If you want to understand what's happening in India right now: There are countless tweets, WhatsApp forwards and messages like this asking to find beds, oxygen cylinders and medicines. The government and ruling party are absent from this equation. 1/n https://twitter.com/salonayyy/status/1387689658700599302

My standards of what a government should deliver have probably become higher since moving to a WEIRD country but even when I lived in India I never saw such chaos. 2/n

The health infrastructure is funded by ~70% private and ~30% public investment, according to @TheLallantop, and there was always a class divide. Privileged people like me never went to a public hospital. 3/n

The delivery of health infra is the responsibility of local government but the policy making is in the hands of Federal government. For states governed by parties with political differences with the Federal govt, the situation has become a blame game. 4/n

A friend ran pillar to post to get his mom and dad to hospital which denied admission because they didn't have a referral. Finally, he found a doctor who gave prescriptions and told him what to do. He setup a oxygen concentrator for his parents at home. 5/n

This was in Lucknow, where state's Chief Minister came on TV and asked police to arrest anyone "spreading rumours" that the hospitals had lack of beds and oxygen. 6/n

And on top of all this there are goons of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party threatening volunteers who are collating and sharing info about resources. 7/n

Misgovernance or lack of governance is very hard to point at and attribute as a crime. But with covert actions like those and open actions like this one, I have to ask is the Modi govt aiming to kill people? #ResignModi 8/n https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/covid-19-surge-india-declines-uns-offer-of-assistance-from-integrated-supply-chain-says-it-has-robust-system/article34431514.ece

I am going to keep on documenting stories and perspectives in this thread now. 9/n