India Bulletin unbiased - unedited - unbeatable news delivered directly to you Saturday, May 1, 2021 Vol. 17 No. 11 Biweekly Midwest Edition www.indiabulletinusa.com FREE INSIDE THIS ISSUE Gupta confirmed India COVID cases cross 18 million, by the U.S. senate gravediggers work round the clock By Neha Arora, Shilpa Jamkhandikar, Alasdair Pal and Francis Mascarenhas MUMBAI - India’s total CO- VID-19 cases passed 18 million Divided U.S. Senate confi rms on Thursday after another world Vanita Gupta to No. 3 job at Jus- record number of daily infec- tice Department. Page 5 tions, as gravediggers worked around the clock to bury victims United States to and hundreds more were cremat- help India ed in makeshift pyres in parks and parking lots. India reported 379,257 new infections and 3,645 new deaths on Thursday, health ministry data showed, the highest number of fatalities in a single day since the start of the pandemic. The world’s second most The United States to send more populous nation is in deep cri- than $100 mln in COVID sup- sis, with hospitals and morgues plies to India. Page 6 overwhelmed. Healthcare workers place the body of a person, who died due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), on the ground for Mumbai gravedigger Sayyed cremation at a crematorium ground in New Delhi, India on April 28, 2021. PriyankaVirat‘Badrinath Kohli appeals rues Ki Munir Kamruddin, 52, said he the surge.” government said on Wednesday. 1,800 and 1,700 respectively. and his colleagues were working India’s military has begun More than 8 million people However, medical experts forDulhania’ Biden’ssoft ball help non-stop to bury victims. moving key supplies, such as had registered, it said, but it was believe India’s true COVID-19 “I’m not scared of COVID, oxygen, across the nation and not immediately clear how many numbers may be fi ve to 10 times I’ve worked with courage. It’s will open its healthcare facilities had got slots. greater than the offi cial tally. all about courage, not about to civilians. A local offi cial in Mumbai said At Delhi’s Holy Family Hos- fear,” he said. “This is our only Hotels and railway coaches the city had paused its vaccina- pital, patients arrived in am- job. Getting the body, removing have been converted into critical tion drive for three days as sup- bulances and private vehicles, it from the ambulance, and then care facilities to make up for the plies were running short, while some gasping for air as their burying it.” shortage of hospital beds. offi cials said the worst-hit state oxygen cylinders ran out. In Actress Priyanka Chopra appeals Each day, thousands of Indi- India’s best hope is to vacci- of Maharashtra was likely to ex- the ICU, patients lay on trolleys to President Biden to help India ans search frantically for hospi- nate its vast population, experts tend strict coronavirus curbs by between beds. with vaccines. Page 12 tal beds and life-saving oxygen say, and on Wednesday it opened another two weeks. “Someone that should be in for sick relatives, using social registration for all above the the ICU is being treated in the Australian trio media apps and personal con- age of 18 to receive shots from DEATHS LIKELY wards,” Dr Sumit Ray, head of tacts. Hospital beds that become Saturday. UNDER-REPORTED the unit, told Reuters. return from IPL available, especially in intensive But although it is the world’s Only about 9% of India’s “We are completely full. care units (ICUs), are snapped biggest producer of vaccines, In- population of about 1.4 billion The doctors and nurses are de- up in minutes. dia does not have the stocks for has received a dose since the moralised, they know they can “The ferocity of the sec- the estimated 800 million now vaccination campaign began in do better, but they just don’t ond wave took everyone by eligible. January. have the time. No one takes a surprise,” K. VijayRaghavan, Many who tried to sign up However, while the second break.” principal scientifi c adviser to for vaccination said they failed, wave overwhelms the health The U.S. State Department the government, was quoted as complaining on social media of system, the offi cial death rate issued a travel advisory on saying in the Indian Express being unable to get a slot or even is below that of Brazil and the Wednesday against travel to Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson newspaper. to simply get on the website, as United States. India because of the pandemic and Andrew Tye return home “While we were all aware of it repeatedly crashed. India has reported 147.2 and advised its citizens to leave from IPL as COVID-19 cases second waves in other countries, “Statistics indicate that far deaths per million, the Re- the country. Family members of surge in India. Page 20 we had vaccines at hand, and from crashing or performing uters global COVID-19 tracker U.S. government employees in Entertainment...........Page 12 no indications from modelling slowly, the system is perform- shows, while Brazil and the India can voluntarily return to Business................... Page 14 exercises suggested the scale of ing without any glitches,” the United States reported fi gures of the United States, it added. Astrology...................Page 16 Health....................... Page 17 - Peter Drucker INDEX “Effi ciency is doing things right; eff ectiveness is doing the right things.” Sports........................Page 20 Thought of the Week: ANYTIME. WWW.INDIABULLETINUSA.COM ANYWHERE. 2 India Bulletin Saturday, May 1, 2021 INSIGHT Documenting the death of a COVID patient outside a Delhi hospital of the hospital was not available ing place in the country under saw as preventable, were adamant for comment. A spokesman from COVID protocols, according to his story be told. Delhi’s state government, which interviews with crematorium and His brothers had first brought oversees hospitals in the capital, cemetery workers. him to the hospital at 6 a.m. on said patients had been arriving India’s federal government Friday. But they said staff deemed at the GTB hospital even though did not respond to a request for him well enough to return it had no way to accommodate comment on the casualty figures, home. them. but a state government health of- Ten hours later, his condition “Due to an exponential rise in ficial told Reuters on condition deteriorating, they came back. COVID-19 cases in Delhi, all the of anonymity the mismatch may But it was too late to save him. hospitals are over-burdened,” the be caused by several factors, in- “The system is broken,” his spokesman, Pritam Pal Singh, cluding over-caution in using younger brother Raj said, weep- said. “Despite this, the govern- COVID protocols even when ing over his body. ment is trying its best to give all a person might not have been Siddiqui has covered wars in patients treatment.” positive. Iraq and Afghanistan and was On the day of Narayan’s death, Documenting the deaths is a part of the Reuters team that the country’s overnight infection delicate task, balancing showing won a Pulitzer prize in 2018 Family members mourn after Shayam Narayan is declared dead outside the total was higher than any recorded the human cost of the virus with for coverage of the Rohingya coronavirus disease (COVID-19) casualty ward, at Guru Teg Bahadur hospital, anywhere in the world since the preserving the dignity of the sub- crisis. amidst the spread of the disease in New Delhi, India on April 23, 2021. pandemic began last year, for the ject. But the second wave of the NEW DELHI - For Reuters patients gasping for air on trol- second day running, at 332,730, “A news picture is about get- pandemic sweeping across his photographer Danish Siddiqui, leys outside the already-full hos- according to federal health data. ting the moment to tell the story. own country is unlike anything he covering India’s second wave pital ICU, some dying before ever Some 2,263 died, with over 300 It should also be respectful of has faced before. of the coronavirus pandemic is being admitted. of those in Delhi alone - figures your subject,” Siddiqui said. “If “Here you don’t know who a daily circuit of crematoriums, Siddiqui and Reuters reporter that are almost certainly conser- it’s not, then we won’t publish it.” you’re fighting,” he said. “You cemeteries and hospitals, captur- Alasdair Pal had been at the vative, given the huge numbers In this case, Narayan’s family, don’t know the enemy and you ing the struggles of a nation of hospital for only a few minutes of cremations and burials tak- who were angered by a death they can’t see it.” 1.4 billion people. when a rickshaw arrived carrying From that experience, he knew Shayam Narayan, a 45-year-old the situation at the Guru Teg Ba- COVID patient and father of five. Italy imposes travel ban from India over COVID variant hadur Hospital, a government-run Narayan’s brothers hauled him Italy has joined other coun- Italy’s Health Minister Ro- India, which is facing a health facility in the capital New Delhi onto a hospital trolley and into the tries by imposing restrictions berto Speranza said on Twitter crisis, is battling a “double mu- with 400 COVID ICU beds, reception of the ICU. Just a few on travel from India to avert the he had signed an order barring tant” strain of COVID-19. On might be chaotic.