分类： bharat

For the fifth day in a row, India recorded a spike of over 9,000 in the number of new novel coronavirus infections reported from across the country. As of June 7, India has 2,46,628 confirmed cases, including 1,20,406 active cases, 1,19,293 recoveries and 6,929 casualties as per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s Covid-19 bulletin on Sunday morning.

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Maharashtra, the Indian state with the most cases, crossed that of China on Sunday with a tally of 85,975. Maharashtra’s Health Department reported 3,007 new cases on June 7.

Even as confirmed cases continue to rise rapidly, shopping malls and places of worship are gearing up to reopen from Monday while abiding by SOPs part of the Ministry of Home Affairs’ “Unlock-1” notification. This is part of the Government of India’s three-phased plan to gradually reverse the nationwide lockdown first enforced on March 25 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

86% cases in Tamil Nadu asymptomatic

Second only to Maharashtra in infections, Tamil Nadu on Sunday reported 1,515 new cases of Covid-19. The state’s tally now stands at 31,667. This figure is inclusive of 14,396 active cases, 16,999 recoveries and 269 casualties.

Chief Minister K Palaniswami said on Sunday that 86 per cent of Tamil Nadu’s Covid-19 cases have been found to be asymptomatic. Tamil Nadu has a lower mortality rate than any other Indian state and even some other countries, CM Palaniswami said, adding that the state’s recovery rate was the best in the country.

China-Plus-One. This is the new strategy being pursued by countries and companies, policy-makers and entrepreneurs, to survive in the re-imagined, re-aligned post-COVID world. Nations went through near-death experiences as they were economically strangled by the closure of China, the ‘Factory to the World’, and global supplier of most goods. As governments struggled to catch their breaths, given the manufacturing churn and choked throats, they witnessed the decimation of their globalised production models.

The destruction, not just of a well-oiled and seamless global supply chain, but also of a mindset, led to the concept of China-Plus-One. No one wants to put their eggs in a single manufacturing basket; no one wants to depend on a single source for their needs. Hence, there is a mad scramble to spread out, to seek out alternate suppliers. China may yet remain the No. 1 or No. 2 vendor for most nations, but it will not be the only one, not even a major one. This has presented an unprecedented opportunity to India.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi sensed that this could be the moment of a lifetime, a time to catch the bull by its horns. He realised that if he played the cards right–and he had a couple of aces up his sleeves–India could emerge as the new global manufacturing hub, a preferred destination for foreign investments over the next few years. He unleashed a slew of reforms, pushed states to enact controversial changes in laws, and re-wooed foreign investors to ‘Make in India’ in a bid to ‘Re-Make India’. Modi hopes to garner a whopping Rs 2,500,000 crore ($330 billion) in the next few years.

The role of the Delhi Police, during the anti-CAA protests, the Northeast Delhi Riots and the coronavirus-induced lockdown, is enough to send shivers down any law abiding citizen’s spine. The objective of the anti-CAA protests – writ large on posters, street art, social media posts, etc – was to ‘Save the Constitution of India’. There was nothing anti-national about the protests or the protestors (mostly students and Muslim women). It is these students and women, fighting as they were, to preserve the spirit of India’s Constitution and our democratic traditions, who have now been tagged as ‘anti-national’ and ‘gaddar’ – not under the law of the land, but by the whims of those in power.

For any discussion on the ongoing spate of arrests of students and activists accused by the Delhi Police of instigating and participating in the Northeast Delhi riots of January this year, there’s a chronology that needs to be made clear. As the anti-CAA protests raged, first came brutal police action against the protestors – the tear-gassing of peaceful protestors and the beating and manhandling of students and women. Then came the arson, looting and massacre of Muslims in Northeast Delhi – the worst-ever pogrom Delhi has witnessed since the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.  The attack was goaded on by the slogan of ‘Desh ke Gaddaron ko, Goli Maaron Saalon ko’ given in full public view by BJP’s Kapil Mishra and broadcast on TV news channels and social media platforms for days before the rioting actually began.