PostCards from India: 15th April 2020
In this issue: TV news anchors communalize migrant issues, COVID-19 treatment based on religion, PM Modi comes on TV for another one-sided bhasan (speech), a new Mafia emerges — testing mafia.
We will win this together!
Goa la Namaskar,
Vanakkam Puducherry,
Namaste Madhya Pradesh,
Kemcho Gujarat?
As of writing this postcard, India has 11838 confirmed cases, 1393 have recovered while 403 have succumbed to the virus. (source)
COVID-19 has infected 225+ medics, 64+ IAS officers, 11 police personnel sealing 7 police colonies as hotspots and 3 other frontline workers. As per Lav Agarwal, Jt. Secretary, “This is a miniscule number.”
When reading a few newspapers, I observed a curious thing. Many media outlets were reporting that XXX patients have been “cured” of COVID-19. So, I called a few of them to ask them, “ wassup? Are you not aware that COVID-19 DOES NOT have a cure?” The journalist asked me that, “bro, have you checked the Ministry of Home and Family Welfare website?” “No,” I replied. The journalist hung up.
Above you see a screengrab from https://www.mohfw.gov.in/. These are the people we DEPEND UPON to see us through this crisis. If these people cannot be bothered to get terminologies right, can we really trust them with our lives? To reiterate my point, THERE IS NO CURE FOR COVID-19. NO HUMAN IMMUNE SYSTEM is capable of beating COVID-19. Eat healthy but that will help in recovery but not your immune system against COVID-19. Also, since we are on the topic of terminologies, an elected GOVERNMENT - GOVERNS, it does not RULE.
If you have been reading this newsletter, you’d be aware that we are in the midst of migrant and agrarian crises. You would also be aware that these two are related. Migrant laborers from cities travel back to their villages this time of the year to harvest the Rabi yield. Anyway, TV anchors seem to be blissfully unaware of this. The fallacies in their reporting are glaring. I am not going to bother dwelling into it than needed, you can check my FB post for more details. This is OUR Mumbai and communalizing of the pandemic is NOW ALLOWED.
This is not just my POV but also of Uddhav Thackeray, CM Maharashtra and of rational Mumbaikars. The man responsible for spreading the rumors has been arrested.
Like I mentioned in the FB post above, we have seen migrant protests even in Surat. However, Surat did not feature in news because of its legacy. The same legacy that has led to the next story:
I don’t even want to comment on this. Gujarat government has cracked its whip on the media and the news coming out of the state has been largely negative. The state also has found time to book SC lawyer — Prashanth Bhushan and Kannan Gopinath for objectionable tweets. If you are in Gujarat, remember we are with you, we are a tweet or DM away.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi came on the idiot box and said a few things. I honestly did not understand quite a bit. I am a native English speaker, my second language is Marathi and tertiary is Hindi. However, Ravish Kumar is proficient in Hindi and he has done a brilliant analysis that you can check out here. I am not going to waste any more energy on this. I agree with the opposition, the PM needs to address real issues rather acting like a taskmaster who delegates from his ivory tower.
One thing to observe here is that none of the journalists have taken a byline for these articles. You know why? Because they want to be gainfully employed, taking a byline here is like tying a noose to your neck.
To bring you this newsletter, my team and I have been branded anti-nationals, jhola carrying JNU-wallahs and now we are part of “testing mafia.” The terminology has been brought to us by Karthik S, who as per his profile is a management consultant, inventor of NED, a cricket enthusiast, author and sometimes a teacher at IIM-B. ICMR, the body facing the brunt is also all for testing.
Also, the commentators on his post make more sense than his mathematical whataboutery.
Newspapers are here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1X792t2etI2WlKenM2_32KCpHeU9NUA3l
Offensive joke ahead
-fin-
