Hundreds have died. Thousands more are dogged by respiratory illness and other diseases. The long term impact on their health is still unknown. They have spent a fortune on medical treatment while losing jobs and incomes. They are deeply upset at the lack of state support to get over the crisis. This is a description of the woes of residents[Read More...]
The district administration roped in village chiefs, self-help women’s groups, doctors and other local influencers to alleviate fear, misconceptions in Masalia Block. Dumka: Rubaya Kisku (60), a senior citizen from the Santhal Adivasi community, appeared content after getting his COVID-19 jab at a vaccination centre in Masalia Block of Jharkhand. His daughter-in-law, Turki Murmu, who had accompanied him, said[Read More...]
In this series of interviews Covid Response Watch brings you the voices of doctors, health workers, social activists and others, working at the grassroots, speaking about the multiple impacts of the Covid pandemic on the lives of ordinary Indian citizens. Some aspects of the Covid disaster are new and unprecedented but many of them are also a continuation of the[Read More...]
Why should a country in the grip of a deadly wave of Covid-19, with people dying all around, remember the Emergency, a nationwide suspension of democracy, that happened almost half a century ago? One simple but somewhat trite answer is, those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it. A follow up is ‘Oops! We learned nothing from[Read More...]
On 2 June 2021, Odisha Chief Minister Navin Patnaik wrote a letter to all chief ministers urging them to “unite and form a consensus that the Centre should procure Covid vaccines and distribute them free to the States.” With this rallying call, Navin Patnaik, waded into the controversy between the central and state governments over who should foot the bill[Read More...]
Most parts of the Indian sub-continent are so highly populated and poor that the negative impact of even one large natural disaster could linger on for generations. Sundarbans, tucked between the Bay of Bengal coast of the Indian State of West Bengal and neighboring Bangladesh, has had three disasters in quick succession over the last one year. Apart from the[Read More...]
Pauri: When the second wave of COVID-19 gripped Kui village in Pokhra Block of Pauri district, Uttarakhand, it unleashed paranoia among the villagers. “Most of the locals had fever, cough, cold and loose motions. Yet, they refrained from getting tested, fearing that if they turned out to be positive, the health department officials would take them to the hospital. They[Read More...]
Written by Shirish Khare & B.Sivaraman The Covid-19 pandemic has wrought a severe crisis in education across India due to prolonged closure of schools and the high costs of online education. Interestingly, it has also given momentum to several ongoing and new experiments in alternative schooling, especially aimed at rural and underprivileged students. Though it is still too early to[Read More...]
During lockdown, the ban on sand mining in the Matigara block of Siliguri in West Bengal has left over 2000 labourers struggling to make ends meet. Siliguri: In the Matigara block of Siliguri, West Bengal, over 2000 labourers who are solely dependent on the sand lifting business along the Balasun river, believe if COVID-19 won’t kill them, hunger definitely will.[Read More...]
