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Making sense of the covid-19 situation in India.

Even the most ardent critic of India or its government (central and state) cannot argue based on absolute number of reported Covid- 19 cases and related fatalities that India has not done well thus far in its fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. India’s population is approx. 17% of the aggregate world population but only has 0.15% of the total reported cases – that by itself is a staggering data that cannot be ignored easily 3 weeks into the crisis in India.   The lock-down measure taken by the government of India to avert this public health crisis is a bold one. There is no other country in the world to my recollection that has even made an attempt in modern history to lock-down all her people (leave alone 1.3 billion) to protect them . India’s population is not the only issue that makes the lock-down a bold and challenging measure. India is a democratic country and her people have practiced freedom of movement and freedom of speech for 70 years and more, and this practic...
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Extra-ordinary times present great oppurtunities

I just realized that when you find yourself in an extraordinary situation- there is a lot that you can do if you look past the rather grim and sombre situation that exists in the world today. The following illustrate the point: The current socio-economic framework that exists today (good or bad- but I have reason to believe mostly good) was the outcome of two brutal wars that the world had witnessed. e.g. universal declaration of human rights; The constitution of India- after a brutal and long freedom struggle; The Indian economic liberalization of 1991 in the face of imminent bankruptcy which has lifted more people out of poverty in a country of approx. 1.3 billion in the last 29 years – only perhaps China has a better track record amongst the large countries (this is matter of a separate piece altogether and needs to be further investigated. For now the world bank data here is illustrative: ( https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/...
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