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RSS, the ideological harbinger of the Modi government, has come to the scene openly. While the Prime Minister and his team handle the grave situation unleashed by the second wave of the pandemic in their typical style, the RSS patriarchs could grasp the real gravity of the crisis. It is a systemic crisis that has begun to shake the edifices of the government. The RSS could foresee that this cannot be overcome by the usual rhetoric of the Prime Minister alone. The human bodies floating in the holy Ganges do carry a message. It speaks about the social, economic, and spiritual dimension of the crisis which is the net result of the Modi government's health policy. As in other sectors, the policy is indebted to the boundless greed of the corporate capital. The human despair and anger caused by it is not something usual which could be addressed by the usual measures.

The Israeli attacks on Palestinians in Jerusalem and the Israeli aggression on Gaza are not disparate or coincidental events. They are part of the long war waged by the Israeli State against the Palestinian people – in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank and the suppression of Arab-Palestinians within the pre-1967 boundaries of the state of Israel.

Many new developments are taking place in Indian politics. One of them is an attempt to equate not just dissent, but even disagreement, dissatisfaction, simply thinking out loud, as sedition that can invite arrest and prosecution. Further, sedition is now being framed not just against citizens who sit on dharnas but against those who post on social media, even if most of what they write or share is just a factual statement, not even a strong opinion. Going way beyond ordinary citizens, the government in power is now charging Opposition leaders with corruption and under sedition laws. Even further, it is accusing its own Members of Parliament of these crimes, should they proffer any criticism of the Prime Minister or the BJP.

BHOPAL: After facing severe hardship since the onset of second Corona wave, the people of Madhya Pradesh are feeling some respite for the past two-three days. Newspapers are carrying reports about decline in the number of new cases and about the count of deaths.

The Modi Government has ruled out suspending flights from Singapore just because Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said so, arguing that Kejriwal is “not competent to speak for India”. Kejriwal wanted Singapore quarantined because a ‘Singapore variant’ of Covid-19 that preferred children could be heading for India. Kejriwal's assertions invoked immediate reaction from Singapore, which spoke to the Government of India directly, and Kejriwal was censured by both New Delhi and Singapore.

The Asian Development Bank’s Outlook 2021 is not overwhelmed by the sweeping covid pandemic incidence on the region. It has forecast resurgence in East and South Asia and somewhat sluggish growth elsewhere in the Asian continent. While there will be some transient damages to the economies of the region, the Bank believes the one area which will bear long term scarring is education.

The number of COVID cases and deaths due to it is a cause of grave concern. Presently India stands number two in the total number of COVID cases in the world after USA. True that we have a large population and so the number is high, but even a proportionate number comparison with other countries in South Asia is worrisome. We come from the same ethnic background, have similar culture, food habits, nutritional status and have the same level of inequities in income as well as disparities in the access to the healthcare system.

The Centre has finally discussed the strategies to contain and manage COVID-19 in the rural India, but only after the Ganges, the holiest river of the country, was found with hundreds of bodies floating on the water and buried in its sand, revealing how the disease is devastating even the small towns, peri-urban, and rural areas. The guidelines and the standard operating procedures (SoPs) have come late, only a couple of days ago, but the help needed by them must reach faster since the battle there is likely to be more challenging than we have braved in the cities with comparatively far better health infrastructure and facilities.

The migrant crisis haunts India again, along with the sight of thousands of migrants leaving Maharashtra and other states to head home. While the capitalistic legislative intent of the new labour codes is much-talked-about, the immediate administrative focus right now needs to be on extending at least some of the fringe benefits of these codes. Under the new labour regime, workers are ensured social security through the Social Security Code, 2020 (SS Code). This code has created two distinct categories– first, employees and second, unorganised workers and construction workers. The social security of unorganised workers is now entirely dependent on schemes introduced by the government.

The number of employed persons in India plummeted from about 40 crore in January to 39 crore in April 2021. That’s a loss of one crore employed persons, one of the steepest falls ever in four months, barring the brutal devastation caused by last year’s complete countrywide lockdown in April-May 2020. This emerges from latest estimates of employment from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).