V OLUME 37 NUMBER 11 MAY 23-JUNE05, 2020 ISSN 0970-1710 HTTPS://FRONTLINE.THEHINDU.COM C OVER STORY Gujarat: Cavalier approach 66 Kerala: New worries 68 How not to handle an epidemic Karnataka: Migrant misery 71 Odisha: Sarpanchs as The lockdowns were meant to buy time to contain the coronavirus’ game changers 73 spread, but they have instead heaped misery on the marginalised. Tamil Nadu: Chennai a challenge 76 India is still in the exponential phase of the infection and community Jammu & Kashmir: transmission is a reality that the government refuses to accept. 4 Viral politics 78 Violence unabated in Kashmir Valley 80 Hate in the time of pandemic 82 Urban planning’s disregard of migrants 85 Scapegoating China 88 Unemployment crisis in the U.S. 92 ENVIRONMENT Maheshwar dam: Victory and vindication 94 A n empty package 8 Questions over role of D elhi: Capital unconcern 46 AGRICULTURE Supreme Court 30 Uttar Pradesh: Losing the plot 48 Rajasthan: Squandered gains 50 Haryana: In denial mode 52 Bihar: Community clout 54 Madhya Pradesh: Migrants’ ire 56 P unjab: A Bill to Signs of dissent in BJP 14 Ekta Parishad survey: Chhattisgarh: An ‘corporatise’ farming 97 No love lost for labour 17 Understanding migration 35 oasis of comfort 58 COVID response Tragedy on foot Jharkhand: Cashless lacks a strategy 20 in Tamil Nadu 39 and abandoned 60 Capital’s Malthusian Stranded in foreign soil 42 West Bengal: Caught moment 23 in politics 62 States trapped in a fiscal STATES Maharashtra: Stretched and developmental crisis 27 P unjab: Feeling the pinch 44 resources 64 On the Cover: Inside a container truck near Hyderabad, migrants hoping to make it to their villages in Uttar Pradesh, on May 12. 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In no event can the Owner, Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Publisher, Printer, Editor, Director/s, Employees of this magazine/ company be held responsible/liable in any manner whatsoever for any e-mail: [email protected] claims and/or damages for advertisements in this magazine. Frontline is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites. J UNE 5, 2020 . F RONTLINE 3 C OVER STORY which has just passed 270 kilometres north-north-east of said more than once at press briefings that because of the Kolkata into Bangladesh, with wind speeds touching lockdowns and social distancing, cases may never peak in 70-80 kmph, is likely to result in widespread devastation India. Even a schoolchild would know that this implies a of life and property in and around that region. never-ending outbreak. More pertinently, that is an epi- Interestingly, news reports suggest that, as in the case demiological impossibility; the number of cases in any of the previous lockdowns (Frontline, May 22), the de- outbreak has to peak and then decline. According to cision to extend the lockdown into the fourth phase was Randeep Guleria, director of the All India Institute of HOW NOT TO taken once again without the consensus opinion of the Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and member of the Task specially constituted National COVID-19 Task Force or Force, the peak caseload will probably be reached some- other epidemiologists and medical experts. A member of time in July. But, given the present trend, it is more likely the Task Force has been quoted in one of the news reports to happen in late August. as saying that while lockdowns cut down the rate of It has repeatedly been said that the idea of the initial HANDLE AN transmission, they cannot stop transmission itself. This lockdown (maybe up to the first two phases) was to buy what the virologist T. Jacob John and the epidemiologist time to put in place appropriate health measures, includ- Jayaprakash Muliyil had told Frontline. ing scaling up of testing with broadened testing strategy, Vinod Paul, NITI Aayog member and Chairman of making testing kits available, supplying masks to the the Task Force, famously claimed in his presentation to general public, effective and efficient contact tracing, EPIDEMIC the press on April 24 that India would see no COVID-19 strengthening and building the health infrastructure case after mid May. Paul has now become a laughing with the requisite number of hospital beds (particularly The lockdowns were meant to buy time to put in place appropriate stock, and the country continues to stare at the growing intensive care units), ventilators and ECMOs (extracor- number of infections. The only answer the government poreal membrane oxygenation machines) and, most im- health measures and contain the coronavirus’ spread, but they have seems to have is “lockdown”. portantly, giving personal protective equipment (PPEs) In fact, displaying utter ignorance, Union Health for health care workers. On all fronts, the measures taken failed to achieve the objective and heaped immense misery on the Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal is reported to have by the government have been found wanting. For ex- marginalised sections of society. India is still in the exponential phase ample, if import and distribution of rapid antibody test- ing kits to the States was a major fiasco (as a result of of the COVID-19 infection and community transmission is a reality that F IGURE 1 which even to date States are running short of these kits, not to speak of reverse transcription polymerase chain the government refuses to accept. B Y R. RAMACHANDRAN reaction (RT-PCR) devices, the gold standard for test- ing), continuous weakening of specifications for import of ventilators by vendors and giving the contract for A S THE COUNTRY ENTERS THE FOURTH supply to a single supplier are nothing short of a scam. phase of lockdown, albeit with the easing of many restric- tions and opening up of some essential economic activit- ‘ MAKE-IN-INDIA’ SHAM ies, it is still not out of the COVID-19 woods. With the The claim of orienting the much-touted “Make-in-India” total number of confirmed cases (as against the true campaign to preparedness for COVID-19 has proved to number of infections) standing at 1,12,359 as of May 21, be just another sham, a characteristic of the present the caseload is still increasing at the rate of over 5,000 regime at the Centre in all spheres of activity. Accord- cases a day. Although the graph may appear to be show- ing to sources in the Ministry of Science and Tech- ing some signs of levelling off, given the past trend, it is nology, government research and R&D institu- not certain that it may begin to decline soon. tions are being coerced into becoming a party to The growth factor—the ratio of increases in caseloads this charade. The Ministry is on an overdrive. A on two consecutive days—has continued to remain mediaperson is today flooded every day with mostly a little over 1, which means we are still in the releases from various institutions—chan- exponential phase (Fig. 1). Of course, the national picture nelled through the Press Information Bur- reflects the situation in some problem States. Barring eau (PIB)—with claims of discoveries and Punjab, the other States that were discussed in the Front- inventions by these institutions and line issue dated May 22 continue to be problematic. agencies. Moreover, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, whose tra- And to boot, the Ministry has also jectories had seemed to bend down from the exponential brought out a 156-page compen- phase are now showing signs of trend reversal. Of serious dium of COVID-19-related re- concern will be the case of West Bengal, which will be search/R&D/products on the subjected to the double whammy of COVID-19 and the anvil from government re- supercyclone “Amphan”. The cyclone’s landfall and its search institutions, ranging continuing north-north-eastward trajectory over land, from mathematical model- ling to testing kits, masks, H EALTH OFFICIALS conducting RT-PCR tests as sanitisers, ventilators, vac- part of rapid testing initiative in Visakhapatnam cine and drug develop- .R. DEEPAK .R. on May 6. K Source: wikipedia/MoHFW ment and PPEs. Appar- F RONTLINE . J UNE 5, 2020 4 5 F RONTLINE . J UNE 5, 2020 FIGURE 2 ently, at 6 p.m. every day, all these institutions are re- frustrated and would like to stop developing them be- quired to report what has been done for COVID-19 cause of the scam around its procurement. during the day. The best sounding ones are compiled and But what has been the outcome of these claims and issued as press releases that very day or the following day. their use/impact in the nation’s fight against the disease? It has been a little over five years since Ashutosh Has any one of them made it to the field-level application Sharma was appointed as the Secretary of the Union or the production stage? No one knows, barring perhaps Ministry’s Department of Science and Technology a few at best, because there has been no follow-up in- (DST).