Covid-19 in India & the virtual collapse of system of governance under “Bikash Purush” 2.0
The devastating second wave and mammoth crisis in India of Covid-19 pandemic, the paucity of data in Covid infected patients and death rates, fixed political narratives set by politics led media houses made the 70 year full proof system failed drastically.
Irrespective of the discrepancies in data, disinformation and distortions caused by overload of misinformation and fake information, and failure in analyzing the best predictive models and cluster analysis, multi dimensional crisis, economist Shamika Ravi warned the nation in February that India is in the initial stage of exponential growth in Covid cases, and in March also warned that the Covid 2nd wave was upon us. Besides, a forum of scientific advisors to Govt. of India (who directly reports to the PMO, India’s SARS-CoV-2 Genetics Consortium or INSACOG) warned in early March, of a new and contagious double mutant variant of Corona virus, called, E484Q, L452R (and the latest variant added to this is P681R which is causing increased tissue damage and more pathogens), taking hold in the country (as per Reuters). But irrespective of all warnings, Union Govt. specifically our one man leader PM became “Dhrutarastra of Mahabharat” in supporting and spreading out own Hindutwa agenda and expansion of own political base in different state elections, but, did not take care of the mass spreading of the different mutants of virus. The major reason is the first priority of winning elections politically for building a Congress Mukt Bharat and at the same time promoting Hindutwa agenda. Millions of unmasked hindu bhakts are allowed to attend Kumbh from all parts of countries helped reaching the virus in the remotest part of the states. Tens of millions bhakts gathered in political rallies headed by our charismatic leader NAMO followed by the oppositions without masks helped the virus in developing a new mutant called Bengal mutant, the best gift given to the Country people by their beloved leaders. Union Govt’s failure to resolve the issues of farmer protest at Singur border helped the virus in catalyzing its presence to some extent in and around the capital city. And now it is the time of question that whose fault is this ?????? Definitely, we the citizen of India, most of whom are educatedly uneducated, last year who blamed Muslim Jamatis, this year adopted same for own Hindutwa, and after all selecting an autocratic government in disguise of democratic system, who never allows protests, but still people start protesting…all of which seems unfruitful in present scenario, like CAA protest, farmers protest, protest against hike in price of petroleum products, protest for getting a hospital bed somewhere or protect for unavailability of oxygen to a family member suffering from Covid … just to list a few.
Why the self declared “Bikash Purush” need to be blamed for this ??
It is the naked truth that, India got its charismatic leader Prime Minister who is the only one man show. Week knowing all the warnings from all advisory groups, the PM declared openly the premature victory over Covid and also believed in his own words without taking all warnings to faith which is reflected in all his doings like without mask, addressing huge rallies breaking the Covid-19 protocols and encouraging public in violating the Covid-19 protocols also, permitting Kumbh without Covid-19 guidelines implementation and so many. In each state election, the same leader is protected as “Bikaash Purush”, starting from lower tier Panchayat Elections to State level legislative elections, who pushed the country to this death zone. In Union Govt. also, no Indians can see the role of other ministries, even all other ministries waiting the final approval of PMO which lead to inaction of setting up oxygen plants in last 8 months. Prior, the present Govt. has already abolished Raliway budget and ministry as an independent one, and hardly any one now can name different central ministers of important ministries like agriculture, railways, civil aviation, industry etc , even, the present Vice Chairman of Niti Ayog, I, doubt anybody can answer. So, if all the success list will go to the credit of so called Bikash Purush, then why not the failures will be credited to the account of same Bikash Purush ??? I know, the blind educatedly uneducated Andh Bhakts will not agree with me… but this is not a canard.
This national catastrophe is self inflicted by the present union govt. Some useless models suggested falsely that India reached herd immunity which leads to encouraging complacency and insufficient preparations. More to add this foolishness, the govt. allowed religious festivals and gathered millions of people through political rallies. The mathematical models prepared by advisors to the Prime Minister went wrong every time and changing frequently. On 7th may the nation added 414188 new cases and 3915 deaths with most of the crematoriums and hospitals counting tokens to get their relatives turn on. It is unofficially found that, the actual death rate is 10times the numbers reported by Govt. machineries, which failed in predicting the wave perfectly by considering the time series and cross sectional data of covid affected, hospitalized and deaths in different states and as a whole in India.
Why the system is made to fail ? Is it planned or spontaneous one ?
I think, everything is planned. And particularly though, this case is a spontaneous one, but it is the result of cumulative planned effort by present Govt. Some readers may object, but I believe so. First the planning commission has been abolished and NITI Ayog has been established….who is not doing any planning for coming 5 years as like ex-Planing Commission. And now the country is running with NITIs without any planning. Now the country is not having any targets for coming 5 years…. That is the reason, during the stinct of 5 years of Atalji, the golden quadrilateral has been gifted to India and during last 7 years, not 2 rivers are connected….no new AIIMS completed….no new infrastructure developed except now going on Central Vista… and so on.
During last 7 years how many chiefs of Niti Ayog and how many economic advisors have resigned starting from Amitabh Kant to ARving Bal subramaniam… just to name a fews… India failed to keep the bests as its intellectuals…. What may be reason…..readers can guess.
Govt. promoted Make in India campaign but it has been made a successful failure intentionally and the reason is just a simple one can see. We banned China products but India is having the highest imports from China which is increasing year on year….but we Indians are satisfied with big slogans…. big commitments…..without trying to visualize what is happening with us…..in the disguise of hindutwa.
Niti Ayog failed in its NITis, all autonomous organizations failed in delivering their individual autonomy, education system is spoiled intentionally in the name of Covid, Govt. can ask doctors to attend Covid duty but for those doctors aspiring for Post Graduate Studies to appear exam online is risky due to Covid as there is chances of getting infected….but doing Covid duty will not let them Covid affected…..evolution of a newer system of online exams which helped students to google parallelly in getting answers and helped a fail student get more than 80% marks…everything planned or spontaneous… is the question to analyze.
Why I opine, why this is the collapse of the System ?
If we can analyze the Covid situation in the country in today’s context, we can see the Govt. failed in all fronts. Say, arranging mass testing for Covid affected ones (as there is less supply of testing kits), arranging beds for patients, distributing oxygen as per projected demand, facilitating ventilators, oxygen concentrators, failed in sufficient supply of Remdesivir like life saving injections, failed in supplying vaccines, lastly, but not least in arranging crematoriums for died patients…. And for this who can be blamed for ?
Let’s analyze some major factors of failure of system which need to be rethinked…..
What is the present Oxygen Policy and why need to be changed ?
The union govt has fortmed a committee comprising of one member from Niti AYog, Director-AIIMS new Delhi, DG of ICMR, and DGHS having additional members nominated from All India Industrial Gasses Manufacturers Association, Petroleum and explosives Safety Organisation, Ministry of Road Transport and Indian Railways. A policy for oxygen demand is formulated, according to which, states are allocated according to their bed strengths. As per the formula, 50% of the NON-ICU beds need 10 litre of Oxygen per minute while ICU beds require 24 litrs per minute. But in this 2nd wave of the pandemic when most of the Covid affected patients , who are suffering from hypoxemia (less than 94 SPO2 level) , and running from pillar to posts to get admitted in any hospital and dying outside the hospital due to non availability of beds and ICU facilities, they also require oxygen support outside the calculations. Besides, when each state govt are opening new Covid care centres to admit the serious patients these new beds are not included in the present oxygen policy.
Why I am not supporting the ICMR’s latest move for no re-testing of Post Covid + ve patients ?
According to a report by Scientists of Texas A& M University and Global Health Research Complex, a new variant of Covid-19 virus named as BV-1, (of Brazos Valley origin and found in Texas) that, this new strain is causing a longer period infection in younger people as some reports come positive even after 20 days of medications as well as quarantines. So without further research, allowing the Cov +ve patients after 2-3 weeks of medications or quarantine period to move around in public, assuming them as Covid –ve, to what extent plausible it is, is the question of the time.
Why I am opposing the vaccination Policy of Centre ?
In USA, the Vaccination for Covid-19 is complete free, and it is a well known fact that, USA is not a developing country, but a developed one. Their healthcare is highly privatized and still they made Vaccination free. Contradictorily, India has abandoned its decades long policy for free universal vaccination
The population between 18-44 years in India is projected at 595 millions and for 2 dosages of vaccination, there is a requirement of 1190 million doses. If the Central Govt. purchases vaccine @ Rs.150/- dosage, it need 17850 Crore for Vaccination for its young populations which is still less than the expenses allocated for the Central Vista project of Prime Minister. The Central Vista project was not so important and was not the need of the hour. But, to transform present India to a New India, as per the slogan of Prime Minister, India need a Central Vista project as against the life of its Citizens. This is the history. When Tajmahal is made, Konark is made, history says only Citizen has sacrificed their life and money for these monuments and after 70 years of independence we are now in a squire one and standing at the same point from where we have started our journey for independence. This is the fate of our people most of whom are educatedly uneducated. Remembering the slogan of Prime Minister in 2014 to make a New India, now I really feel that, we are standing at the door step of a New India where India after 70 years of independence going to garland a New form of democracy in the disguise of dictatorship, a new Hindu kingdom and many more new things of old history to be repeated again as a cycle and the punch line “History Repeats it self” is going to be true punch line, ever a bitter truth. According to SII’s Poonawala, the subsidized price of Covishield is Rs.150/- to 160/- per dose, and the company was not selling at the cost price but was making a profit. So, in such cases, pricing the vaccine at Rs.400/- now for states and Rs.600/- for private hospitals is the question. Means the company used to make 200%-300% and more profit in each dose of vaccine it sales. In spite of sanctioning advance of 3000 cr to SII and 1500 Cr to Bharat Biotech to ramp up manufacturing facilities, fixing the price by making more than 200% profit by the companies and there is no interference of Central Govt. in price regulation, to what extent is it plausible is the question of the hour???
Another policy of the Govt. is to levy GST on Vaccine @ 5% which move is being opposed by different Chief Ministers of States. But this request is rejected by the Finance Minister as she claims that, if GST will not be charged, then the price of the Vaccine will be more as the manufacturers will not get their input tax credit. So, Finance Minister has annoyed this demand of the states. Contradictorily the states demand was that, to wave the GST on the entire supply chain of vaccines and to notify the vaccine as “zero rated supply” where refund of input tax will be available to the manufacturer and the price will be automatically decreased. Here the question arises, does the Finance Minister not aware of this calculation so that the end users can get the benefits directly which will alternatively puts less pressure on the finance of states going for free vaccination for its people ? Then, why the Finance Minister did not agree with the demand of the states to wave the GST on vaccines ? The reason might be the apprehending pressure on the financial health of the country to meet the unnecessary burden of dream project of Central Vista which is the first priority of the present Govt.
The present policy of centre to procure vaccines by states for their own is in question. Without a proper distribution policy designed, the state govts will end up competing among them selves and with private players where the demand is more versus the supply-production. I think this policy is borrowed by our beloved PM from his close friend Ex- President of USA Mr Trumph, who has committed the same mistake last year and who made individual states procure ventilators and PPE kits on their own in USA which led to a chaotic situation where states outbid each other and diversion of supplies from one state to another became rampant.
Why Remdesivir is black marketed and who is responsible ?
Most of my readers may not be aware that, the Central Govt. Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers allocates the life saving drug “Remdesivir” and “Tocilizumab” to different states which helps in beating the serious Covid-19 infections. And as per the statement by D Sadananda Gowda, Minister of the department, the same case happened like the supply of Oxygen. And as per a report published in The Hindu on 1st May 2021, Page-9, the Ministry has failed to meet its existing commitment to states in last 10 day period till April-30, 2021, due to issues with the placement of orders and transportation of drugs across the country. No doubt, keeping in view the demand for Remdesivir, the allocations has increased from time to time, but still the Union Govt. fails to manage this demand-supply prediction as well as the supply-chain distribution. This inefficiency in prediction modeling as well as mis management of supply-chain distribution leads to black marketing of Remdesivir. Then who is responsible for this ?? Obviously, since the drug is under the control of central Union Ministry and the same Ministry looks for everything, starting from placement of orders till last end reach of the drug, they should be accountable for the mis-management and death of patients due to lack of Remdisivir, I opine.
Even Govt. and Health Experts are trying to fool the Indians in vaccination
On 22 Mar 2021, Centre writes to States/UTs to Increase the Interval between two doses of Covishield to 4-8 weeks (first it was 4-6 weeks) based on NTAGI (National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization ) and NEGVAC (National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 ) recommendation for enhanced protection. Part of the notification published in PIB website is cited below for reference of public.
…..During this meeting the recommendation has been revised to provide 2nd dose of Covishield at 4-8 weeks’ interval after the 1st dose, instead of earlier practiced interval of 4-6 weeks, but not later than stipulated period of 8 weeks. (Source- https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1706597)
But contradicting its above second version, on 13th May, again the duration is revised to 12-16 weeks. This is the second time revision in three months. Covishield dosage intervals have been widened; in March it was increased from 28 days to six-eight weeks “for better results” succeeded by 12-16 weeks.
Here the question arises. Which is correct ? The duration of 4 weeks is effective or 8 weeks is effective or 16 week is effective ? and what will be the next effective duration ??? The fact is that, the duration is increased as per the match between the demand and supply of the vaccine. This is the scientific truth in reality. Is the duration based on any clinical trial evidences or by pressure of the Union Ministry to bias people and to avoid the negative impression on central Govt. on its mis-management of vaccination supply ? Just simple logic. When there is no vaccines supply or inadequate supply of vaccines, then people who are having dues for second does will shout and there is fear of going negative messages regarding the mis management of Covid situations of vaccination. So, to avoid this juncture, just without any scientific evidence, go on extending the durations between 2 vaccinations. No body will complaint as people believe our Doctors / Consultants who represent the society are the genius ones and what they are saying that must be accepted without analyzing facts and figures…. Simple say poor educatedly uneducated Andh Bhakts…. Alas !
My opinion- if in reality, the 1st revision as mentioned but not later than stipulated period of 8 weeks or the 1st notified duration of 4 weeks was valid, and after that duration vaccination does not mean any benefits to the vaccinated people and will be extended to justify the failure of vaccination supply, then what benefit will be available to citizens except being affected Covid +ve even after all dosages of vaccination ? Intellectulas should think over it again and again…. And this is the reason why some people have affected during this 2nd wave even after both dosage of vaccination. If any research study can be conducted on the infection of vaccinated people in this 2nd wave, and their duration between 1st and 2nd dose , I think the hypothesis will be satisfied that in majority cases he duration must have been more than 28 days.
Failure of Make in India and slow destruction of R & D (Research and Development system) as catalyst
The department of Revenue exempted imports of inflammatory diagnostic kits namely IL6, D-Dimer, CRP, LDH, Ferritin, Pro-Calcitonin (PCT), and blood gas reagents , which are the essential tests for a covid +ve patients from customs duty till October 2021. This is a clear example of our inability to develop a testing kit which is essential for Covid patients. And for knowledge, India is the largest market for Covid in the world. In last several years, India failed in developing different statistical models…failed in quality research….but producing numbers of copy-cat PhDians, failed in emphasizing on Research and development among academicians, lastly adding no class…no exams…for students in the name of Covid……but contradicting, running elections where no fear of infection of covid…..as like Covid is under 18 to vote ! I, opine all are already well planned before to make the system fail in coming future and this Covid management is just a beginning….just to wait and watch….and to enjoy owns rape by our beloved readers.
Is India back to a “Third World Country” again ?
Obviously yes. We are back from “Emerging Ones” to again a “Third world country”. We are dependant again upon others and used to receive grants and donations and surviving commodities from other countries as a matter of charity after a long period of 16 years, as we are drastically failed to manage our situations in right time. In this colossal notional emergency, our country is calling out all major Nations for assistance for oxygen concentrators and plants, N-95 masks, ventilators, vaccines, Oximeters, testing kits etc. and surprisingly our leaders are tweeting with joys while receiving these charities after 16 years when the Manmohan Singh’s Govt. had banned it. Our leaders are overwhelmingly saying these are the result of our shared values….. but the true fact is that, the situation arised now after 16 years, when we are going to beg a spoon of sugar to our neighbor to prepare a cup of tea in our house, without getting ashamed of our dependencies and shamelessly answering as shared values , not to comment, a typical nature of Biharis. A naked truth India faced, premature declare of victory of Covid-19 in a midway by Prime Minister irrespective of warnings from different committees and advisors. We failed in setting up of planned oxygen plants in last 1 year, though we are No-1 vaccine manufacturers of the world, still we are struggling mid way to get vaccinated, the deadly virus has exposed the effectiveness of failure in our system from all fronts, say predicting models to managing supply chains etc.. The major reason why I said yes is that, relatives of Covid +ve patients are threatened with arrest for complaining of oxygen scarcity while no one has heard of actions taken against the officials / persons, who are black marketing this, the main stream media houses highlights the failure of the Union Ministry as a failure of system without fixing responsibility or accountability to any one, which are some of the greatest examples of “Third world-ism”.
Finally concluding, I opine that, this catastrophe is caused by arrogance, incompetence of leaders at highest level of Govt., shifting of priorities and responsibilities, strong inclination for political victory and winning elections and for untrammeled power, top leaders and bureaucrats having no moral compass to guide in a perfect way, continuous mockery of federalism, depriving all independent institutions of an independent voice and lastly promoting to an autocratic model of leadership style in a democratic set up. No doubt, our country has become “Bishwaguru” in catalyzing humanitarian disaster
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