Documenting 21st Century - India and the World

Indian Government has started relaxing the lockdown and reopening economy while Covid-19 pandemic rages in full swing in the country. Here in Delhi, which has among the highest cases in the country, the Govt has allowed the opening of market places, shopping malls, private businesses and offices. The Govt will also open temples, mosques, restaurants, hotels etc next week. Schools, Colleges & educational institutions will be likely opened next month. All this reopening is done in the middle of rapidly spreading Covid-19 pandemic. This is in complete contrast to Covid-19 response strategy of most of the developed countries where reopening of economy is done only after Covid-19 spread is under a reasonable control. I wrote almost 2 months ago that India's Lockdown measures will not be able to stop Covid-19 spread and briefly explained the reasons in post few days ago.   Firstly, its important to understand that Covid-19 progression and the results of Lockdown strategy is v...

India will extend Covid-19 Lockdown with some relaxations. But India's Covid-19 response to control the virus has largely failed. India comprises of almost 20% population of the world and perceived as world's largest Democracy. The impact of Covid-19 spreading uncontrollably in India will mean tremendous economic and human loss. ICMR, Health Ministry, News media and many experts talk about "Flattening of Curve" regarding Coronavirus situation. Its unsurprising that most Politicians as well as news media are unaware of technicalities of Covid-19 curve so they make all kind of wrong statements and assertions. But unfortunately,  even experts of ICMR and AIIMS also make illogical statements about Covid-19 in India. Flawed and Erroneous Covid-19 Model of Niti Aayog predicted new cases falling to zero by May 16 Image - Indian Express Understanding general Covid-19 curve - Concept of Flattening of Curve Lets understand some facts on Coronavirus and its cu...

Recently, Central and State Governments have started cutting salaries, pensions and other benefits of Govt employees and pensioners. These policies are direct result of Central Govt decisions - cutting salary of Central Govt employees and not disbursing adequate funding to States in this times of crisis. State Governments which are revenue constrained have no choice other than to implement salary cuts policies. How to best describe these Austerity policies implemented by Central Government? Its like this - Central Govt has absolutely no clue on policy making in times of Covid-19 crisis. But to give an impression that they are doing something, they are taking these senseless decisions of salary and pension cuts. Indian Economy in massive contraction - Unprecedented Macroeconomic uncertainty - Collapse of Revenue and Tax Collection The situation with economy is critical. There is a massive slowdown in economy due to lockdown as businesses, factories and services by private as we...

Some people equate the large scale public health crisis as a war with Coronavirus. A war which requires mass mobilization of healthcare resources and workforce. A war which requires major re-planning of economy, healthcare system and even changing social & cultural habits. But to fight a conventional military war, a country must know and understand the enemy. What is the capacity, strength, behavior and nature of the enemy? Every war is fought on basis of this information and intelligence. First and foremost, India's response strategy on Coronavirus needs to be based on data. Data about infections, death rate, level of community transmission, percentage of Asymptomatic people etc. And more detailed data in terms of medical research and understanding of Coronavirus like efficacy of drugs & treatment strategies. This Data will become the underlying basis of our response strategy. Hence a large scale testing is the MOST essential requirement for formulating Coronavirus res...

India did not prepare for Coronavirus crisis in January, February and early March. As a result, India paid the price as Coronavirus will likely become an epidemic in India. India did not implement initial containment strategy - Large scale testing and aggressive quarantine measures in early days. India did not prepare for building a stockpile of Testing kits, N95 Masks, PPEs, Ventilators and other medical supplies.  Lockdown was unplanned and unprepared exercise by Modi. As i explained in earlier articles, India has very different socioeconomic conditions and population dynamics compared to western world & developed countries, so "flattening of curve" measures won't be much effective in India. Even otherwise, the lockdown only makes sense when you can identify the infected people and separate them from rest of the population. But without large scale testing, India is flying blind or sleepwalking in this crisis. You cannot fight your enemy which you can't see it. ...

US is hit by worst public health crisis in its recent history. The Coronavirus pandemic in US has infected hundreds of thousands of people and killed thousands in just last few days. The crisis is developing right now and its projected that as much as 100,000 people may die in very near future. The crisis has also caused massive economic and social catastrophe in America. US, when hit by 9/11 terror attacks, ordered a federal commission, to investigate the attacks, identify military & intelligence shortcomings and provide real account of the tragedy. US under Trump Administration has been hit by Coronavirus crisis which all experts warned in advance. The mismanagement, bungling and lack of preparation by US federal Government is visible on many things. US Congress should pass legislation to create Coronavirus federal Commission for investigation of Coronavirus situation. The Commission should be comprised of technocrats from field of Science, Medicine, Economics and Intelli...

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...