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With 456 detected positive, Pakistan is the most severely hit South Asian country by the Coronavirus pandemic. ‘Coronakratch’ — an acronym for the pandemic of ‘Coronavirus, king of all crashes’ — has been coined by Frédéric Lordon, Director (Research) at Centre de Sociologie Européenne (CSE), under Centre Européen de Sociologie et de Science Politique (CNRS), who has penned a 3000-plus word essay in Le Mondediplomatique on the issue Two reportedly succumbed to the ravages of SARS-CoV 2, mutated in the global media as COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 is actually “the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans; SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe disease” unlike HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E which are associated with mild symptoms.

Thursday, March 19 night, at 8 pm, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation. He uttered the word coronavirus several times but did not elaborate on how his government intended to fight the pandemic in a way that will limit its impact on India which is still to see the full extent of the Covid-19 pandemic.

After 2019 elections a new, anti-democratic, practice has been initiated by the ruling BJP-RSS combine in many states. The BJP does not respect the people’s mandate if it goes against its views and agenda. In that situation, it tries all kinds of methods covert and overt to engineer a ‘majority’ for itself, using money, muscle power, illegal and unconstitutional methods and so on. The party/parties winning a majority of seats are not allowed to form a government, come what may. The BJP cannot see itself defeated.

India has once again proved to the world through display of her ability to deal more effectively with the grave crisis to the humanity. India has not only effectively and quickly dealt with the viral pandemic to prevent it from spreading in India but also by controlling and confining the death rate to the lowest by providing immediately and effectively medical assistance to infected ones. In India with population over 1300 million, only 175 cases were reported and confined to hospitals, and none of them needed intensive care unit services with only four deaths confirmed to be victims of the raging pandemic. But the overactive social media caused more panic.

In its desperation to stop Bikashranjan Bhattacharya, a candidate jointly sponsored by the CPI(M)-led Left Front and the state Congress, from winning a Rajya Sabha seat from Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress(TMC) ended up scoring a self-goal. Given the combined strength of the opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Bhattacharya’s passage to the upper house of Parliament was a certainty. As the first successful joint LF-Congress initiative, this win in the RS could well signal a major political change in the days ahead.

I have come across many people questioning the Government’s move to contain Coronavirus (Covid-19) and most of these criticisms centrally revolve around the idea that this pandemic has a lesser mortality/fatality rate than other pandemic diseases.

WASHINGTON – Donald Trump’s dizzying reversals and commands to the country about what to do to combat the coronavirus pandemic leave one of the biggest groups of U.S. workers – the 2.1 million federal government employees – and their unions confused and upset.

The coronavirus is now everywhere. Maybe not yet in the Tahiti islands or ones in the Minicoy in the Lakshadweep archipelago. Definitely not in the island which has been declared a country by the runaway godman from India. Meanwhile, the number of confirmed coronavirus positive cases worldwide has crossed 200,000, the death toll going up to 8,243 as of March 18.

Humanity has faced outbreaks of many, many pandemics over historic times. Bubonic plague several centuries back to Spanish influenza just a hundred years back had wiped out large sections of human population.

Former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi has been well within his fundamental rights to do whatever he likes, though like any other Indian he must refrain from indulging in any illegal, anti-constitutional and unethical act. A conscientious legal luminary, Gogoi has come under severe criticism from his own legal fraternity for accepting the offer of a Rajya Sabha seat from the Modi government. Technically he has been appointed by the President, but at the recommendation of cabinet of Modi government.