though, but the other media are galvanized and have been going berserk.

This blame-game is a two-way street though. Quite a few posters here have been living in a lala land too where Pakistan had reached the endgame of their battle with Covid and somehow it was the Indian pilgrims who were bringing the virus back into the country. So ....

I don’t know which Pakistanis are these apart from certain trolls.

Pakistan is almost certainly screwed over the coming month. It’s beyond the point where we can escape it

 

[Itachi]

got vaccinated yesterday. today fever and bodyache occurring. let's see how much it does last.

 

[pillionrider]

Pakistan is a different beast altogether. We never had a competent healthcare system to begin with. If y'all are looking for inspiration from Pakistan....

Pakistan is almost certainly screwed over the coming month. It’s beyond the point where we can escape it

It needn't be and hopefully it won't.

You can still reduce the impending catastrophe by learning quickly from your neighbor. Stop being complacent about the relatively low numbers and don't be smug like our government was. Somehow find a way to bring the religious leaders on board and spread word in the communities allaying the fears about vaccination. I don't even know if this is possible in rural Pakistan but at least in the denser cities, use the army to maybe even force it.

If things are forced by law, people quickly fall into line. We've had forced tests in my city and while some may whine about people's rights and so on - people should have rights only if they're willing to be responsible. If not, some of those rights deserve to be stripped away. Extreme times justify brute force.

 

[PakLFC]

I don’t know which Pakistanis are these apart from certain trolls.

Pakistan is almost certainly screwed over the coming month. It’s beyond the point where we can escape it

Of course we can escape it. Even though India's health care is much better then that of Pak I feel we will be okay particularly if people are forced in to wearing a mask and social distancing. Stop being so pessimistic.

 

[Pascal Gambit]

The Long Read - The Guardian

‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’: Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe

It’s hard to convey the full depth and range of the trauma, the chaos and the indignity that people are being subjected to. Meanwhile, Modi and his allies are telling us not to complain

by Arundhati Roy

Wed 28 Apr 2021 23.50 BST

During a particularly polarising election campaign in the state of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, waded into the fray to stir things up even further. From a public podium, he accused the state government – which was led by an opposition party – of pandering to the Muslim community by spending more on Muslim graveyards (kabristans) than on Hindu cremation grounds (shamshans). With his customary braying sneer, in which every taunt and barb rises to a high note mid-sentence before it falls away in a menacing echo, he stirred up the crowd. “If a kabristan is built in a village, a shamshan should also be constructed there,” he said.

“Shamshan! Shamshan!” the mesmerised, adoring crowd echoed back.

Perhaps he is happy now that the haunting image of the flames rising from the mass funerals in India’s cremation grounds is making the front page of international newspapers. And that all the kabristans and shamshans in his country are working properly, in direct proportion to the populations they cater for, and far beyond their capacities.

“Can India, population 1.3 billion, be isolated?” the Washington Post asked rhetorically in a recent editorial about India’s unfolding catastrophe and the difficulty of containing new, fast-spreading Covid variants within national borders. “Not easily,” it replied. It’s unlikely this question was posed in quite the same way when the coronavirus was raging through the UK and Europe just a few months ago. But we in India have little right to take offence, given our prime minister’s words at the World Economic Forum in January this year.

Modi spoke at a time when people in Europe and the US were suffering through the peak of the second wave of the pandemic. He had not one word of sympathy to offer, only a long, gloating boast about India’s infrastructure and Covid-preparedness. I downloaded the speech because I fear that when history is rewritten by the Modi regime, as it soon will be, it might disappear, or become hard to find. Here are some priceless snippets:

“Friends, I have brought the message of confidence, positivity and hope from 1.3 billion Indians amid these times of apprehension … It was predicted that India would be the most affected country from corona all over the world. It was said that there would be a tsunami of corona infections in India, somebody said 700-800 million Indians would get infected while others said 2 million Indians would die.”

“Friends, it would not be advisable to judge India’s success with that of another country. In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.”

Modi the magician takes a bow for saving humanity by containing the coronavirus effectively. Now that it turns out that he has not contained it, can we complain about being viewed as though we are radioactive? That other countries’ borders are being closed to us and flights are being cancelled? That we’re being sealed in with our virus and our prime minister, along with all the sickness, the anti-science, the hatred and the idiocy that he, his party and its brand of politics represent?

When the first wave of Covid came to India and then subsided last year, the government and its supportive commentariat were triumphant. “India isn’t having a picnic,” tweeted Shekhar Gupta, the editor-in-chief of the online news site the Print. “But our drains aren’t choked with bodies, hospitals aren’t out of beds, nor crematoriums & graveyards out of wood or space. Too good to be true? Bring data if you disagree. Unless you think you’re god.” Leave aside the callous, disrespectful imagery – did we need a god to tell us that most pandemics have a second wave?

This one was predicted, although its virulence has taken even scientists and virologists by surprise. So where is the Covid-specific infrastructure and the “people’s movement” against the virus that Modi boasted about in his speech? Hospital beds are unavailable. Doctors and medical staff are at breaking point. Friends call with stories about wards with no staff and more dead patients than live ones. People are dying in hospital corridors, on roads and in their homes. Crematoriums in Delhi have run out of firewood. The forest department has had to give special permission for the felling of city trees. Desperate people are using whatever kindling they can find. Parks and car parks are being turned into cremation grounds. It’s as if there’s an invisible UFO parked in our skies, sucking the air out of our lungs. An air raid of a kind we’ve never known.

Oxygen is the new currency on India’s morbid new stock exchange. Senior politicians, journalists, lawyers – India’s elite – are on Twitter pleading for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders. The hidden market for cylinders is booming. Oxygen saturation machines and drugs are hard to come by.

There are markets for other things, too. At the bottom end of the free market, a bribe to sneak a last look at your loved one, bagged and stacked in a hospital mortuary. A surcharge for a priest who agrees to say the final prayers. Online medical consultancies in which desperate families are fleeced by ruthless doctors. At the top end, you might need to sell your land and home and use up every last rupee for treatment at a private hospital. Just the deposit alone, before they even agree to admit you, could set your family back a couple of generations.

None of this conveys the full depth and range of the trauma, the chaos and, above all, the indignity that people are being subjected to. What happened to my young friend T is just one of hundreds, perhaps thousands of similar stories in Delhi alone. T, who is in his 20s, lives in his parents’ tiny flat in Ghaziabad on the outskirts of Delhi. All three of them tested positive for Covid. His mother was critically ill. Since it was in the early days, he was lucky enough to find a hospital bed for her. His father, diagnosed with severe bipolar depression, turned violent and began to harm himself. He stopped sleeping. He soiled himself. His psychiatrist was online trying to help, although she also broke down from time to time because her husband had just died from Covid. She said T’s father needed hospitalisation, but since he was Covid positive there was no chance of that. So T stayed awake, night after night, holding his father down, sponging him, cleaning him up. Each time I spoke to him I felt my own breath falter. Finally, the message came: “Father’s dead.” He did not die of Covid, but of a massive spike in blood pressure induced by a psychiatric meltdown induced by utter helplessness.

What to do with the body? I desperately called everybody I knew. Among those who responded was Anirban Bhattacharya, who works with the well-known social activist Harsh Mander. Bhattacharya is about to stand trial on a charge of sedition for a protest he helped organise on his university campus in 2016. Mander, who has not fully recovered from a savage case of Covid last year, is being threatened with arrest and the closure of the orphanages he runs after he mobilised people against the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed in December 2019, both of which blatantly discriminate against Muslims. Mander and Bhattacharya are among the many citizens who, in the absence of all forms of governance, have set up helplines and emergency responses, and are running themselves ragged organising ambulances and coordinating funerals and the transport of dead bodies. It’s not safe for these volunteers to do what they’re doing. In this wave of the pandemic, it’s the young who are falling, who are filling the intensive care units. When young people die, the older among us lose a little of our will to live.

T’s father was cremated. T and his mother are recovering.

Things will settle down eventually. Of course, they will. But we don’t know who among us will survive to see that day. The rich will breathe easier. The poor will not. For now, among the sick and dying, there is a vestige of democracy. The rich have been felled, too. Hospitals are begging for oxygen. Some have started bring-your-own-oxygen schemes. The oxygen crisis has led to intense, unseemly battles between states, with political parties trying to deflect blame from themselves.

On the night of 22 April, 25 critically ill coronavirus patients on high-flow oxygen died in one of Delhi’s biggest private hospitals, Sir Ganga Ram. The hospital issued several desperate SOS messages for the replenishment of its oxygen supply. A day later, the chair of the hospital board rushed to clarify matters: “We cannot say that they have died due to lack of oxygen support.” On 24 April, 20 more patients died when oxygen supplies were depleted in another big Delhi hospital, Jaipur Golden. That same day, in the Delhi high court, Tushar Mehta, India’s solicitor general, speaking for the government of India, said: “Let’s try and not be a cry baby … so far we have ensured that no one in the country was left without oxygen.”

Ajay Mohan Bisht, the saffron-robed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who goes by the name Yogi Adityanath, has declared that there is no shortage of oxygen in any hospital in his state and that rumourmongers will be arrested without bail under the National Security Act and have their property seized.

Yogi Adityanath doesn’t play around. Siddique Kappan, a Muslim journalist from Kerala, jailed for months in Uttar Pradesh when he and two others travelled there to report on the gang-rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Hathras district, is critically ill and has tested positive for Covid. His wife, in a desperate petition to the chief justice of the supreme court of India, says her husband is lying chained “like an animal” to a hospital bed in the Medical College hospital in Mathura. (The supreme court has now ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to move him to a hospital in Delhi.) So, if you live in Uttar Pradesh, the message seems to be, please do yourself a favour and die without complaining.

The threat to those who complain is not restricted to Uttar Pradesh. A spokesperson for the fascist Hindu nationalist organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – of which Modi and several of his ministers are members, and which runs its own armed militia – has warned that “anti-India forces” would use the crisis to fuel “negativity” and “mistrust” and asked the media to help foster a “positive atmosphere”. Twitter has helped them out by deactivating accounts critical of the government.

Where shall we look for solace? For science? Shall we cling to numbers? How many dead? How many recovered? How many infected? When will the peak come? On 27 April, the report was 323,144 new cases, 2,771 deaths. The precision is somewhat reassuring. Except – how do we know? Tests are hard to come by, even in Delhi. The number of Covid-protocol funerals from graveyards and crematoriums in small towns and cities suggest a death toll up to 30 times higher than the official count. Doctors who are working outside the metropolitan areas can tell you how it is.

If Delhi is breaking down, what should we imagine is happening in villages in Bihar, in Uttar Pradesh, in Madhya Pradesh? Where tens of millions of workers from the cities, carrying the virus with them, are fleeing home to their families, traumatised by their memory of Modi’s national lockdown in 2020. It was the strictest lockdown in the world, announced with only four hours’ notice. It left migrant workers stranded in cities with no work, no money to pay their rent, no food and no transport. Many had to walk hundreds of miles to their homes in far-flung villages. Hundreds died on the way.

This time around, although there is no national lockdown, the workers have left while transport is still available, while trains and buses are still running. They’ve left because they know that even though they make up the engine of the economy in this huge country, when a crisis comes, in the eyes of this administration, they simply don’t exist. This year’s exodus has resulted in a different kind of chaos: there are no quarantine centres for them to stay in before they enter their village homes. There’s not even the meagre pretence of trying to protect the countryside from the city virus.

These are villages where people die of easily treatable diseases like diarrhoea and tuberculosis. How are they to cope with Covid? Are Covid tests available to them? Are there hospitals? Is there oxygen? More than that, is there love? Forget love, is there even concern? There isn’t. Because there is only a heart-shaped hole filled with cold indifference where India’s public heart should be.

Early this morning, on 28 April, news came that our friend Prabhubhai has died. Before he died, he showed classic Covid symptoms. But his death will not register in the official Covid count because he died at home without a test or treatment. Prabhubhai was a stalwart of the anti-dam movement in the Narmada valley. I stayed several times at his home in Kevadia, where decades ago the first group of indigenous tribespeople were thrown off their lands to make room for the dam-builders and officers’ colony. Displaced families like Prabhubhai’s still remain on the edges of that colony, impoverished and unsettled, transgressors on land that was once theirs.

There is no hospital in Kevadia. There’s only the Statue of Unity, built in the likeness of the freedom fighter and first deputy prime minister of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who the dam is named after. At 182 metres high, it’s the tallest statue in the world and cost US$422m. High-speed elevators inside take tourists up to view the Narmada dam from the level of Sardar Patel’s chest. Of course, you cannot see the river valley civilisation that lies destroyed, submerged in the depths of the vast reservoir, or hear the stories of the people who waged one of the most beautiful, profound struggles the world has ever known – not just against that one dam, but against the accepted ideas of what constitutes civilisation, happiness and progress. The statue was Modi’s pet project. He inaugurated it in October 2018.

The friend who messaged about Prabhubhai had spent years as an anti-dam activist in the Narmada valley. She wrote: “My hands shiver as I write this. Covid situation in and around Kevadia Colony grim.”

The precise numbers that make up India’s Covid graph are like the wall that was built in Ahmedabad to hide the slums Donald Trump would drive past on his way to the “Namaste Trump” event that Modi hosted for him in February 2020. Grim as those numbers are, they give you a picture of the India-that-matters, but certainly not the India that is. In the India that is, people are expected to vote as Hindus, but die as disposables.

“Let’s try and not be a cry baby.”

Try not to pay attention to the fact that the possibility of a dire shortage of oxygen had been flagged as far back as April 2020, and then again in November by a committee set up by the government itself. Try not to wonder why even Delhi’s biggest hospitals don’t have their own oxygen-generating plants. Try not to wonder why the PM Cares Fund – the opaque organisation that has recently replaced the more public Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund, and which uses public money and government infrastructure but functions like a private trust with zero public accountability – has suddenly moved in to address the oxygen crisis. Will Modi own shares in our air-supply now?

“Let’s try and not be a cry baby.”

Understand that there were and are so many far more pressing issues for the Modi government to attend to. Destroying the last vestiges of democracy, persecuting non-Hindu minorities and consolidating the foundations of the Hindu Nation makes for a relentless schedule. There are massive prison complexes, for example, that must be urgently constructed in Assam for the 2 million people who have lived there for generations and have suddenly been stripped of their citizenship. (On this matter, our independent supreme court came down hard on the side of the government and leniently on the side of the vandals.)

There are hundreds of students and activists and young Muslim citizens to be tried and imprisoned as the primary accused in the anti-Muslim pogrom that took place against their own community in north-east Delhi last March. If you are Muslim in India, it’s a crime to be murdered. Your folks will pay for it. There was the inauguration of the new Ram Temple in Ayodhya, which is being built in place of the mosque that was hammered to dust by Hindu vandals watched over by senior BJP politicians. (On this matter, our independent supreme court came down hard on the side of the government and the vandals.) There were the controversial new Farm Bills to be passed, corporatising agriculture. There were hundreds of thousands of farmers to be beaten and teargassed when they came out on to the streets to protest.

Then there’s the multi-multi-multimillion-dollar plan for a grand new replacement for the fading grandeur of New Delhi’s imperial centre to be urgently attended to. After all, how can the government of the new Hindu India be housed in old buildings? While Delhi is locked down, ravaged by the pandemic, construction work on the “Central Vista” project, declared as an essential service, has begun. Workers are being transported in. Maybe they can alter the plans to add a crematorium.

There was also the Kumbh Mela to be organised, so that millions of Hindu pilgrims could crowd together in a small town to bathe in the Ganges and spread the virus even-handedly as they returned to their homes across the country, blessed and purified. This Kumbh rocks on, although Modi has gently suggested that it might be an idea for the holy dip to become “symbolic” – whatever that means. (Unlike what happened with those who attended a conference for the Islamic organisation Tablighi Jamaat last year, the media has not run a campaign against them calling them “corona jihadis” or accusing them of committing crimes against humanity.) There were also those few thousand Rohingya refugees who had to be urgently deported back to the genocidal regime in Myanmar from where they had fled – in the middle of a coup. (Once again, when our independent supreme court was petitioned on this matter, it concurred with the government’s view.)

So, as you can tell, it’s been busy, busy, busy.

Over and above all this urgent activity, there is an election to be won in the state of West Bengal. This required our home minister, Modi’s man Amit Shah, to more or less abandon his cabinet duties and focus all his attention on Bengal for months, to disseminate his party’s murderous propaganda, to pit human against human in every little town and village. Geographically, West Bengal is a small state. The election could have taken place in a single day, and has done so in the past. But since it is new territory for the BJP, the party needed time to move its cadres, many of who are not from Bengal, from constituency to constituency to oversee the voting. The election schedule was divided into eight phases, spread out over a month, the last on 29 April. As the count of corona infections ticked up, the other political parties pleaded with the election commission to rethink the election schedule. The commission refused and came down hard on the side of the BJP, and the campaign continued. Who hasn’t seen the videos of the BJP’s star campaigner, the prime minister himself, triumphant and maskless, speaking to the maskless crowds, thanking people for coming out in unprecedented numbers? That was on 17 April, when the official number of daily infections was already rocketing upward of 200,000.

Now, as voting closes, Bengal is poised to become the new corona cauldron, with a new triple mutant strain known as – guess what – the “Bengal strain”. Newspapers report that every second person tested in the state capital, Kolkata, is Covid positive. The BJP has declared that if it wins Bengal, it will ensure people get free vaccines. And if it doesn’t?

“Let’s try and not be a cry baby.”

Anyway, what about the vaccines? Surely they’ll save us? Isn’t India a vaccine powerhouse? In fact, the Indian government is entirely dependent on two manufacturers, the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech. Both are being allowed to roll out two of the most expensive vaccines in the world, to the poorest people in the world. This week they announced that they will sell to private hospitals at a slightly elevated price, and to state governments at a somewhat lower price. Back-of-the-envelope calculations show the vaccine companies are likely to make obscene profits.

Under Modi, India’s economy has been hollowed out, and hundreds of millions of people who were already living precarious lives have been pushed into abject poverty. A huge number now depend for survival on paltry earnings from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), which was instituted in 2005 when the Congress party was in power. It is impossible to expect that families on the verge of starvation will pay most of a month’s income to have themselves vaccinated. In the UK, vaccines are free and a fundamental right. Those trying to get vaccinated out of turn can be prosecuted. In India, the main underlying impetus of the vaccination campaign seems to be corporate profit.

As this epic catastrophe plays out on our Modi-aligned Indian television channels, you’ll notice how they all speak in one tutored voice. The “system” has collapsed, they say, again and again. The virus has overwhelmed India’s health care “system”.

The system has not collapsed. The “system” barely existed. The government – this one, as well as the Congress government that preceded it – deliberately dismantled what little medical infrastructure there was. This is what happens when a pandemic hits a country with an almost nonexistent public healthcare system. India spends about 1.25% of its gross domestic product on health, far lower than most countries in the world, even the poorest ones. Even that figure is thought to be inflated, because things that are important but do not strictly qualify as healthcare have been slipped into it. So the real figure is estimated to be more like 0.34%. The tragedy is that in this devastatingly poor country, as a 2016 Lancet study shows, 78% of the healthcare in urban areas and 71% in rural areas is now handled by the private sector. The resources that remain in the public sector are systematically siphoned into the private sector by a nexus of corrupt administrators and medical practitioners, corrupt referrals and insurance rackets.

Healthcare is a fundamental right. The private sector will not cater to starving, sick, dying people who don’t have money. This massive privatisation of India’s healthcare is a crime.

The system hasn’t collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps “failed” is an inaccurate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity. Virologists predict that the number of cases in India will grow exponentially to more than 500,000 a day. They predict the death of many hundreds of thousands in the coming months, perhaps more. My friends and I have agreed to call each other every day just to mark ourselves present, like roll call in our school classrooms. We speak to those we love in tears, and with trepidation, not knowing if we will ever see each other again. We write, we work, not knowing if we will live to finish what we started. Not knowing what horror and humiliation awaits us. The indignity of it all. That is what breaks us.

The hashtag #ModiMustResign is trending on social media. Some of the memes and illustrations show Modi with a heap of skulls peeping out from behind the curtain of his beard. Modi the Messiah speaking at a public rally of corpses. Modi and Amit Shah as vultures, scanning the horizon for corpses to harvest votes from. But that is only one part of the story. The other part is that the man with no feelings, the man with empty eyes and a mirthless smile, can, like so many tyrants in the past, arouse passionate feelings in others. His pathology is infectious. And that is what sets him apart. In north India, which is home to his largest voting base, and which, by dint of sheer numbers, tends to decide the political fate of the country, the pain he inflicts seems to turn into a peculiar pleasure.

Fredrick Douglass said it right: “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” How we in India pride ourselves on our capacity to endure. How beautifully we have trained ourselves to meditate, to turn inward, to exorcise our fury as well as justify our inability to be egalitarian. How meekly we embrace our humiliation.

When he made his political debut as Gujarat’s new chief minister in 2001, Modi ensured his place in posterity after what has come to be known as the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. Over a period of a few days, Hindu vigilante mobs, watched over and sometimes actively assisted by the Gujarat police, murdered, raped and burned alive thousands of Muslims as “revenge” for a gruesome arson attack on a train in which more than 50 Hindu pilgrims had been burned alive. Once the violence subsided, Modi, who had until then only been appointed as chief minister by his party, called for early elections. The campaign in which he was portrayed as Hindu Hriday Samrat (“The Emperor of Hindu Hearts”) won him a landslide victory. Modi hasn’t lost an election since.

Several of the killers in the Gujrat pogrom were subsequently captured on camera by the journalist Ashish Khetan, boasting of how they hacked people to death, slashed pregnant women’s stomachs open and smashed infants’ heads against rocks. They said they could only have done what they did because Modi was their chief minister. Those tapes were broadcast on national TV. While Modi remained in the seat of power, Khetan, whose tapes were submitted to the courts and forensically examined, appeared as a witness on several occasions. Over time, some of the killers were arrested and imprisoned, but many were let off. In his recent book, Undercover: My Journey Into the Darkness of Hindutva, Khetan describes in detail how, during Modi’s tenure as chief minister, the Gujarat police, judges, lawyers, prosecutors and inquiry committees all colluded to tamper with evidence, intimidate witnesses and transfer judges.

Despite knowing all this, many of India’s so-called public intellectuals, the CEOs of its major corporations and the media houses they own, worked hard to pave the way for Modi to become the prime minister. They humiliated and shouted down those of us who persisted in our criticism. “Move on”, was their mantra. Even today, they mitigate their harsh words for Modi with praise for his oratory skills and his “hard work”. Their denunciation and bullying contempt for politicians in opposition parties is far more strident. They reserve their special scorn for Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party, the only politician who has consistently warned of the coming Covid crisis and repeatedly asked the government to prepare itself as best it could. To assist the ruling party in its campaign to destroy all opposition parties amounts to colluding with the destruction of democracy.

So here we are now, in the hell of their collective making, with every independent institution essential to the functioning of a democracy compromised and hollowed out, and a virus that is out of control.

The crisis-generating machine that we call our government is incapable of leading us out of this disaster. Not least because one man makes all the decisions in this government, and that man is dangerous – and not very bright. This virus is an international problem. To deal with it, decision-making, at least on the control and administration of the pandemic, will need to pass into the hands of some sort of non-partisan body consisting of members of the ruling party, members of the opposition, and health and public policy experts.

As for Modi, is resigning from your crimes a feasible proposition? Perhaps he could just take a break from them – a break from all his hard work. There’s that $564m Boeing 777, Air India One, customised for VVIP travel – for him, actually – that’s been sitting idle on the runway for a while now. He and his men could just leave. The rest of us will do all we can to clean up their mess.

No, India cannot be isolated. We need help.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...umanity-arundhati-roy-india-covid-catastrophe

 

[WhenSultansBowled]

Several of the killers in the Gujrat pogrom were subsequently captured on camera by the journalist Ashish Khetan, boasting of how they hacked people to death, slashed pregnant women’s stomachs open and smashed infants’ heads against rocks. They said they could only have done what they did because Modi was their chief minister. Those tapes were broadcast on national TV. While Modi remained in the seat of power, Khetan, whose tapes were submitted to the courts and forensically examined, appeared as a witness on several occasions. Over time, some of the killers were arrested and imprisoned, but many were let off. In his recent book, Undercover: My Journey Into the Darkness of Hindutva, Khetan describes in detail how, during Modi’s tenure as chief minister, the Gujarat police, judges, lawyers, prosecutors and inquiry committees all colluded to tamper with evidence, intimidate witnesses and transfer judges.

Muslim killer Modi and his murderer goons are cursed. No peace for them in this life and of course in the next one they will have to answer to their Creator for their evil deeds. No escaping that.

Yesterday I posted this (Final Solution, author Rakesh Sharma, Hindutva terrorists massacred Muslims) https://vimeo.com/329340055 documentary in one of the threads and it got mysteriously delated...

What Muslim Killer Modi did was evil and nothing can censor it.

And of course blood of all people who are needlessly getting culled (during Covid-19) by this psychopaths is also on the hands of the murderer's blind supporters.

 

[MP2011]

Mess left by feku will take some cleaning by subsequent governments. He has destroyed India so much in his 7 years (and counting) that last 65-odd years pale in comparison.

 

[MP2011]

She was 8 months pregnant, was ‘forced’ into UP poll duty that killed ‘135 teachers’

Jaunpur/Ballia: Kalyani Agrahari, 27, an assistant teacher in the first month of her job, did not want to do the panchayat election duty on 15 April. She was eight months pregnant and it would not have been easy for her to sit at one place for so long.

On 9 April, accompanied by her husband, Kalyani travelled 30 kilometres from Pataila gram panchayat to Jaunpur Vikas Bhavan to submit an application saying she would not be able to report on election duty.

“I am a primary school teacher posted at Moina Composite School in Khutahan block. I am assigned at the Panchyat Polls and my code number is 24146. Due to my critical pregnancy, I will not be able to come on duty. Therefore, it is my humble request to the district election officer to relieve me from my duty,” her application, accessed by ThePrint, read.

The trip, however, proved to be futile. She was allegedly told that she would face an FIR, and also lose salary, if she did not report to duty.

Fifteen days later, the teacher died in a Jaunpur hospital. Her death certificate said she was Covid-positive, according to her family.

Kalyani is one of the “135 teachers” who have died so far after having been deployed on poll duty in Uttar Pradesh, according to the Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh, an association of teachers affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

While there is no official record on this, the family members of the teachers ThePrint spoke to said they all had Covid or showed symptoms of the infection.

Thursday was the last day of the four-phase panchayat elections, the results of which will be announced on 2 May.

Taking cognisance of these deaths, the Allahabad High Court issued a show-cause notice to the Uttar Pradesh State Commission on 27 April, asking why action should not be taken against it and officials for not enforcing Covid protocols.

However, the Yogi Adityanath government has said in a statement that it did not want to hold the panchayat elections but it was an Allahabad High Court order that forced it to conduct it before 30 April.

Reached for a comment, Nitish Singh, SDM Sadar, Jaunpur, told ThePrint: “If someone is unwell, the person has to write to our medical committee. To relieve that person on medical grounds is a decision taken by that committee. This incident (of Agrahari) is unfortunate, I will see if I can help the family in any way.”

Kalyani was one of the 69,000 assistant teachers who were recruited in January 2021. This was her first posting, and she died even before she could get her first salary.

The job was long awaited as the matter of their appointment had been in court.

“She was having anxieties that she would not be able to sit for a long time on poll duty. I accompanied her to the Vikas Bhavan but we were told that an FIR would be registered if she refused to come on duty. We both came home disheartened. Unhone kaha nayi naukri hai, salary nahin milegi (they said it’s a new job, you won’t get salary),” Deepak, Kalyani’s husband, told ThePrint.

“She was forced to travel 32 kilometres to reach the polling station on 15 April. She spent more than 12 hours on the field. She had been feeling unwell since she came back home. After two days of fever, her condition started worsening,” Deepak added.

Kalyani also had to go to the polling station on 14 April, a day before the polls, for a training, said her husband.

The 27-year-old died on 24 April at a mahila chikitsaalay (women’s hospital), two days before their third wedding anniversary, which was on 26 April.

Agrahari’s death certificate issued by the hospital said she was Covid positive and died of cardiopulmonary arrest during treatment.

Deepak showed the last photos of his wife, lying in a semi-conscious state with oxygen support.

“She kept saying, ‘save me please’. Maine doctors ke pair pakde, gid-gidaye, par wo nahin rahi (I pleaded with the doctors to save her, but she didn’t survive). Around 11.30 am, the doctor finally came and told us that she is no more. The officials killed her. They all should be booked for criminal negligence,” Deepak said in a choked voice, adding how difficult it is for him now to come to terms with the loss of his unborn child and wife.

A few kilometres away from Deepak’s home lives Kalyani’s family — also angry, devastated and feeling “cheated”. Her 52-year-old father Suresh Kumar broke down as he spoke to ThePrint over the phone: “When they knew that she is eight-month pregnant, they could have sent me to poll duty instead of her.”

“Maine usey itna padhaya likhaya ki kuch banegi, lekin system se kya mila? Ek maut. Meri beti ki jaan panchayat vibhag ke adhikariyon ki vajah se gayi (I sent her to school and college so she could do well in life. But this system only gave us death. My daughter died because of the officials at panchayats department),” he said.

Recalling the days since Kalyani returned from her poll duty on 15 April, the family said she had fever and they decided to take her to hospital on 18 April after her temperature did not come down after two days.

“We approached the Akbarpur district hospital first, but were turned away. We then went to Isha hospital in Jaunpur, JP Dubey hospital in Shahganj, Kumar Hospital in Jalalpur, Ambedkarnagar, Mayo Hospital in Jalalpur, Sunita Hospital in Jaunpur, Trauma Center in Jaunpur and Sadar Hospital in Jaunpur one by one, but there was no bed anywhere. We ran from pillar to post for three days. Precious time was lost… After her oxygen level dropped to 40, we went for a Covid test and also arranged an oxygen cylinder,” said the father.

‘Aana toh padega, nahin toh FIR’

Ballia district, around 170 km from Jaunpur, also witnessed similar deaths. The district went to polls in the third phase on 26 April.

According to the district teachers’ association, over 10 teachers have died “mysterious deaths”.

Nirbhay Singh, a member of the association, told ThePrint: “Many had symptoms so they went to block officials to get their duties cancelled but they were threatened with FIRs and voluntary retirement.”

Sapna Gupta, 56, who had taught science as a Basic Shiksha Adhikari for years, was to retire in a few years.

“She went to her allotted polling station on 15 April for training. After returning, she started developing cough, nausea, and other symptoms. She went to the district officials along with other teachers with a request to have herself removed from poll duty but was told that she would be forced to take voluntary retirement. Her last days were in extreme pain as her health started deteriorating,” said her daughter Swati Gupta.

Sapna’s CT scan report showed signs of Covid-19, she said.

“The doctor said she is Covid positive. I got her admitted to Basantpur L2 Covid centre where she was kept for three days. I took her to a Mau hospital for further treatment as her health deteriorated, but she died there within hours,” Swati told ThePrint.

Sapna died a day before she was to do her poll duty. “If she had not gone that day for her training at the polling station, she would not get infected with the virus,” said the daughter.

Santosh Mourya, Pradesh Sanyukt Mahamantri of the Rashtriya Saikishik Mahasangh, told ThePrint: “We protested in Lakhimpur district. 2,000 teachers have decided to boycott counting duty on 2 May. 33 teachers have died in our own district.”

He added: “Their families are also infected. No help is provided to the families. No bed is being given to the ailing teachers.”

https://theprint.in/india/she-was-8...up-poll-duty-that-killed-135-teachers/648092/

 

[MP2011]

This is heart rending! How could anyone be so heartless! How could poll duty and that too in current atmosphere be so important!

 

[OldWarHorse]

The Panchayat polls are an embarrassment to be taking place right now. Currently even vaccination is stopped in areas as polling is going on these places.

 

[MenInG]

Legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar today donated Rs 1 crore to procure oxygen concentrators for Covid-19 patients in the country as it battles a severe second wave of the global pandemic.

 

[MP2011]

WB polls too finished yesterday. As Madras HC said EC has blood on its hands.

Apparently, outgoing election commissioner is in line to become governor of either Goa or some North Eastern state. I see he is being suitably rewarded for his services to feku and his lust for power. An apt example of quid pro quo!

 

[MenInG]

Police in India's capital Delhi have asked local authorities to identify more sites for cremations.

A ferocious second wave is ravaging parts of India, overwhelming hospitals, morgues and crematoriums.

The total number of Covid cases passed 18 million on Thursday with 386,452 infections recorded - the biggest one-day increase on record for any country.

More than 390 deaths were in Delhi, the highest the capital has ever seen in a single day since the pandemic began.

"Deaths in the city are mostly related to Covid and due to shortage of space, people are being forced to cremate their loved ones in crematoriums not designated to take victims of Covid. That's why we suggested more crematoriums should be set up," a senior Delhi police officer said according to the NDTV news channel.

Oxygen, medicine and hospital beds continue to be in short supply, with people making pleas on social media to find some for their loved ones.

India's central government is facing mounting criticism of its handling of the pandemic, and for allowing election rallies and religious festivals to go ahead.

But the health minister defended the government on Thursday, saying the country's fatality rate is the lowest in the world and that oxygen supplies were "adequate".

Harsh Vardhan told ANI news agency that oxygen was now "being made available from many sources" including those from abroad, and that storage and cryogenic tankers were also being prepared.

image captionOxygen and hospital beds continue to be in short supply, with people making pleas on social media for their sick relatives
Experts say lockdowns and vaccinations are the only way out.

On Saturday, all adults above the age of 18 in India will become eligible for vaccination. But although India is the world's biggest producer of vaccines, it does not have enough stocks for the estimated 800 million people who will become eligible.

Multiple states are already reporting shortages of the vaccine.

India's financial capital Mumbai, home to more than 20 million people has suspended its vaccination drive for three days due to "depletion of available vaccines", the civic body said in a statement.

The municipal commissioner of Mumbai, Ashwini Bhide, said on Twitter that the city would reserve current stocks for people aged over 45 years old.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56939011

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

There is SO MUCH anger in me that if I had time to post in forums, I would go all out and light up these threads.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

No one said that the BJP is an answer to all of India's problems that have accumulated over the last 70 years. People voted them in because they were fed up, and BJP was the only available alternative.

People will stop voting for BJP if another viable alternative emerges.

The problem with the Indian 'liberal brigade, is that according to them, voting anyone other than their own band of incompetents amounts to 'fascism' or 'intolerance'.

And they wonder why no one takes them seriously!

lol and the problem with right wingers is they act all holier than tho putting on a patriotic facade and talk about importance of opposition when they can't

1. Slam BJP's screw ups without somehow bringing Congress in

2. Slam BJP for the horse trading they do without bringing up the incompetence of Congress (as if it makes horse trading all legal)

All they do is put on a sanctimonious show about how they care for India, how Congress is screwed and how BJP is the only alternative even when they drive the nation down the gutter.

Liberals have 1000s of issues but none of them have any issues calling out any political leader but right wingers defend their supremo (who is an out and out fraud) like they are defending God.

Absolutely hilarious and sad at the same time.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

She was 8 months pregnant, was ‘forced’ into UP poll duty that killed ‘135 teachers’

Jaunpur/Ballia: Kalyani Agrahari, 27, an assistant teacher in the first month of her job, did not want to do the panchayat election duty on 15 April. She was eight months pregnant and it would not have been easy for her to sit at one place for so long.

On 9 April, accompanied by her husband, Kalyani travelled 30 kilometres from Pataila gram panchayat to Jaunpur Vikas Bhavan to submit an application saying she would not be able to report on election duty.

“I am a primary school teacher posted at Moina Composite School in Khutahan block. I am assigned at the Panchyat Polls and my code number is 24146. Due to my critical pregnancy, I will not be able to come on duty. Therefore, it is my humble request to the district election officer to relieve me from my duty,” her application, accessed by ThePrint, read.

The trip, however, proved to be futile. She was allegedly told that she would face an FIR, and also lose salary, if she did not report to duty.

Fifteen days later, the teacher died in a Jaunpur hospital. Her death certificate said she was Covid-positive, according to her family.

Kalyani is one of the “135 teachers” who have died so far after having been deployed on poll duty in Uttar Pradesh, according to the Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh, an association of teachers affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

While there is no official record on this, the family members of the teachers ThePrint spoke to said they all had Covid or showed symptoms of the infection.

Thursday was the last day of the four-phase panchayat elections, the results of which will be announced on 2 May.

Taking cognisance of these deaths, the Allahabad High Court issued a show-cause notice to the Uttar Pradesh State Commission on 27 April, asking why action should not be taken against it and officials for not enforcing Covid protocols.

However, the Yogi Adityanath government has said in a statement that it did not want to hold the panchayat elections but it was an Allahabad High Court order that forced it to conduct it before 30 April.

Reached for a comment, Nitish Singh, SDM Sadar, Jaunpur, told ThePrint: “If someone is unwell, the person has to write to our medical committee. To relieve that person on medical grounds is a decision taken by that committee. This incident (of Agrahari) is unfortunate, I will see if I can help the family in any way.”

Kalyani was one of the 69,000 assistant teachers who were recruited in January 2021. This was her first posting, and she died even before she could get her first salary.

The job was long awaited as the matter of their appointment had been in court.

“She was having anxieties that she would not be able to sit for a long time on poll duty. I accompanied her to the Vikas Bhavan but we were told that an FIR would be registered if she refused to come on duty. We both came home disheartened. Unhone kaha nayi naukri hai, salary nahin milegi (they said it’s a new job, you won’t get salary),” Deepak, Kalyani’s husband, told ThePrint.

“She was forced to travel 32 kilometres to reach the polling station on 15 April. She spent more than 12 hours on the field. She had been feeling unwell since she came back home. After two days of fever, her condition started worsening,” Deepak added.

Kalyani also had to go to the polling station on 14 April, a day before the polls, for a training, said her husband.

The 27-year-old died on 24 April at a mahila chikitsaalay (women’s hospital), two days before their third wedding anniversary, which was on 26 April.

Agrahari’s death certificate issued by the hospital said she was Covid positive and died of cardiopulmonary arrest during treatment.

Deepak showed the last photos of his wife, lying in a semi-conscious state with oxygen support.

“She kept saying, ‘save me please’. Maine doctors ke pair pakde, gid-gidaye, par wo nahin rahi (I pleaded with the doctors to save her, but she didn’t survive). Around 11.30 am, the doctor finally came and told us that she is no more. The officials killed her. They all should be booked for criminal negligence,” Deepak said in a choked voice, adding how difficult it is for him now to come to terms with the loss of his unborn child and wife.

A few kilometres away from Deepak’s home lives Kalyani’s family — also angry, devastated and feeling “cheated”. Her 52-year-old father Suresh Kumar broke down as he spoke to ThePrint over the phone: “When they knew that she is eight-month pregnant, they could have sent me to poll duty instead of her.”

“Maine usey itna padhaya likhaya ki kuch banegi, lekin system se kya mila? Ek maut. Meri beti ki jaan panchayat vibhag ke adhikariyon ki vajah se gayi (I sent her to school and college so she could do well in life. But this system only gave us death. My daughter died because of the officials at panchayats department),” he said.

Recalling the days since Kalyani returned from her poll duty on 15 April, the family said she had fever and they decided to take her to hospital on 18 April after her temperature did not come down after two days.

“We approached the Akbarpur district hospital first, but were turned away. We then went to Isha hospital in Jaunpur, JP Dubey hospital in Shahganj, Kumar Hospital in Jalalpur, Ambedkarnagar, Mayo Hospital in Jalalpur, Sunita Hospital in Jaunpur, Trauma Center in Jaunpur and Sadar Hospital in Jaunpur one by one, but there was no bed anywhere. We ran from pillar to post for three days. Precious time was lost… After her oxygen level dropped to 40, we went for a Covid test and also arranged an oxygen cylinder,” said the father.

‘Aana toh padega, nahin toh FIR’

Ballia district, around 170 km from Jaunpur, also witnessed similar deaths. The district went to polls in the third phase on 26 April.

According to the district teachers’ association, over 10 teachers have died “mysterious deaths”.

Nirbhay Singh, a member of the association, told ThePrint: “Many had symptoms so they went to block officials to get their duties cancelled but they were threatened with FIRs and voluntary retirement.”

Sapna Gupta, 56, who had taught science as a Basic Shiksha Adhikari for years, was to retire in a few years.

“She went to her allotted polling station on 15 April for training. After returning, she started developing cough, nausea, and other symptoms. She went to the district officials along with other teachers with a request to have herself removed from poll duty but was told that she would be forced to take voluntary retirement. Her last days were in extreme pain as her health started deteriorating,” said her daughter Swati Gupta.

Sapna’s CT scan report showed signs of Covid-19, she said.

“The doctor said she is Covid positive. I got her admitted to Basantpur L2 Covid centre where she was kept for three days. I took her to a Mau hospital for further treatment as her health deteriorated, but she died there within hours,” Swati told ThePrint.

Sapna died a day before she was to do her poll duty. “If she had not gone that day for her training at the polling station, she would not get infected with the virus,” said the daughter.

Santosh Mourya, Pradesh Sanyukt Mahamantri of the Rashtriya Saikishik Mahasangh, told ThePrint: “We protested in Lakhimpur district. 2,000 teachers have decided to boycott counting duty on 2 May. 33 teachers have died in our own district.”

He added: “Their families are also infected. No help is provided to the families. No bed is being given to the ailing teachers.”

https://theprint.in/india/she-was-8...up-poll-duty-that-killed-135-teachers/648092/

Future PM of India folks.

This joker is going to go places. )

 

[MP2011]

Our health minister is perhaps biggest clown in the world. He is saying that this year we're better prepared for Covid. Well yes!

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="hi" dir="ltr">योगी जी, लखनऊ की ये बेटी आपको चुनौती दे रही है, करिए इसे गिरफ्तार l<br><br>दर्द से कराह रहा आम आदमी उत्तरप्रदेश में सड़क पर आने को आमादा है l<br><br>शहीद पथ स्थित Tender Palm Hospital: ऑक्सीजन की कमी जी जूझ रहा है,100 मरीजों की जान ख़तरे में हैं l <a href="https://t.co/D4vYkZJvi8">pic.twitter.com/D4vYkZJvi8</a></p>— Surya Pratap Singh IAS Rtd. (@suryapsingh_IAS) <a href="https://twitter.com/suryapsingh_IAS/status/1387695691653259266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 29, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Yogi Adityanath Model <br><br>1. Shamelessly lie that hospitals don't have shortage of oxygen<br>2. Fake the death count & no. of cases <br>3. Threaten hospitals for "lying" about oxygen shortage<br>4. Threaten people with NSA & Property Seizing <br><br>He's not a CM, he's a Gunda!</p>— Dhruv Rathee &#55356;&#56814;&#55356;&#56819; (@dhruv_rathee) <a href="https://twitter.com/dhruv_rathee/status/1386962333512224768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 27, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[MP2011]

Future PM of India folks.

This joker is going to go places. )

What morons are ruling us!

Congratulations to you SIF! One idiot goes (EPS) and other scamster (Stalin) comes.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

Our health minister is perhaps biggest clown in the world. He is saying that this year we're better prepared for Covid. Well yes!

A guy named SIF in his limited wisdom once said:

"Chahe jo bhi ho jaye, humiliation tho hona hi hai."

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

What morons are ruling us!

Congratulations to you SIF! One idiot goes (EPS) and other scamster (Stalin) comes.

We are blessed in TN lol.

 

[MP2011]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="hi" dir="ltr">योगी जी, लखनऊ की ये बेटी आपको चुनौती दे रही है, करिए इसे गिरफ्तार l<br><br>दर्द से कराह रहा आम आदमी उत्तरप्रदेश में सड़क पर आने को आमादा है l<br><br>शहीद पथ स्थित Tender Palm Hospital: ऑक्सीजन की कमी जी जूझ रहा है,100 मरीजों की जान ख़तरे में हैं l <a href="https://t.co/D4vYkZJvi8">pic.twitter.com/D4vYkZJvi8</a></p>— Surya Pratap Singh IAS Rtd. (@suryapsingh_IAS) <a href="https://twitter.com/suryapsingh_IAS/status/1387695691653259266?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 29, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Yogi Adityanath Model <br><br>1. Shamelessly lie that hospitals don't have shortage of oxygen<br>2. Fake the death count & no. of cases <br>3. Threaten hospitals for "lying" about oxygen shortage<br>4. Threaten people with NSA & Property Seizing <br><br>He's not a CM, he's a Gunda!</p>— Dhruv Rathee ���� (@dhruv_rathee) <a href="https://twitter.com/dhruv_rathee/status/1386962333512224768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 27, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

WhatsApp groups I'm part of, has bhakts singing paeans of how well Bisht has handled Corona in UP despite being Corona positive himself. Talk about being delusional to the core.

 

[MP2011]

We are blessed in TN lol.

One saving grace would be that at least bloody sanghis won't have any interference in TN, fingers crossed! Don't think DMK will want to have any truck with these pests who are already hugely unpopular in TN.

 

[MP2011]

2. Slam BJP for the horse trading they do without bringing up the incompetence of Congress (as if it makes horse trading all legal)

Gullible bhakts think that horse trading is done without indulging in corruption. In fact, sanghis are most corrupt political dispensation in India.

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

Is this true lol?

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

One saving grace would be that at least bloody sanghis won't have any interference in TN, fingers crossed! Don't think DMK will want to have any truck with these pests who are already hugely unpopular in TN.

I think BJP will pressurize DMK too.

They are in too many scams and I am hearing BJP can use CBI and raids against them.

Gullible bhakts think that horse trading is done without indulging in corruption. In fact, sanghis are most corrupt political dispensation in India.

My IQ drops several points when I hear argument as to how BJP is not destroying democracy. lol.

 

[MP2011]

View attachment 108917

Is this true lol?

It is absolutely true. You can check the veracity of each and every of these statements. And bhakts still want to shield these clowns!

 

[MenInG]

The bodies came, one after another, after another, after another. So many bodies that the ambulances and trucks carrying them into the crematorium blocked traffic.

In Delhi, a city where someone dies from Covid-19 every four minutes, every day is a battle not just for hospital beds but for a space to say goodbye to the dead with dignity.

The official capacity at the Ghazipur crematorium in east Delhi is 38 bodies, and before the pandemic, only once in living memory had all the funeral pyres been taken in one day. Now, as a deadly second coronavirus wave sweeps the capital, sometimes 150 bodies have already arrived by early morning. The staff have expanded operations into the car park, but its not nearly enough.

In India’s capital, the virus is showing no sign of abating. On Friday morning, Delhi registered another record-breaking 395 deaths, and 24,235 cases. Across India, the total number of new confirmed new cases was 386,693, another global record. Crematoriums are expanding at a rapid pace, attempting to increase capacity to cope with 1,000 cremations a day.

It is here, among the pyres that get rebuilt every day for the Hindu and Sikh last rites, that the devastation caused by Covid-19 in the capital is most viscerally felt. Most lost their lives because families could not get them a hospital bed, could not get them oxygen. Some got to hospitals only for the hospitals to run out of oxygen.

Sitting on the floor wearing PPE in the sweltering Delhi heat, sobbing into his hands and wiping sweat from his brow, Rakesh Kumar, 36, described how his family had driven to every hospital in Delhi and in the neighbouring city of Noida when his mother, Sumitra Devi, had begun to struggle for breath as her oxygen crashed. But the 56-year-old never got a bed, and she died on Thursday morning.

“We tried so many hospitals but even when her oxygen went down to 40% we could not get her a bed,” said Kumar. “We kept going to hospitals where we were told there was availability of beds but every time, the hospital said they were full. If we could have got her a bed or got her oxygen in time, we could have saved her. But she didn’t even get a chance to survive.”

Like many laying their dead to rest, he was angry. “The government has failed its citizens, why could it not give us the healthcare that we need?” said Kumar.

In his 30 years helping to cremate the dead, Sunil Kumar Sharma, who is the head of Ghazipur crematorium, said he had never imagined such scenes. “So many dead,” he said. “It feels like if this continues, there will be no one left in Delhi.”

Though there is supposed to be strict protocol on handling the bodies of coronavirus victims, Sharma said hospitals often sent corpses over without any protective wrapping, risking exposing his staff to the virus. Some families, he said, tried to hide that their relative had died of Covid-19.

“It’s been terrible here, and very scary,” said Sharma. “We work for 20 hours every day now. I am so tired and my soul feels broken by what is happening. People are now dumping the bodies and running away, so we have to perform the last rites instead so these bodies still have some dignity.”

The crematorium gets through 60 tonnes of wood per day. “At night, I worry about how we will handle tomorrow when more bodies come,” said Sharma. “What if there are just too many for us?”

With so many bodies being given their late rites, the air was pungent and sour, thick with the smoke of thousands of recent cremations. The smoky pyres of the day before were still scattered with some offerings, mangoes and pomegranates and bright orange holy flowers that lie in the ash; specks of life in the remnants of death. And there was grief – grief everywhere.

A woman in a dark green sari whispered prayers softly through the ambulance window, where inside her husband, who died that morning of Covid-19, lay wrapped in protective cloth. She tried to put a set of red bangles on his body, but was gently ushered away by a man in PPE trying to move the body.

Ajay Gupta howled in deep anguish as the body of his brother, JJ Ram, was brought into the crematorium and placed on to the pyre. Ram was finally admitted to hospital last week when he struggled to breathe, and had been making improvements, even video-calling Gupta from his bed. But according to the family, the hospital had run out of oxygen, and Ram had perished.

“The staff told us just a couple of days ago he would be fine,” said Gupta. Gupta also fell victim to the ruthless market that has emerged in Delhi for oxygen and drugs such as remdesivir, which are sold to desperate family members at exorbitant prices.

Gupta said he had used every penny he had to buy remdesivir for his brother on the black market for 630,000 rupees (£6,100) – more than 10 times the market price – on instruction of hospital doctors, despite questions over its use in treating Covid-19 patients.

“I feel like everything has been destroyed and a hole has been torn in my heart,” said Gupta, who, like many, turned his ire towards the government of prime minister Narendra Modi. “The central government should be blamed for my brother’s death,” he said.

Narendra Kumar, a 26-year-old ambulance driver who picks up Covid bodies every day from homes and hospitals to bring to the crematoriums, also confirmed that most people he was seeing had died from lack of oxygen. “This is a terrible job,” said Kumar. “I am so scared of infecting my family that I don’t go home any more. At the end of the day I just park my ambulance outside Ganga Ram hospital and sleep there.”

Krishnan Pal, 48, who sold the popular Indian snack pani puri in his Delhi stall, was among those who died after repeatedly being turned away from overloaded hospitals when he was struggling to breathe. His cousin, Kali Charan Kashap, said they had tried every hospital in Delhi, but could not get a bed, so they drove him to Agra, a city in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh. In Agra they were told that there were beds, but that hospitals had no oxygen. As they were driving to Bareilly, another city in Uttar Pradesh, Pal died.

“People are literally dying on the roads because they can’t breathe,” said Kashap, through choking sobs, as the family waited for Pal’s body to arrive from the morgue. “India needs oxygen so I ask this government – where is it?”

The political implications of the second coronavirus wave on Modi’s government are becoming apparent. According to the Global Leader Approval Tracker, Modi has suffered an unprecedented six-point drop in popularity in the past week, with his approval rating at its lowest ever – though still high at 67% – and his disapproval rating going up to 28%.

Many believe vaccines are the only long-term way out of India’s coronavirus crisis, but Delhi’s citizens were dealt a blow this week when the local government said plans to open up vaccinations to anyone aged 18 and over from Saturday were being delayed indefinitely because of a lack of supplies. Similar shortages are being experienced across India.

Though the Delhi state chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, said authorities would make vaccines available “as soon as possible”, several private clinics in Delhi said they were not expecting stocks for at least another month or even two.

So for now, Delhi’s crematoriums and graveyards will continue to bear the burden of death that shrouds the city every day. At Ghazipur, as the sun set and all the pyres were finally assembled, they were set alight at the same time – going up in a fiery roar of heat and pain.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/30/covid-victims-overwhelm-delhi-crematoriums

 

[MP2011]

As per someone on this forum, Sarma is perfect for Assam. I showed him the mirror and showed what's Sarma's real KPIs are despite being Assam's health minster and he still felt content with Sarma! Such is the level of gullibility of these bhakts!

 

[sensible-indian-fan]

As per someone on this forum, Sarma is perfect for Assam. I showed him the mirror and showed what's Sarma's real KPIs are despite being Assam's health minster and he still felt content with Sarma! Such is the level of gullibility of these bhakts!

Which post reg the Sarma KPIs?

-----

With all the gloom and doom, one good thing is the govt has done a good job with the CoWin website.

I know it crashed a bunch of times (due to insane loads) but the registration process for me was smooth. I was pleasantly surprised.

Good job there.

As for getting the vaccine.....

That one is utter comedy.

It has been mismanaged to the point where one feels sorry for the hospital staff. They get to deal with irate people all day for something that is out of their control.

 

[MP2011]

Which post reg the Sarma KPIs?

That he was brought in from Congress to usurp NE states by hook or by crook! Which was exactly what he did.

 

[MP2011]

With all the gloom and doom, one good thing is the govt has done a good job with the CoWin website.

I know it crashed a bunch of times (due to insane loads) but the registration process for me was smooth. I was pleasantly surprised.

In my view, vaccination shouldn't be held hostage to vagaries of technology especially during a pandemic which had already ravaged us.

It should have been walk in from the start, even door to door vaccinations especially considering how densely populated we are. I'm sure we'd have far better vaccination numbers by now had we chose this method!

 

[MP2011]

Its been 3.5 months since we started vaccination in India and astonishingly, less than 2% of us have been fully vaccinated so far!

Just extrapolate it and see it yourself, when will we be able to vaccinate the population at this rate if continue using Co Win portal for first registering oneself for vaccination.

 

[MP2011]

Baby Starved For 2 Days As Mother Lay Dead, No One Helped Fearing Covi

A baby was found next to the body of his mother who had been dead for two days inside their home near Maharashtra's Pune -- one of the countless unspeakable tragedies that have emerged in the pandemic.
No one reached out to the family fearing Covid; a stench forced the landlord to call the police to the house located in Pimpri Chinchwad.

On Monday, the police broke into the house and found the woman's body and the infant next to her. The woman was suspected to have died on Saturday, which means the 18-month-old had been without food or water all that time.

Though neighbours shrank from even holding the baby, police constables Sushila Gabhale and Rekha Waze took charge and fed him.

"I also have two children, one eight, one six. The baby felt like my own child, he drank milk very quickly as he was very hungry," said Sushila Gabhale.

Her colleague Rekha said the child was miraculously fine, except for fever.

"The child had a little fever when we showed him to the doctor. He told us to feed him well, the rest is fine. After feeding the baby biscuit with water, we took the child to the government hospital for a corona test," she said.

The baby's Covid test has turned out negative and he was shifted to a government creche.

His mother's autopsy is yet to reveal how she died and it is not known whether she had Covid.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bab...aring-covid-2425451?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

 

[MP2011]

This has left me speechless! Pandemic has made us totally heartless!

 

[Extra_Cover]

 

[Extra_Cover]

The impact of Covid is being felt thoroughly at the moment. My sincere wishes for people of India, I really hope they overcome this catastrophe.

 

[King-Misbah]

Baby Starved For 2 Days As Mother Lay Dead, No One Helped Fearing Covi

A baby was found next to the body of his mother who had been dead for two days inside their home near Maharashtra's Pune -- one of the countless unspeakable tragedies that have emerged in the pandemic.
No one reached out to the family fearing Covid; a stench forced the landlord to call the police to the house located in Pimpri Chinchwad.

On Monday, the police broke into the house and found the woman's body and the infant next to her. The woman was suspected to have died on Saturday, which means the 18-month-old had been without food or water all that time.

Though neighbours shrank from even holding the baby, police constables Sushila Gabhale and Rekha Waze took charge and fed him.

"I also have two children, one eight, one six. The baby felt like my own child, he drank milk very quickly as he was very hungry," said Sushila Gabhale.

Her colleague Rekha said the child was miraculously fine, except for fever.

"The child had a little fever when we showed him to the doctor. He told us to feed him well, the rest is fine. After feeding the baby biscuit with water, we took the child to the government hospital for a corona test," she said.

The baby's Covid test has turned out negative and he was shifted to a government creche.

His mother's autopsy is yet to reveal how she died and it is not known whether she had Covid.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bab...aring-covid-2425451?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

This is heartless, I would have fed the baby even if I died from corona later. Allah SWT says: Saving a life is like saving entire humankind. It is not good when you fear death.

 

[Itachi]

Which post reg the Sarma KPIs?

-----

With all the gloom and doom, one good thing is the govt has done a good job with the CoWin website.

I know it crashed a bunch of times (due to insane loads) but the registration process for me was smooth. I was pleasantly surprised.

Good job there.

As for getting the vaccine.....

That one is utter comedy.

It has been mismanaged to the point where one feels sorry for the hospital staff. They get to deal with irate people all day for something that is out of their control.

I already got vaccinated yesterday. fever coming and going with bodyache. The situation and management in Assam is working efficiently.

 

[finalfantasy7]

Indian states out of COVID vaccines as daily cases near 400,000


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-cDZVzZlV7Q" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[finalfantasy7]

China's vaccine: Beijing pushes for regional influence over India

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OHAWr3zbu-0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Zeshan547]

Baby Starved For 2 Days As Mother Lay Dead, No One Helped Fearing Covi

A baby was found next to the body of his mother who had been dead for two days inside their home near Maharashtra's Pune -- one of the countless unspeakable tragedies that have emerged in the pandemic.
No one reached out to the family fearing Covid; a stench forced the landlord to call the police to the house located in Pimpri Chinchwad.

On Monday, the police broke into the house and found the woman's body and the infant next to her. The woman was suspected to have died on Saturday, which means the 18-month-old had been without food or water all that time.

Though neighbours shrank from even holding the baby, police constables Sushila Gabhale and Rekha Waze took charge and fed him.

"I also have two children, one eight, one six. The baby felt like my own child, he drank milk very quickly as he was very hungry," said Sushila Gabhale.

Her colleague Rekha said the child was miraculously fine, except for fever.

"The child had a little fever when we showed him to the doctor. He told us to feed him well, the rest is fine. After feeding the baby biscuit with water, we took the child to the government hospital for a corona test," she said.

The baby's Covid test has turned out negative and he was shifted to a government creche.

His mother's autopsy is yet to reveal how she died and it is not known whether she had Covid.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/bab...aring-covid-2425451?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

I guess it's better we die than living such heartless life. It's humanity which has died.

 

[Technics 1210]

This has left me speechless! Pandemic has made us totally heartless!

To be honest this shouldn't come as a surprise. The value of human life in India was always known, Covid 19 just proves what the world knew all along.

 

[MenInG]

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian scientists appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to publicly release virus data that would allow them to save lives as coronavirus cases climbed again Friday, prompting the army to open its hospitals in a desperate bid to control a massive humanitarian crisis.

With 386,452 new cases, India now has reported more than 18.7 million since the pandemic began, second only to the United States. The Health Ministry on Friday also reported 3,498 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 208,330. Experts believe both figures are an undercount, but it’s unclear by how much.

India’s pandemic response has been marred by insufficient data and the online appeal — signed by over 350 scientists Friday afternoon — asks government to release data about the sequencing of virus variants, testing, recovered patients and how people were responding to vaccines.

The appeal says that “granular” data on testing was inaccessible to non-government experts and some government experts too. Modeling work to predict future surges was being done by government-appointed experts with insufficient information. Similarly, scientists had failed to get information that would allow them predict how many beds, oxygen or intensive care facilities would be needed, it said.

The appeal urged the government to widen the number of organizations sequencing the virus to study its evolution, and also increase the number of samples being studied. It added that restrictions on importing scientific raw materials — to make India ‘self reliant’ is a key goal for Modi and his government — was an obstacle. “Such restrictions, at this time, only serve to impede our ability to deal with COVID-19,” it said.

Meanwhile, families continued to flood social media and messaging apps with pleas for help: oxygen, beds, medicines, intensive care units and wood for funeral pyres.

India’s army chief M.M. Naravane met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday to discuss the crisis.

Naravane said the sick can approach their nearest army hospitals for help. Troops were also assisting with imported oxygen tankers and vehicles where specialized skills are required, a government statement said.

India has set a daily global record for more than a week with an average of nearly 350,000 infections. Daily deaths have nearly tripled in the past three weeks, reflecting the intensity of the latest surge.

In the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, a school teachers’ organization said that more than 550 members have died after they were infected with COVID-19 while helping conduct local council elections this month, the Times of India newspaper reported.

Experts have blamed the surge on new, more contagious virus variants and mass public gatherings such as political rallies and religious events that were allowed to continue. On Thursday, millions voted in state elections in West Bengal with little or no regard to social distancing.

In the southern state of Karnataka, Revenue Minister R. Ashoka said nearly 2,000 coronavirus patients under home care have switched off their phones and cannot be traced. Police were trying to track them as they might be seeking hospitalization on their own, he said.

In central Madhya Pradesh state, three villages in Balaghat district have pooled money to convert buildings into COVID-19 care centers. They have purchased oxygen concentrators and started admitting patients. Government doctors are visiting the facilities twice a day.

India plans to step up a faltering vaccination drive by allowing all adults 18 and older to get their jabs from Saturday. It has so far administered 150 million vaccine doses, according to the Health Ministry.

Since January, nearly 10% of Indians have received one dose, but only around 1.5% have received both, though India is one of the world’s biggest producers of vaccines.

Health Minister Harash Vardhan expressed hope that assistance being sent by over 40 countries will plug the shortage in medical supplies. The United States is sending more than $100 million worth of items, including 1,000 oxygen cylinders, 15 million N95 masks and 1 million rapid diagnostic tests.

Japan said Friday it will send 300 ventilators and 300 oxygen concentrators in response to the Indian government request. “Japan stands with India, our friend and partner,” the Foreign Ministry said.

France, Germany, Ireland and Australia have also promised help, and Russia sent two aircraft carrying oxygen generating equipment. The Indian air force also airlifted oxygen containers from Singapore, Dubai and Bangkok.

Chinese state media said the first batch of 25,000 oxygen concentrators pledged by Beijing to India also arrived Friday. There was no immediate comment by India but it could be a step in thawing tensions between the two countries.

The reports said China has already sent 5,000 ventilators and 21,000 oxygen generators to India.

https://apnews.com/article/asia-pac...rus-business-4ebe86aa3d342274c8dc6eedeb2d4b46

 

[Pascal Gambit]

Indian state opens criminal case against man appealing on Twitter for oxygen for his grandfather

The case set off a debate on twitter and invited a case against the complaint

Shweta Sharma

A criminal case has been opened against a man in India’s Uttar Pradesh after he appealed on Twitter for an oxygen cylinder for his ailing grandfather, in a controversial case related to the state government’s crackdown on people for allegedly spreading rumours over the oxygen crisis.

Shashank Yadav, 26, was charged by Uttar Pradesh police with allegedly spreading “false information” and spreading misleading information to create panic among the people, the Indian Express reported police as saying.

The case came after Yogi Adityanah, of India’s ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, and the chief of Uttar Pradesh, ordered officials to act against those who they considered to be falsely claiming oxygen shortages, reported The Hindu.

It is the first Indian state to order a crackdown on people seeking help on social media amid a raging pandemic. Mr Adityanath repeatedly claimed there is no shortage of oxygen in his state.

The deadly second wave of coronavirus has wreaked havoc across the country.

On Monday, a four word tweet by Mr Yadav prompted a formal complaint.

Mr Yadav from Amethi region issued an SOS call on Twitter on Monday, saying: “Need oxygen cylinder asap.” He tagged actor and philanthropist Sonu Sood to amplify his call for help without mentioning any details.

Later, his friend Ankit, whose second name is not known, retweeted his appeal and sent a direct message to the journalist of news website The Wire, Arfa Khanum Sherwani, to ask for help.

Ms Sherwani further amplified the tweet, tagging minister Smriti Z. Irani – a member of Parliament from Amethi town.

The minister swiftly responded to the call, saying Mr Yadav did not respond to her calls and she had alerted the authorities.

“Called Shashank thrice... no response on the number shared by you in your tweet. Have alerted office of @DmAmethi & @amethipolice to find and help the person in need,” she said.

However, by the time Mr Yadav’s grandfather had already died, Ankit informed Ms Sherwani and Ms Irani.

“Thank you for reaching out to us Smriti ma’am. Appreciate it. This is to inform you, with heavy heart, that Shashank’s Nanaji (grandfather) is no more. For now, we can only pray for the departed soul. Thank you. Thanks to khanumarfa ma’am also,” he said in a tweet.

While none of the corresponding tweets by anyone mention the ailing man had Covid-19, the police said the elderly man died of “heart attack” and booked Mr Yadav for “spreading misleading information” on coronavirus.

“Our purpose is to pass on the message that this is a crisis situation due to the pandemic and no one should create panic, sensation, and fear. You can post genuine calls for help on social media and we are bound to help you,” an official of Amethi police said in a video.

Speaking to The Independent, Mr Sherwani said hundreds and thousands of desperate messages and cries for help have been floating on social media, which is “bad PR for a government which is very conscious of its image.”

“Fearful of losing the perception game, they are cracking down on citizens who are asking for help and intimidating those amplifying these voices,” Ms Sherwani, an award-winning journalist said.

She said the government was “abdicating its duty towards the public” in a time of crisis and it is only citizens who are helping each other with whatever they have.

The police said Mr Yadav has been released following a warning and formal charges laid against him.

The Independent contacted Mr Yadav but received no response.

A public interest litigation has been filed in the case by activist Saket Gokhale to restrain the Uttar Pradesh government from taking “illegal coercive” action “to clampdown” on criticism in response to Mr Yadav’s case.

The ruling BJP government and state governments have been facing vehement criticism for its response to the coronavirus and shortages in the healthcare system.

The government has been also facing heat for the alleged cover-up of handling of Covid by asking Twitter to block posts that criticised the government or create panic by posting images of dead bodies taken out of context. About 100 posts were targeted, including some from leaders of the opposition.

While it has become a norm for people and even hospitals to raise desperate calls for help on social media platforms amid a crippling shortage of oxygen, medicines and bed, the Yogiadityanath government has denied any shortage in his state.

But fact-checking websites and reports suggested an acute shortage of beds and oxygen in Uttar Pradesh.

Solicitor general Tushar Mehta representing the government in a case on Wednesday underscored that “people are not getting beds in Uttar Pradesh due to a resurgence of the virus”.

More than 300,000 people a day have been testing positive across India for the past week, with Uttar Pradesh contributing the second-highest number of infections after Maharashtra.

The country added highest number of both, 3,293 deaths and 360,000 infections on Wednesday, taking the total death toll past 200,000 and 2.9 million active infections.

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/...38819.html?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=Feed

 

[Saj]

I get the impression that some in India are embarrassed about what is happening there regarding Covid-19? Almost as if India is a huge economy, super-state where something like Covid shouldn't be occurring.

The harsh reality is that this virus doesn't care how big your economy is or who you think you are.

 

[Bewal Express]

The tribulations of the poor in Ind are painful to watch. The image of the 2 brothers carrying the body of their mother on a motorcycle will live with me forever.

 

[Zeshan547]

The tribulations of the poor in Ind are painful to watch. The image of the 2 brothers carrying the body of their mother on a motorcycle will live with me forever.

I have seen worse, a very old man carrying her wife's body on a bicycle, and as expected fell off and he cried for hours and than thankfully police came to help and performed the rituals but no one else bothered. Seen it yesterday on one of main stream news channel in India. That broke me from inside.