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Amidst the ongoing crisis, debate has already begun over the strategies for Post COVID - 19 economic growth. The discussion is centered around how to restart the industry and other work which have been on stand still since the lockdown. One opinion is to carry forward the same old corporate driven development model which talks only of wealth generation but ignores the needs of the vast majority of our people and breeds inequality while catering to the interests of a few. It is this model which is responsible for degradation of environment and climate change. There is another opinion which quotes Gandhi Ji and his ideas of rural based development model. Another view point is scientifically based inclusive growth. What will ultimately happen, only time will tell? But one thing most essential is that we need growth which cares for the needs of all sections of the people and puts human factor as primary.

Even indication of surrender in love, life and politics invites only defeat and disaster. There are several instances to prove it. The Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru did not overcome his bewilderment at the betrayal by China in October 1962. He could not overcome it and resorted to consolidation of his political base indicating his surrender to the mundane politics that made his end came near.

The last week saw considerable international interest in matters India with ‘foreign bodies’ such as the Pulitzer taking a hand in “needling” India, giving credence to claims of the decades old ‘foreign hand’ trying to hijack the Indian narrative with unsubtle interventions generally strengthening the view that it requires an Indira Gandhi at the helm to effectively deal with these interlopers. And, if there is one Nehru-Gandhi family member Prime Minister Narendra Modi genuinely respects and holds in high esteem, it is Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi.

The war of words, so far, between the US and China is fast spurning out of control into full scale diplomatic spat. President Donald Trump took the verbal bomb to its furthest height last night when he stated that the pandemic hit the US so hard that its fall-out was worse that Pearl Harbour and 9/11 terror attack on World Trade Centre in New York. “This should not have happened”.

AITUC is shocked at the approach of the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, which had called a meeting with the Central Trade Unions (CTUs) on May 6. The ministry did not respond to any of the concerns/issues/demands raised by the workers leaders and the CTUs. The ministry was on a denial mode when informed that the free ration and food are still not reaching all the needy poorworking population. We demanded correction and improvement as well as to make ration distribution for universal coverage. But there was no response on the issue from the ministry.

The war on the Covid-19 virus is quickly transforming into a war against the working class in India. In parliament, in March this year, the government had stated that there are estimated to be around 100 million (10 crore) inter-state migrant workers. A vast majority of them would have lost their livelihoods with the lockdown being imposed. They have lost their places of stay and were driven to desperation by lack of food and shelter for their families. Most of the so-called migrant workers are actually the working class – they are workers in the construction industry, micro, small and medium factories and labourers in markets and distribution networks.

The pandemic of Corona virus was not the first epidemic to envelope most countries. There was epidemic virtually a new kind every year for the past three decades to cause panic in masses but not in political regimes world over. Instead they fought with scientist community striving to find cure and contain the epidemic. Ultimately mankind overcame the epidemics. For the first time, political leadership quivered in fear and pushed their citizens behind their closed doors without giving a thought to disastrous consequences for the larger sections that are at the lower rungs and depend on meager daily income by serving and attending to needs of the upper crust.

The Centre introduced the Aarogya Setu app last month ostensibly to keep track of corona virus infectees. It was clarified that the uploading of it in mobile phones was voluntary. Soon enough, however, the Government made it mandatory for all employees, both public and private, to upload the app in their mobile phones.

India has done well to keep the Covid-19 mortality rate to the world’s lowest, but it cannot claim any success in restricting the cost of doing this. It may have saved lives, but as long as it is not on a sustainable basis, the achievement is meaningless. Death due to deprivation is by no means preferable to death from the virus attack.

WASHINGTON—Call it pandemic profits: A new report by the Institute for Policy Studies, the latest in its biannual series, shows the ultra-rich got ultra-richer in the months since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. And the richest of them all, Jeff Bezos, profited big time from the ensuing crash.