Random Thoughts - Pattabhi Sitaraman

China had been and continues to be antagonistic towards India from early 1960s.  Under the then premier Zhou-En-Lai the famed Hindi-Chini bai bai of Indian prime minister J Nehru did not cut much ice and India faced one of its worst military defeats in recent memory. China claimed part of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as its own and had been voicing its objection whenever any development work is undertaken in that area. Economically and militarily, being behind India in the early 1960s, it had overtaken India in the 1990s thanks to its relentless push for opening its economy to the global companies offering them everything a bottom-line driven capitalist corporate looks for. Presently Chinese economy is second largest in the world and its military might, though may not match some of the western powers, is still to be feared as most of the war machines are locally made and its military is very aggressive. It is trying to undermine the resurgence of India as a power in the Asia

So much had been written and reported extensively portraying the negative side of the lock down with total lack of empathy to the labour who had migrated to work in his new place of settlement. This is an attempt to look at it from a different perspective. Many people both from within the country and illegal immigrants from across the border into the state of WB migrated to work in places, far away from their homelands, like Ahmedabad, Surat, Mumbai, Pune, Coimbatore, Tiruppur etc. This was mainly due to the lack of any opportunity for employment to earn their daily bread near their home towns. Many of them have their parents, families back in their villages. It all started much earlier but the cascade started in 2004 when the UPA government came to power for the first time defeating the NDA headed by ABV. Most of the states were ruled by the constituents of UPA and the parties did nothing to improve the economic conditions of these states nor provided any employment opportu

Since the first case was reported in end January 2020, the response of the governments both at center and the states had been exemplary despite some minor mishaps here and there. However, given the density and size of the population of the country, the response so far had been one of the best given the circumstances.  Contrary to many official claims, the country had passed onto the stage 3, i.e. community spread, from one to another.  The lock down for close to 50 days had helped the governments to delay the onset of the community spread.  But it had not spread to that an extent that it is making the health care facility breaking at seams.  Still the medical care personnel and the facilities are able to manage the patients being admitted in hospitals.  The percentage of cured patients is the highest among many advanced nations. The percentage of death also is the lowest among all nations that are affected by this virus.  Despite all these heart warming stats, there are still some gr