Documenting 21st Century - India and the World

India is not like western countries and developed nations where majority of people have job security, income security, food security, shelter and a robust welfare system that protects people in case of crisis. India's social welfare system is weak. A lot of the population are daily wage earners (Rikshaw pullers, construction workers, vendors, hawkers, small self employed businesses etc), homeless and poor, people outside of social safety net and living hand to mouth without any savings. Social distancing which is a privilege in western countries is impossible to be applied in much of the India due to real and practical constraints. Now India is facing public health crisis due to Coronavirus pandemic. To tackle this crisis, Govt has to take several social and economic measures to control the spread of disease. Decisions like lockdowns, shutdown of public services, shutdown of transport, factories, offices etc, imposing curfews and movement restrictions are some of the decisions ...

I should've written this article one week ago. The chaos of migrant crisis of poor & daily wage labors exodus from urban cities to their rural villages is happening in full swing in India. The Social distancing preached by Prime minister is thrown out of the window. But the situation can be even worse, there could be massive stampedes and food riots as hundreds of thousands of people are marching on roads without money and food to reach their homes. Their homes is hundreds of miles away. These are some of the things Govt should do immediately. And Prime Minister & Chief ministers of all states and UTs should announce these measures immediately on national TV and Radio. 1. Govt will provide FREE transport of Buses and Trains to people who want to return to their villages and up to the last mile connectivity. This transport facilities will be provided orderly and quickly to all people. And 500 Rs and 1000 Rs Travel allowance will additionally be given to individuals and ...

As Coronavirus is spreading across India, many experts believe that India is already at stage of Community transmission and which may eventually lead to virus becoming epidemic. Its time Indian Govt should identify critical areas of economy and ensure the continuity of essential services. All Govt institutions, departments, employees and connected bodies of these critical areas should be kept fully functional & running without any disruption. The workers employed in these areas should be declared emergency workers whether they are in Govt sector or private sector. As virus spreads, our workforce on front lines of public services (like Doctors & medical workers etc) will be in fear of their personal safety and also in social and financial insecurity about getting infected with Coronavirus. These workers, in Govt as well as private sector, should be given full health coverage, treatment & life insurance on top priority basis. To address fears of any financial inse...

As Coronavirus spreads in India, i haven't seen a clear action plan or policy from the government to tackle this emergency. So far there has been usual public health warnings, creation of some special wards in Govt hospitals and Air travel ban etc. But what is the action plan to decisively neutralize this threat? By action plan, i mean measures like those taken in China and South Korea, that will bring an END to Coronavirus situation. I have some possible ideas and solutions (all of them will come at great costs) which i will discuss in coming articles. But to address some immediate concern about testing kits and large scale initial action plan of containment. This is what i think. ICMR / Health Ministry / Govt is not doing large scale testing right now. Maybe because of shortage of testing kits. Maybe they genuinely believe that Coronavirus is NOT yet in community transmission stage in India so a large scale testing is not needed. Here i like to talk about Some acti...

As Coronavirus hits US, the lack of preparedness is quite visible on part of US Govt. I would say that this lack of preparedness is a direct result of failure at the top of the Chain - that is the Trump's white house. At least since Early January, Trump knew (or should have known) that a crisis may be coming if Coronavirus reaches America. But he did not prepare any strategy for this eventuality. There has been all kind of lapses like botched up evacuation of Americans from Wuhan as the medical staff involved in that effort lacked proper training & protective equipment. Then CDC had no testing kits even when this is the most critical stage to control & contain the infection in its early days (in my opinion, US should have had at least 1 million testing kits on standby). Then there was confusion over treatment & testing costs, confusion over insurance coverage, confusion over eligibility of testing etc. There were all kinds of problems. The errors and mistakes continu...

Coronavirus has already wrecked the economy of China where a large scale factory closure has happened and manufacturing has plummeted to all time low, even lower than 2008 great recession. As Coronavirus spreads worldwide, many other countries are facing economic slowdown and trying to implement various stabilizing measures. In US, the Central Bank has cut interest rates by 50 basis points to support the economy. Similar measures are also taken by other central banks. But there is a fundamental problem with these usual monetary stimulus decisions. Many countries see economy from single dimensional point of view - its like a scenario where you have a hammer and see every problem as a nail. Whenever there is a slowdown, the countries run towards lowering of interest rates. Donald Trump in US, in last several days asked Federal Reserve to cut interest rates which Fed obliged. But it looks like that Trump did not even understand the underlying crisis of economy. Similar conclusion can b...

Coronavirus outbreak has spread in many countries across the world. There are Scientists, Doctors, Epidemiologists & other experts in the field who are projecting that 40% to 70% of global population will be infected and there will be fatality rate in range of 0.5% to 4%. While 80% of People face mild symptoms, there will be 5% of patients who will face critical conditions like Respiratory failure, Cardiac arrest, Organ failures etc. The risk posed by the disease will be more for older people & people with underlying medical conditions like Heart disease and Diabetes. These patients facing critical conditions need urgent medical attention and also need to be quarantined to avoid spreading of infection. India has a high population and a low Doctor to population ratio. India also has acute shortage of Hospitals, Hospital Beds and other critical infrastructure. In scenario of major outbreak of Coronavirus in India, the healthcare system of Govt will be massively overloaded. ...

Coronavirus has finally reached India. Indian Govt needs to prepare an action plan considering all eventualities & scenarios. Some underlying facts of Coronavirus (hereafter refereed as covid 19) Coronavirus has two main features. High infection rate and causing significant number of people requiring critical medical attention. The Death rate of Covid 19 is not ascertained but is estimated to be between 2-5%. 80% of People infected only have mild symptoms, 15% get moderate symptoms while 5% face critical life threatening symptoms. The virus poses more risk to older people, children & people with underlying health conditions like Heart disease & Diabetes. This virus has no cure as of yet. India will face a major outbreak if Convid-19 reach a critical level, after which containment will not be possible. The virus has exceptionally high rate of transmission and spreads rapidly as seen in Wuhan, China. India should carefully analyze the below mentioned issues and prepare a...