Accountability can’t be placed under lockdown
The BJP government at the Centre owes the country many answers on its handling of the pandemic
Articles
For migrant workers, BJP has neither heart nor conscience
Earlier this week, all of us woke up to a nightmare – to the horrific news of 17, at last count, migrant workers being run over by a goods train in Aurangabad. They were walking home, hundreds of miles, from Maharashtra to their villages in Madhya Pradesh. Exhausted, they had dropped to sleep on the tracks and hadn’t heard the train coming.
Why COVID-19 inspection teams sent by Centre are sinister
At 10:10 am on April 20, a cargo plane landed in Kolkata carrying government officials from Delhi. These were the Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs), allegedly sent on a monitoring mission to assess the COVID-19 situation in seven districts of Bengal. On paper, that would appear to be an above board, routine public health exercise. In reality, it was part of a sinister political move.
Tackling 4 Rumours About Bengal Flung Around By BJP
r since the COVID-19 crisis acquired a serious dimension, many of the discussions and efforts have been on a unified, coordinated strategy against the pandemic and much of the political scoring has been left for another day.
Life after pandemic: 10 examples from everyday life that will become part of the new normal
society. The implications will be far-reaching and some of them are still beyond our comprehension. But some practices we have either adopted or avoided in the past few days will become part of this new normal.
9 examples of federalism power in this crisis
The COVID-19 crisis is a genuine national crisis. Why do I use the adjective “genuine”? This is because most “national” crises in our country emotionally affect all of India but physically or tangibly affect only a part of it. A case in point could be a cyclone, an earthquake, an insurgency or even a war. The COVID-19 pandemic is different. It has affected every single state. From Kashmir to Kerala, the Northeast to the western coast, every local administration has been galvanised.
Why Centre should listen to Bengal CM’s call for giving states fiscal room in fight against Covid-19
The number of COVID-19 cases in India has risen sharply in the past week. The ongoing lockdown has disrupted the lives of hundreds of millions. This is a national battle, but it is also a battle being waged by individual states, districts and cities. In Bengal, for instance, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee – she is the state’s health minister as well – has taken a proactive, “people first” approach to the pandemic challenge.
What Covid-19 will change about us
Every crisis changes us, as individuals and as a society. The coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) will also do so. It is too early to make defining predictions, but the initial days of the national lockdown have given us some indications. Here are 10 thoughts about what can potentially change.
Mr Prime Minister, wrong to have kept Parliament in session
It’s not easy to turn down an invitation from Rashtrapati Bhavan. Earlier this month, I was mortified at having to do this not once but twice. I was invited by the President of India for breakfast meetings with groups of MPs on March 13 and then, on my polite refusal, on March 18.
Fight for democracy: Opposition must discover innovative ways of speaking, in a climate meant to suppress it
Less than a year into the BJP government’s second term, even veteran opposition MPs are learning new lessons about Parliament. A bigger majority has only made the governing party more arrogant and the government less tolerant of genuine debate and discussion. In fact, there seems to be a systemic plan to make Parliament irrelevant.