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Covid-19 Shakes Many Visionary Slogans Coined for New India
- Published on 23 May 2021
(Image Courtesy: PIB)
“Leadership is About Tackling Adversity and Also Looking Beyond It.” Enlightening is this headline. It perked up an Insight on Covid published by Prime Minister’s personal website narendramodi.in on 29th May 2020.
It should stimulate national introspection as to why many things went horribly wrong during the pandemic. We should debate, without playing the blame-game, as to why many mistakes of the first wave recured with vengeance in the second wave.
As put by the article, “It is said that the true character of people comes out during adversity. It is similar for leadership. Providing leadership in times of normalcy may not be a challenge but it is difficulty that differentiates the best and the rest. Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a test of leadership. In this test, India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have set an example”.
It adds: “The clarion call of self reliance or ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’, followed by a series of historic steps taken over a period of five days, will be remembered by history as a turning point in India’s history.”
The second wave of corona virus infection has indeed put to test the public, the leadership and the institutions. The virus has also rocked vision embedded in catching slogans & schemes such as EK Bharat Shreshtha Bharat, One Nation One Market, Aatma Nirbhar Bharat, Transforming India, Swachh Bharat, Ease of Living and Ease of doing business.
Covid has indeed cast its shadow on several other grandiose slogans coined during the last seven years. The more one reads the news reports from the ground zero; the stronger becomes the evidence of fragility of slogans-driven march towards New India.
No doubt, the second wave continues to bring out the best and innovative initiatives from certain stakeholders for coping with pandemic dynamics. Steel and other process industries, equipped with captive gaseous plants, focussed their efforts on production of medical oxygen, sacrificing their normal business.
Covid-19 Torpedoes Premature Jubilation Over its Imminent Defeat
- Published on 18 April 2021
Let Truth Prevail About Vaccines – the Deemed Drivers of Economic Revival
(Image Courtesy taxindiaonline.com)
“We are in the end game of the Covid-19 pandemic in India, and to succeed at this stage, we need to follow 3 steps: Keep politics out of the Covid-19 vaccination drive, trust the science behind Covid-19 vaccines, and ensure our near and dear ones get vaccinated on time”.
The Union health minister Harsh Vardhan stated this on 7th March 2021 while addressing an annual event of Delhi doctors.
Exactly a month later, Dr. Vardhan found himself outwitted by Covid. It mutated with gay abundance at home and abroad by availing prolonged lockdown as a public-funded hospitality.
The variants of Novel Corona Virus have successfully challenged the efficacy of the vaccines especially in India. Hundreds of doctors, nurses & support hospital staff, leave aside other vaccinated persons, are down with covid disease across the country.
Even vaccinated doctors, who religiously wore masks, found themselves infected. Some suffered serious ailments with at least one - a 62-year well-known doctor, dying even after admission to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Unfortunately, news about fully vaccinated healthcare workers catching infection is being under-played by the mainstream media for obvious reasons. About 1000 healthcare workers in Lucknow tested positive for Covid over two to three weeks, causing manpower crisis in hospitals.
In a hospital at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh, a gardener was assigned the job of taking swabs as covid had infected many employees, leading to staff shortage.
All such cases of vaccinated persons need to be probed scientifically to know what is wrong with the first-generation vaccines.
Corona Virus is, no doubt, back in the driving seat of governance on many fronts excluding elections to state assemblies and local governance bodies. Covid is having a major say in both the Government’s decisions and its inactions.
World Needs A New Order To Avoid Covid-fired Debt Crisis
- Published on 22 February 2021
(Debt Wave. Edited Image Courtesy: A 2019 UNCTAD Report)
The Covid-19 virus is turning out to be more lethal than dozens of Hydrogen Bomb. Leave aside for a while human tragedy reflected in the death of a few million & health issues faced by countless survivors. Think of pandemic-linked economic destruction including steep rise in unemployment and poverty.
Worry now over the Covid-crafted foundation for the next global meltdown. This might occur in next 5-10 years, if there is no multi-facet global cooperation. The West should take the lead in debt restructuring & fair global trade in all spheres.
According to Global Risks Report 2021 released last month, “businesses might suffer future paralysis or collapse under debt obligations. Reports already predict defaults on a significant proportion of public and private loans in Brazil, India, and the United Kingdom. Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS) respondents echo these concerns: ‘asset bubble burst’ and ‘debt crises’ appear as critical threats in the medium term”.
The Virus coaxed regimes to embrace lockdowns, pushing the global economy into unprecedented contraction. Lockdowns thus wiped out the income gains of 10 years in several developing countries. The lockdowns also exacerbated other diseases such as tuberculosis and AID due disruption in non-covid healthcare services.
As put by the World Bank President, David Malpass, Covid has “knocked more economies into simultaneous recession than at any time since 1870. It has ended a two-decade streak of steady global progress in poverty reduction, pushing up to 150 million people into extreme poverty by 2021”.
Time to Rescue Fiscal Responsibility from Ritualism
- Published on 21 February 2021
India is Living Dangerously Beyond its Means
(Edited Image. Courtesy: RBI)
Fiscal Responsibility has proved to be a revolving door for the successive regimes at the Centre. It is a special door from where the economy is unable to either take off to sustainable, double-digit growth or slip into abyss.
Covid-19 pandemic, and the resulting lockdowns, have thus brought fiscal discipline back to square one. The yet-to-stabilize situation has pushed India to the danger zone with estimated fiscal deficit (FD) touching record 9.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020-21.
The previous peak FD of 8.16% occurred in 2008-09 post global financial meltdown-led fiscal stimulus. This is actual FD computed by CAG and different from what was reported in the budget documents.
The general government debt (Centre & States’ explicit borrowings) has touched 90% of GDP, well above globally acceptable prudent level of 60%. The actual debt might be higher by a few percentage points as India does not have accurate, timely data on all government borrowings raised by different tiers of Government.
The Union Budget for 2021-22, coupled with the report of the 15th Finance Commission (15thFC), offers Modi Government a rare opportunity to start afresh in a challenging milieu. The two documents also serve as trigger for the States to review their fiscal framework. 15thFC has lined up slew of fiscal initiatives for the States.