The World Health Organization on Monday classified a coronavirus mutation first detected in India as a “variant of concern” for global health, warning that it appears to be more contagious than other strains. Experts believe the variant, formally known as B.1.617, could be a key driving force behind the devastating coronavirus surge in India, which has been reporting more than 300,000 new[Read More...]
One does not see disturbing images of oxygen and bed shortage in Mumbai as are being seen from other cities during the Covid crisis. But he well-organised media hype over Mumbai’s handling of Covid is likely to give a very misleading picture to the outside world that all is well in the Metropolis.The picture is far from rosy. It is[Read More...]
US announcement to discuss IPR relaxation came as Modi regime, a QUAD ally, was gasping for political breath after election setbacks, and an oxygen crisis in India. In a sudden change of heart, US announced, towards the end of April 2021, that it may relent on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) restrictions and may lift the ban on export of raw materials[Read More...]
There is a general air of malaise at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). Approximately 43 professors – both serving and retired – have lost their lives due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The rate of deaths is dizzying – 18 serving teachers have died in merely 20 days. In addition, an undisclosed number of non-teaching staff have also died of the infection. Perturbed by these macabre conditions, Vice-Chancellor[Read More...]
It is now painfully clear that the Government of India has been woefully underprepared for the second wave of COVID-19. The resulting misgovernance [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, 9] is precipitating the announcement of partial or total lockdowns in various states to break the chain of infections. Like last year, informal workers have been left to fend for themselves and among them migrant workers[Read More...]
In early 2020, the Coronavirus took all countries by surprise, causing the first Covid storm (Covid-1). Even countries with a sound public health infrastructure struggled to manage the crisis arising from system overload. It was well understood world-over that the three rules of masking-distancing-hygiene were vital primary measures. Lockdowns were announced, and understood as only a means to check Covid[Read More...]
The dance of death continues and it is extremely difficult to see people dying in pain without any dignity given to them even in death. Will India ever remember this holocaust which has not yet stopped even as we are nearing to two lakh fifty thousand deaths which is actually official figure but the real figure may be much higher.[Read More...]
To Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Finance Minister With the daily new Covid cases exceeding 4 lakhs and the daily number of deaths exceeding 4,000, with nationwide shortages in terms of ambulances, hospital beds, ICU facilities, ventilators, Oxygen and even cremation space, and in view of the nationwide shortage of vaccines, people are losing their patience, looking for immediate corrective steps[Read More...]
It was a scene which will forever be etched in the memory of millions the world over: on May 25 2020, on a street in Minneapolis, US- a white police officer Derek Chauvin, had his knee pressed down on the neck of a black American George Floyd. This continued for more than nine minutes. An excruciating bystander video(which immediately went[Read More...]
All media is filled with the news of death. All social media timelines are overwhelmed with accounts of suffering, pain and loss. Pictures of pyres burning that are splashed across front pages and captured by drones have developed the power to instantly dispatch across miles, to our very private corner, the smell of burning flesh caught in thick rolls of[Read More...]
