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Editorial Today (English)

In this section, we are presenting our readers/aspirants compilation of selected editorials of national daily viz. The Hindu, The live mint,The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Economic Times, PIB etc. This section caters the requirement of Civil Services Mains (GS + Essay) , PCS, HAS Mains (GS + Essay) & others essay writing competition

1.BJP’s tough choice in Karnataka: Yediyurappa or generational shift

The dissension in BJP’s Karnataka unit has landed the party on the horns of a great dilemma. Chief minister BS Yediyurappa is a tall leader of the Lingayat community who can make or mar BJP’s prospects in elections as he proved in 2013 when he floated another party after losing the chief ministership. But his younger rivals are just as strong creating the perception of a government perpetually fending off its own colleagues rather than the opposition.

The defections engineered by Yediyuruppa from Congress and JD(S), which necessitated rewarding the turncoats with ministerial berths, were the start of problems for Yediyurappa. Allegations of corruption, nepotism and a directionless administration also contributed to subsequently weakening his grip over power.

With Lingayat seers warning against unseating Yediyurappa, BJP’s central leadership has some tightrope walking to do. Its sole comfort would be that the opposition Congress is also beset by factional turmoil with the sharpening Siddaramaiah-DK Shivakumar tussle requiring Rahul Gandhi’s intervention this week. But allowing Yediyurappa to continue hasn’t helped BJP tide over the factionalism so far. The situation has turned into a Hobson’s choice for the party that has brooked no dissent since Narendra Modi’s grand takeover in 2013.

2.Read it right: Survey indicating extent of antibody prevalence nationally cannot be the sole guide to public policy

The fourth national sero survey indicating that two-thirds of the country could have developed antibodies against Covid should be treated as a warning, as ICMR chief Balram Bhargava said, that nearly 40 crore Indians are still to contract the infection. There is no room for complacency among citizens or authorities, especially after horrors of the second wave. The infamous example of Delhi, which recorded 50% seroprevalence in January and was yet laid low in April, bears remembering. Findings of 68% seroprevalence in this round, at best, buy some time to speed up vaccination before current immunity levels dip.

August, when Dr Bhargava had claimed readiness to deliver 1 crore jabs daily, is just days away. Yet the average daily vaccination numbers aren’t even touching 50 lakh. Any slow-go based on the sero survey would be dangerous – 400 persons in only 70 districts across 21 states were sampled. Also, the better off classes who were severely hit by the second wave, often provide too few samples. Surveys cannot capture granular phenomena in a vast country like India. Bhargava has also expressly warned against state governments and districts extrapolating this data to suit their purposes.

States should be conducting their own extensive sero surveys, in conjunction with greater targeted testing and surveillance of severe acute respiratory illness, to gather intelligence on a potential third wave. A number of districts in Kerala, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Northeast are recording high test positivity rates, bucking the national trend.

Kerala is a good example. Its high second wave plateau, after a long first wave plateau that lasted five months, has stumped the state government. With the state lockdown nearing three months, citizens are predictably restless. Easing restrictions for Eid citing trade losses has irked the Supreme Court and medical community. Earlier, the Sabarimala temple was opened with restrictions on entry. Courts and doctors are right: Every state should restrict all kinds of gatherings now and in the foreseeable future. With Kerala’s numbers too high for comfort and the state festival Onam that stoked its first wave just weeks away, sound public policy mustn’t yield ground to populist temptations.

3.Dealing with denial: On playing down the COVID-19 tragedy

India must not play down the COVID-19 tragedy, as that would hurt public confidence

A touchy topic for the Centre and States has been the counting of the dead from COVID-19. In 2020, as the pandemic ravaged Europe and the U.S., Health Ministry officials would incessantly argue that India had better managed the pandemic because its deaths per million of population were comparatively lower. While factually true, it was always apparent that the argument was specious given the size, demographic difference and India’s per capita access to quality health care. But the ferocious second wave, in April and May, characterised by the very visible scenario of hospitals being overrun, and the sick gasping for a very basic necessity of medical oxygen, revealed a spike in excess deaths, compared to the normal death rate in previous years. Even though independent databases, such as the CRS and State records, show large spikes in deaths, with no other explicable cause other than COVID-19, the Centre continues to be in denial of the mortal scale of the pandemic. Tuesday’s statement by Bharati Pravin Pawar, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, in the Rajya Sabha, that there were no “specific reports” of deaths from States due to lack of oxygen, led Congress leader K.C. Venugopal, to say the party will move a privilege motion against her.

Indeed, it is the absolute lack of empathy or acknowledgement of the lived experience of many who have watched their closest suffer and die for want of medical oxygen that makes the Minister’s statement appalling. It is technically true that while no death certificate or medical record would note a COVID-19 patient’s demise as due to “lack of oxygen”, and therefore not causative, the very fact that the Centre moved in April-May to repurpose all its industrial oxygen capacity into producing and transporting medical grade oxygen is itself evidence that the inability to access it must be considered as a probable cause of death. In the early days of the pandemic, a COVID-positive test was necessary to count as a COVID-19 death until the ICMR said it was not always required. It is bewildering why India — with the third highest number of COVID-19 deaths globally, whose oxygen crisis was international news, and mortality figures considered an under-count — sees value in denying oxygen-shortage casualties. Counter-productively, it diminishes public faith in the health-care system. India’s leadership sought to convey the impression that the country had conquered the pandemic and — chastened by the second wave — is now advising abundant caution, with the public messaging focused on the possibility of a third wave, and how nearly a third of the population continues to be vulnerable as per the ICMR’s fourth serology survey. But diminishing the tragedy, especially in Parliament and in its official records, only further erodes the Government’s credibility.

4.Water as woe: On Mumbai’s annual mayhem

Mumbai cannot manage its flooding without a new deal for drainage and housing

The revival of the monsoon has overwhelmed Mumbai and its suburbs once again, paralysing life, disrupting drinking water supplies, and exposing the parlous state of its infrastructure. It is clear that the volume and duration of monsoonal rain are turning unpredictable, and intermittent torrents, with crippling impacts on cities will become more frequent, influenced by a warming climate. Strengthening that theory, three weather stations in Mumbai recorded a staggering level of rainfall in one week from July 13, ranging from 628 mm in Mahalaxmi to 958.5 mm in Santa Cruz, the latter experiencing a peak of 234.9 mm on July 18. The inundation has taken a toll of at least 32 lives, and the majority of victims died in landslides that crushed their slum houses at Mahul in Chembur. These deaths of despair recur almost every year, soon to be forgotten in fair weather in a city that prides itself on its enterprise and resilience. In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the monsoon malady poses a double jeopardy, adding to the economic misery of the vulnerable who live in hovels in suburban landslide-prone locations. Such dire conditions stand in contrast to Maharashtra’s keen desire to keep Mumbai as the country’s pre-eminent financial metropolis. The limitations in its infrastructure to accommodate intense monsoons, and its notorious inability to provide affordable inner city housing to the less affluent and even the middle class, are making other cities look more attractive.

The catastrophic floods in Mumbai and Chennai in 2005 and 2015, respectively, resulted in the emergence of a management plan drawn up by the National Disaster Management Authority and later, the first dedicated storm water drainage manual by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. But such initiatives can do little if States, which have both power and responsibility over city affairs, do not feel compelled to address the challenges posed by urbanisation. In fact, Mumbai’s inability to manage recurrent floods and the needs of a massive slum population was highlighted by a fact-finding committee appointed by the Maharashtra government after the 2005 deluge, with calls to liberate the city’s rivers and lakes from various impediments, enable perennial flow in the Mithi river, create fresh holding lakes for excess waters, and rehabilitate those who live in risky locations. There is a need to clear the air on the follow-up to these and other expert recommendations, which the State can do through a white paper. Mumbai’s neglect is not unique, though, and most big cities are amorphously expanding to the suburbs where basic infrastructure including drainage is absent, and lakes and rivers are heavily encroached, often with political support. Such unplanned growth, with no defences against weather disasters, is leaving cities a lot poorer.

5.Covid-19: The battle ahead

More Indians have some protection now. But a rough extrapolation of the findings suggests 400 million people are still vulnerable — this number alone is higher than the population of the United States. The government rightly underlined this fact several times on Tuesday to appeal to people to remain careful and avoid any sort of gathering, whether social, religious or political.

The latest nationwide survey for Covid-19 antibodies suggests that two out of three Indians may have some form of protection from the coronavirus. The government’s senior experts said on Tuesday that the sample size of close to 29,000 people included people who did and did not receive a vaccine. Among the unvaccinated group, the prevalence of antibodies was 62%. Overall, including vaccine recipients, it was 67.6%. In contrast, in the last such study, from the same 70 districts, the prevalence rate was 24.1%. The jump is unsurprising since the earlier study was held prior to the devastating second wave of Covid-19 infections.

Such studies, known as seroprevalence surveys, carry several important caveats. First, can the study be extrapolated to estimate the overall spread of the virus in India? Both Balram Bhargava, the head of the Indian Council of Medical Research, and Niti Aayog member VK Paul cautioned that these numbers cannot be taken to fit a particular city or village — the study, they said, gives mostly an overall picture across the country. Second, does simply testing positive for antibodies mean protection? The answer is yes; antibodies do mean protection. Third, the longevity of antibodies, especially among those who were infected, is likely to wane in the next few months.

But there is another way of looking at the number. A rough extrapolation of the findings suggests 400 million people are still vulnerable — this number alone is higher than the population of the United States. The government rightly underlined this fact several times on Tuesday to appeal to people to remain careful and avoid any sort of gathering, whether social, religious or political. States that recently went ahead with allowing people to observe some festivities, or those that attempted to but were stopped by the Supreme Court, must pay particular attention. It is also crucial for authorities engaged in surveillance to keep a close watch on any changes in outbreak patterns. At present, many regions of the country are logging numbers last seen in February. That is when India became complacent. It must not make the same mistake again since this time, if it is able to drive up vaccination rates, the country may well be in the home stretch of the war against Covid-19.

 

 

 

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