Readers’ response: Why this Government must go

This Govt must go

People are said to get the government they deserve. But two months of the lockdown convinced me that Indians deserve a much better and more sensitive government. I have cried while reading about the teenaged girl from Bihar who took her physically handicapped father home after cycling 1,200 kilometres. I wept whie reading about the experience of a staff member of former MP Priya Dutt.

He got together a few friends, arranged a car to drive back home in Jharkhand and reported after reaching that from Bhiwandi till Jharkhand, neither he nor thousands of people on the road had to go without hot food and water. Ordinary people on the way helped them. I saw actor Sonu Sood, chef Vikas Khanna, journalist Rana Ayub and so many others feeding people, mingling with stranded workers. But I have not seen a single Union minister do this. I have not seen the Prime Minister, who would hop into open jeeps for road shows during elections, listening to Indians on the road and in distress. We certainly deserve better. This Government must go.

Sanjeev Shukla

Cyclone and politics

Initial estimates suggest West Bengal suffered damages worth at least Rupees one lakh Crore after Cyclone Amphan, a super cyclone, pummeled the state, leaving buildings damaged, embankments breached, farmland soaked with saline water and mobile towers and electricity transmission devastated.

The Prime Minister’s offer of one thousand Crore is totally inadequate, especially since the Centre owes the state thirteen times as much by way of the state’s share of GST.

Shashank Mitra

Just a coincidence?

Even as the BJP ‘celebrated’ one year of the fifth NDA Government (remember Vajpayee’s three terms) at the Centre, one crisis after another is overtaking the country. As if the pub- lic health crisis, the tanking economy, growing unemployment, the migrant workers’ crisis, the cyclone and the locust attacks were not enough, the country is facing rising tension on its borders with China and Nepal. No Prime Minister of India had a better opportunity to improve relations with China, Nepal and Bangladesh than Narendra Modi.

No PM has arguably invested so much time, money and optics to build personal rapport with leaders of the neighbouring countries. And yet, things seem to be spiralling out of control. Is it just a coincidence or could there be some method in the madness, some design to divert attention from domestic distress? Nothing like a border crisis to rally the nation and call for sidelining everything else?

A cynical citizen

New house for the PM

England, which was in the process of renovating its Parliament building, say media reports, has suspended the work. In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the country, reports said, had Nehru, the ‘Literary Statesman’ different priorities. More money was needed to strengthen the National Health Service (NHS), support the jobless and businesses hurt by the lockdown and the pandemic. Renovation of public buildings can wait. But not in India, where the Government has shown no inclination to stop or suspend the central vista project for which the Government has allocated a whopping Rs 20,000 Crore.

Objections from civil society and the opposition have been met with Sphinx-like silence from the Govt, which seems determined to push ahead with the vanity project. It is astonishing to find that the Government still does not acknowledge that there is a public health emergency that requires more hospitals and better hospitals, not a new Parliament building or a new house for the Prime Minister.

Parminder Bhatia

To be old in 2020

I am an old man in my seventies. But I am in good health, am reasonably active and though a borderline diabetic, I have not had any serious ailment in the last 50 years. But I am naturally alarmed in the wake of COVID-19 and it is a rare day when I am not reminded how vulnerable I am.

Though I have not been out even once during the lockdown, the slightest suggestion of going out for a walk triggers alarm among family members. Neighbours of course keep their distance, waving at me sometimes from a safe distance. When I finally did go out for a walk on the road, people avoided me like the plague, walking across to the other side of the road. I am amused but depressed. There can be a cure for COVID-19 but alas, no cure for paranoia.

Som Nair