The protesting farmers have announced to hold a countrywide protest to demand annulment of the newly enacted farm laws on May 26. Despite having seen the havoc of the Kumbh congregation, the Modi government is stone-wall silent to the ultimatum. Twelve opposition parties have pilloried the Modi government for its obduracy.
India spent the sum of Rs. 4.1 million on the ceremony to induct the first batch of Rafale aircraft (Ambala air base), under contract to purchase 36 aircraft costing Rs 590 billion. Apathetic to te plight of the people, the Indian army chief talked to the US army chief to enhance cooperation under Basic Exchange and Cooperation agreement to hit Pakistan’s land and surface targets in real time. There being no freebies, the BECA equipment will cost billions.
About 4000 COVID patients are dying each day for want of beds or oxygen. Poor people dump dead bodies of their loved ones in the Ganges River as they can’t afford costly wood to cremate them. In just one day 150 dead bodies were recovered to save them from vultures and stray dogs. There is only one electric incinerator/cremator in India at Calcutta, yet to be operated.
Author Shobha De asked `What’ll it take for Modi to stop playing ostrich?’. The national students’ union registered an FIR against the “missing” home minister Amit Shah. It is time India diverted its resources to stop the third wave.
Because of insanitary conditions and infected oxygen, the scourges of white and black fungi have emerged adding to Covis-19 fatalities. The white fungus is also known as candidiasis, the nlack as mucomycosis. Steroid treatment can cause white fungal infection in Covid-19 patients while unsterile use of oxygen cylinders can also be a reason. White fungus infection is more dangerous than black fungus because it affects vital organs, including the lungs, brain, kidney and private parts along with the mouth, stomach and skin. Symptoms of white fungus infection are similar to that of coronavirus infection. Chest pain and low oxygen levels are seen in critical patients while white patches in the oral cavity, white discharge and skin lesions are also seen among patients.
Medicines like caspofungin or micafungin are used to treat critically ill patients. But besides vaccines there is a shortage of almost everything, beds, oxygen, and even wood to cremate the dead bodies. Media reported 100 to 150 dead bodies floating in the River Ganges.
Instead of facing the truth, The BJP states prosecute even social posts about the covid-19 situation under India’s National Security Act. For instance, journalist Kishorchandra Wangkhem and activist Erendro Leichombam were booked under the NSA for Facebook posts that pointed out that cow dung or urine cannot cure covid-19.
Cowsheds are being used as covid-19 clinics. Oxygen and concentrators are being sold at exorbitant prices. Even fire-extinguisher cylinders were sold as oxygen cylinders (Fire extinguishers painted and sold as oxygen cylinders, 3 arrested, India Today May 6, 2021).
India and China have signed accords not to use firepower in case of any conflagration. Modi admitted at an all-party conference that China has not annexed an inch of India’s territory. Yet,the tiff between the Chinese and Indian troops was portrayed as a landmark achievement. Â
The Modi government should turn a new leaf in India’s relations with its neighbours by shunning the strong-man image.Â
In view of the pandemic, India should have diverted its troops from borders to pandemic duty. But, no such initiative is visible. Even in May there was a faceoff between the Chinese and the Indian troops.
Through propaganda onslaught, Modi’s government has brought home the message that Congress is unpatriotic and bent upon disintegrating India (tukreh tukreh gang).
Referring to self-professed patriots, in 1774, Samuel Johnson had said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. The irony in calling the Congress (or other BJP opponents) “anti-national” is that politicians of the Congress (and others too) had actually gone to jail fighting for India’s freedom from the British. Leaders of the BJP’s ideological predecessors did little during the freedom movement.
India should mend its fences not only with China but also with Pakistan. Many Pakistani rulers, including Gen Pervez Musharraf, offered out-of-box solutions to resolve the lingering Kashmir dispute. But India shrugged off the offers with disdain.
In his memoirs In The Line of Fire, President Musharraf proposed a personal solution of the Kashmir issue. This solution, in essence, envisions self-rule in demilitarised regions of Kashmir under a joint-management mechanism.  The solution pre-supposes reciprocal flexibility.
The out-of-box Musharraf Kashmir solution is in fact a regurgitation of former Indian foreign secretary Jagat S. Mehta’s proposals. Mehta presented his ideas in his article, ‘Resolving Kashmir in the International Context of the 1990s’. Besides Kashmir, there are the Sir Creek and Siachen Glacier issues. India’s former foreign secretary Shyam Saran, in his book How India Sees the World makes startling revelations about how this issue eluded solution at last minute. Saran says India itself created the Siachen problem. He reminisces, in the 1970s, US maps began to show 23000 kilometers of Siachen area under Pakistan’s control. Thereupon, `Indian forces were sent to occupy the glacier in a pre-emptive strike, named Operation Meghdoot. Pakistani attempts to dislodge them did not succeed. But they did manage to occupy and fortify the lower reaches’.
He recalls how Siachen Glacier and Sir Creek agreements could not fructify for lack of political will or footdragging. He says ‘NN Vohra, who was the defence secretary at the time, confirmed in a newspaper interview that an agreement on Siachen had been reached. At the last moment, however, a political decision was taken by the Narasimha Rao government to defer its signing to the next round of talks scheduled for January the following year. But, this did not happen… My defence of the deal became a voice in the wilderness’.
Similarly, the demarcation of the Sir Creek maritime boundary was unnecessarily delayed. Saran says ’if we accepted the Pakistani alignment, with the east bank of the creek as the boundary, then Pakistan would get only 40 per cent of the triangle. If our alignment according to the Thalweg principle was accepted, Pakistan would get 60 per cent. There was a keen interest in Pakistan to follow this approach but we were unable to explore this further when the Siachen deal fell through. Pakistan was no longer interested in a stand-alone Sir Creek agreement’ (Thalweg principle places the dividing line mid-channel in the river).
The Modi government should turn a new leaf in India’s relations with its neighbours by shunning the strong-man image.Â
