Modi struggles to keep up Corona Virus like Putin-Mohindru
Dr Pankaj Mohindru
Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation second time in just six days time and announced a complete lockdown of 21 days for the entire country. Modi also said that if India does not manage the lockdown for these 21 days then India will be pushed back by 21 years.
The whole world including Government of India was alerted on 31st Jan 2020 about this global health emergency due to COVID 19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) when hundreds of people were killed in China in the month of January 2020 due to the wide spread of this epidemic.
Another developing country Russia recorded its first case way back in January but the number of confirmed corona virus cases in Russia are still less than 500. Russian President Putin managed to stop the mass spread of Corona virus with his aggressive measures and strategies. Russia’s early response measures were shutting down its 2,600-mile border with China as early as on January 30. Russia having population of around 14.6 Crore started testing the suspects literally at the end of January. Russia also took a broader set of measures by identification of COVID cases, tracing their further contacts etc and then the social distancing was the second module that was also started relatively early.
Dr Mohindru, expressed his disagreement over the government current policy of limited testing of COVID 19 suspects and is advocating mass screening of patients with the involvement of private labs and hospitals throughout the country.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced a relief package to help fight the Covid-19 outbreak. She said the relief package is aimed at shielding the poor during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Already, Modi announced Rs 15000 crore to strengthen healthcare infrastructure to fight corona virus in India but there was no mention of economic package for poor & daily wage earners. It is out of the ordinary that a state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of Kerala announced Rs 20,000 crore revival package to overcome the economic meltdown due to Covid19 for a population of just 3.5 Crore.
There was no economic stimulus in his address to the nation of more than half an hour for crore of daily wagers, labourers, taxi drivers, auto drivers, hawkers etc who depend only on day’s earning and he overlooked survival of small businessmen and how they would pay salaries to their staff. It was feared that people living in slums would have come to roads for food in thousands. There would have been rapid increase in crimes and which could have lead to a civil war due to hungers.
Preneet Kaur, (Former MOS for External Affairs) & sitting Member of Parliament from Patiala demanded centre’s immediate intervention in form of temporary aid or resource package towards poor & daily wage earners who were being impacted most adversely. She emphasized the urgent need to be sensitive towards our fellow citizens who survive on their daily income in her speech in lower house on 20th March 2020.
The Punjab, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh also asked PM Modi for fiscal package to combat COVID 19 crisis. The Punjab CM has also asked the PM to allow payment of wages to all MGNREGA workers, even if they are unable to come to work due to preventive measures that have been put in place. The CM has suggested that food stocks currently stored in Punjab godowns should be distributed to the poor “whose earnings were impacted due to the Corona virus outbreak instead of letting them rot in the storage areas”.
Dr Mohindru, Chairman Human Rights Cell, Punjab Congress said to the press that union government ignored the corona virus outbreak threat in the country and failed to take drastic precautionary steps like Russia at the right time and delayed the execution of a solid defensive action plan like closing down India’s border to foreigners with some exceptions. Modi led BJP government has put the whole country in the tight corner now. Civil Aviation Ministry slept till 22nd March 2020 for grounding International flights and there could have been a countrywide ban on international flights in last two months. One report by the government of Punjab revealed that around one lakh Non-Resident Indians (NRI) was allowed to enter in Punjab in the month of March only.
The spokesman of WHO has given statement in an interview to BBC in this week, that suffering nations can’t simply lockdown their societies to defeat corona virus and adding that substantial public health measures are desirable to defeat Corona virus. It is questionable that how many testing and screening facilities were created in the country by union government in last two months. It is again insisted to the government that testing facilities need to be scaled up without delay to find out patients who are actually sick with the virus and then to quarantine them absolutely for few weeks.
The writer-Dr. Pankaj Mohindru (Columnist) is a Professor in Punjabi University, Patiala and is an expert in the field of Human Resource Management and Artificial Intelligence and is guiding research in this field.
(The views expressed are personal)
March,26,2020
