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India-wide lockdowns for 21 days. Modi - "If we don't handle these 21 days well, then our country, your family will go backwards by 21 years". Food & essentials provision to people's doorstep crucial. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/coronavirus-cases-in-india-live-news-latest-updates-march24/liveblog/74784148.cms
Indians food and ration provision thru Public distribution system (PDS) & online (E-commerce) delivery. Shutdown of freedom of assembly, religious worship, movement etc legally put under Natl Disaster Management Act (2005) directly under PM & Centre. https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1242476674710560770
India's richest state has 450 ventilators & 502 ICU beds. It has these 21d to "prepare its hospitals, convert a few stadiums into isolation centers, and procure as many ventilators as possible. So far,Modi’s administration has not done any of these things" https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/india/2020-03-25/coronavirus-threatens-catastrophe-india
80% of India’s workforce is employed in informal sector; 1/3rd casual labourers. "Within 24h, crowds at railway&bus stations across the metros started swelling. If they cannot earn, they wanted to get home where they would have at least some food &shelter" https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/poverty-inequality/covid-19-what-can-be-done-immediately-to-help-vulnerable-population.html
Jean Dreze on India's Relief package. Expand MNREGA & PDS!
"Horrendous stories have already started pouring in of people going hungry. This is not the time to ask for their ration card or Aadhaar # --they must receive unconditional public assistance" https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/view-the-finance-ministers-covid-19-relief-package-is-helpful-but-there-are-gaping-holes-in-it/articleshow/74853103.cms
"Horrendous stories have already started pouring in of people going hungry. This is not the time to ask for their ration card or Aadhaar # --they must receive unconditional public assistance" https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/view-the-finance-ministers-covid-19-relief-package-is-helpful-but-there-are-gaping-holes-in-it/articleshow/74853103.cms
India's poverty & health alleviation in past decades was massive. But food security is priority during corona lockdown coz unlike other countries, its deep recession started 2019 & has decimated construction/agriculture jobs. 
Food prices amid supply-chain breakdowns cd compound
Food prices amid supply-chain breakdowns cd compound
Food (& cash) disbursement system is test of India's state-capacity. Fortunately, grain godowns are overflowing. Famines in democracies are rarely about shortages; always about distribution. A virus that preys on vulnerable & a callous State both deadly. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/beware-of-a-lopsided-lockdown/article31167372.ece
India's current relief package amounts to ~ 1% of GDP; a far cry from Germany/US etc ~5 to 10% GDP. Govts fiscal spending is limited by a shadow banking crisis that erupted in 2019 & led to mass layoffs in jobs-heavy construction sector. (thread 
) https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1206647447541272579
) https://twitter.com/70sBachchan/status/1206647447541272579
Good to see industrial MNC Tata rise to gravity of situation & put down ~$70 million to provide PPE, ventilators, testing kits. If there ever was a time for nation-building, "Bombay Plan" for Indian healthcare capacity, it is NOW. https://twitter.com/RNTata2000/status/1243852348637605888
People cast out with their babies at their back with no direction home. Such a monumental tragedy playing out in all the cities of India. Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee are scathing yet have constructive advice for the Modi Govt.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-lockdown-coronavirus-infection-abhijit-banerjee-esther-duflo-6336624/
Photo: @choudharyravi
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-lockdown-coronavirus-infection-abhijit-banerjee-esther-duflo-6336624/
Photo: @choudharyravi
Given rural - urban divide in hospital beds, Duflo & Banerjee suggest mobile health teams that can be deployed to wherever there are surges. Its a simple idea that many other large countries could adopt. https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-lockdown-coronavirus-infection-abhijit-banerjee-esther-duflo-6336624/
Indina govt clears $2 billion package to buy PPE for health care workers, expand testing & train health care workers. India is importing 10,000 ventilators from China & has ordered another 30,000 from public sector firms under Defence ministry. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/13-billion-people-21-day-lockdown-can-india-curb-coronavirus
Case fatality has been relatively low ~0.7% in Kerala (which has one of the best public health systems). There has been little need for ventilators yet, & fewer fever cases in local clinics. That half the country is younger than 28 is in its favour. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/13-billion-people-21-day-lockdown-can-india-curb-coronavirus
Hospital bed shortages? Tens of thousands of trains shut down for the 1st time since 1853? Indian Railways comes up with a brilliant solution! https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/rlys-plans-isolation-quarantine-units-with-80-000-beds/story-O9phSWZIvR7IfaW5d8CBnI.html https://twitter.com/UNinIndia/status/1243827769546403840
Funeral services firms in India are reducing wages for employees because of DROP in funerals. Mumbai, home to some 12 million people, saw deaths fall by about 21% in March compared with the same month of 2019. Fewer road accidents & cardiovascular. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-casualties-idUSKCN2260WM
Indian govt preparing for a “two-front war”— Corona & and another to ensure food security — in anticipation of mega locust attack on farms across Gangetic plain this summer.
Locusts usually stop at western desert & this would be unthinkable but so is 2020 https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/after-covid-19-indias-next-challenge-could-be-mega-sized-locust-attack-this-summer/article31429925.ece
Locusts usually stop at western desert & this would be unthinkable but so is 2020 https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/after-covid-19-indias-next-challenge-could-be-mega-sized-locust-attack-this-summer/article31429925.ece
*Plague year*
Brain: Don't do it
Brain: Don't do it
Brain: Don't do it
Brain: Don't do it
Me:
Reads Mike Davis during a plague year. omg. https://newleftreview.org/issues/II122/articles/mike-davis-in-a-plague-year.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4262128/
Brain: Don't do it
Brain: Don't do it
Brain: Don't do it
Brain: Don't do it
Me:
Reads Mike Davis during a plague year. omg. https://newleftreview.org/issues/II122/articles/mike-davis-in-a-plague-year.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4262128/
India goes for Fractal multi-scalar approach to Corona containment. Districts designated as hotspots -- red, orange, green -- based on cumulative cases reported, doubling rate, & control measures. Movement will be restricted inside & between zones. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/centre-issues-state-wise-division-of-covid-19-red-orange-green-zones/articleshow/75486277.cms
Corona lockdowns is India's 21st C Home Rule (in all sense of the term!). Home Ministry rules homes. All decisions made directly by the Centre. #lockdownextension https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/MHA%20Order%20Dt.%201.5.2020%20to%20extend%20Lockdown%20period%20for%202%20weeks%20w.e.f.%204.5.2020%20with%20new%20guidelines.pdf
"Lockdown has transferred the burden of the pandemic almost entirely onto the shoulders of the poor and marginalised....workers may starve to save the primarily middle-class elderly from dying." ht author unsurprisingly under pseudonym given Modi-Shah rule https://newleftreview.org/issues/II122/articles/india-s-starvation-measures
Modi's Marie Antoinette moment: "Let them eat roses"
Its now 40 days of a monumental tragedy of India's poorly planned lockdown. People walking out of cities to their homes hundreds of kms away in the blazing summer heat of April & May. https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca https://twitter.com/BDUTT/status/1257337795980546049
Indian govt (and others) must learn from the stunning success of Kerala. https://twitter.com/VincentRK/status/1257497158686826503
