ChinmayC Blog

The two-year long COVID-19 pandemic (no signal that it’s ended) has jolted the Indian economy almost out of its roots, heightened by the fact that the economy had been under a lot of strain for at least two years prior the outbreak. The normal demand-supply equation has gone bizarre—the supply chain not yet being able to resume its normal course, with some of the key sectors suffering maximum damage, in light of insufficient demand as the common people now want to hold on to their savings fearing an uncertain future. Normally, with less demand and normal supply the prices should fall and this has led many experts to expect a recession soon or already in the process. However, prices only kept on rising, crossing a whopping level of 7% in the recent quarter that’s made the Reserve Bank of India increase the Repo rate twice in two weeks. With some knowledge of economics I feel that while the customers are not spending their money enough the suppliers not still getting the normal booming t...

The Festival of Colors, Holi, began in India with the symbolic burning of Holika (a demoness of ancient times representing the evil or the Satan) effigy last night. This festival is celebrated every year in the last full moon night of the Hindu calendar year. Today, the colors are submerging the country in a spirit of joy. The Indians righteously feel and justify the celebrations across the country as they have missed this for the last two years, and after all, this signifies the victory of good over evil. For the last one month the country has seen a return to near normalcy with all restrictions except for the mask removed, the schools/colleges reopening; and just when they felt that the Pandemic had finally entered the endemic phase came the WHO (World Health Organization) warning that the pandemic is far from over and it has been spiking globally again with more than 11 million cases new cases and over 43,000 deaths in the last week. Combine this with the Russia-Ukraine war raging ...

Media-persons, including this writer, have the habit of prioritizing news stories/reports on the basis of how many people have died or are adversely affected, which is actually necessary to structure a news bulletin, always a tough job doing justice to the stories, selecting them and giving the prominence a story deserves. When a reporter comes in to the newsroom stating that an accident or any kind of such tragic happenings has occurred in which 2-4 people have died the news editor would just grimace it away and most often would ask it to be included in the scroll. If the fatalities are around 10 it normally gets into the bulletin as an important story, and when the toll is more than 15/20 then it becomes a headline news story. Well, this is unfortunate indeed; but in a hyperactive newsroom it becomes unavoidable. However, such stories are never taken as a good news story.   Deaths are always unfortunate whatever be the number, because for the person who succumbs in an accident ...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced, in another unexpected national address late evening yesterday perhaps as a Christmas gift like he did recently on the occasion of Prakash Parv   (an annual festival of the Sikhs in Punjab and Haryana) to repeal the Three Farm Laws, booster doses or precautionary doses for the healthcare and frontline workers and all citizens above 60 years of age with comorbidities, to start from the 10th of January 2022, amid the rising Omicron scare in India. In a bid to make the parents confident enough to send their children to the schools the Prime Minister further announced vaccines jabs for children between 15 and 18 years of age to start from January 3, 2022. He also appealed to the people to not panic and follow COVID appropriate behavior strictly while cautioning them against rumors, fear mongering and misinformation. This announcement of the PM has been hailed all over as the most welcome move considering the global Omicron crisis—by the medica...

The regime of having different captains for different formats for which we have been writing in these pages has finally happened with the Indian cricket selectors making opener Rohit Sharma the regular captain in the ODIs and T20Is with effect from India’s tour of South Africa-2021-22 while the captain of all formats since 2017, Virat Kohli, has been retained as captain for the 3-match Test Series starting on the boxing day, 26 th December 2021, in Centurion. This move, probably under the guidance of the new Head Coach Rahul Dravid, is ideally aimed at allowing the wonder of a batsman Virat Kohli to play freely and most importantly, in view of the ICC Men’s World Cup-2023 to be hosted by India for the one day format. This could also be a reflection of the fact that Virat is yet to win an ICC Cup! It is unfortunate that Ajinkya Rahane, the hero of the great Indian comeback in Australia in January this year when Kohli left for home for domestic reasons, has lost his place in Tests as vi...

Photo: jagran.com The Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG-VE) which is an independent group of experts that periodically monitors and evaluates the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and assesses its specific mutations had convened a meeting on 26 November 2021 to assess the emerging COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529 that was first reported to World Health Organization (WHO) from South Africa on November 24, 2021. The epidemiological situation in South Africa has been characterized by three distinct peaks in reported cases, the latest of which was predominantly the Delta variant that originated in India. In recent weeks, infections have increased steeply, coinciding with the detection of B.1.1.529 variant. This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning. Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other Variants Of Concern (VOCs). The number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in almost ...

It is indeed hard to believe that matters would come to a head between two friendly countries even after nearly two weeks of the United Kingdom’s unwarranted imposition of travel restrictionsfor Indian travelers . The Ministry of External Affairs of India then lodged a strong protest against such discriminatory and ‘colonial’ action and warned UK of reciprocal measures; and the UK government reportedly held extensive discussions with the Indian counterpart and decided to include Covishield, the Indian version of their own AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, in the approved list from the 4 th of October 2021, but did nothing about lifting the 10-quarantine restriction even for fully vaccinated travelers refusing to accept the Indian vaccination certification procedure and thus still keeping India in the ‘amber’ list of travel regulations. This has greatly irked the Government of India and they announced the ‘reciprocal’ measures yesterday which are plainly a ‘tit for tat’.   From the ...

For the last 3-4 days India have been registering less than 30,000 daily COVID-19 cases with daily fatalities also reducing. A lot of hope is being generated now as the country has seen less than twenty thousand cases in the last 24 hours, 18,795 to be exact, which is the lowest in six months, and the daily deaths have also come down to 179 fatalities in the same period. The state of Kerala is still leading, but the daily infections that had reached more than thirty thousand recently are 11699 in the last 24 hours and the daily fatalities that had overtaken Maharashtra crossing the 200 mark have come down to 58 in the same period. Maharashtra, the worst affected state in India with over 6 million total infections, has also registered less than 3000 cases in the last 24 hours which is the lowest since February 2021 and the deaths at 32 during the same period. Only two other states, Tamil Nadu and Mizoram, are still showing a rising trend of daily cases; all of the rest of India seem to ...

In the recent cricket Test Series between England and India the 2-1 result in favour of the visitors still hangs in balance entirely due to the fact that a few non-playing members of Team India were found COVID-19 positive which implies that the fifth and the last Test had to be cancelled only because of India’s fault even though not a single playing member of the team got the infection. Now, the change in travel regulations for Indians visiting United Kingdom could be a fallout of the cricket hanger, meaning that the Indians are feared as more prone to getting or spreading the COVID-19 virus with its variants; that India is the originator of the more infectious Delta variant which is again mutating into the Delta Plus; and perhaps also possibly that the handling of the Second Wave of the pandemic in India had been disastrous. Therefore, basically the Englishmen could be feeling insecure with vulnerable Indians loitering around in their territories after sort of achieving the feat of l...

The fifth and the last Test match between hosts England and visitors India was awaited by cricket lovers with much excitement with India taking an unbeatable 2-1 lead winning the fourth Test at the Oval, because the Indian fans wanted their team to seal the series win while the England fans wanted their team to bounce back and win the Test to share the final honors. All of them were in for a huge disappointment though. As soon as the junior physio of Team India tested COVID-19 positive on Thursday, the 9 th of September 2012, a day before the fifth Test was to start at the Old Trafford, total and clueless uncertainty enveloped the match; head coach Ravi Shastri and possibly one or two members of the team management including the senior physio (not confirmed) were already in isolation testing positive before the fourth Test. The practice session for India on that day was cancelled.   Since a physio is obviously to get involved with the players ‘physically’ there were risks of pla...

It was cruelly insensitive on the part of the Government of India to declare in Parliament that there had been no COVID-19 deaths during the second wave due to lack of medical oxygen in the country, when not only the thousands of the affected families but also millions other anxious or someway related families just cannot erase the nightmarish images of people dying gasping for breath on hospital beds, in the hospital passages/corridors/lounges, on the outside courtyards or on the streets, in the parked cars, within the four walls of homes; hospitals sending SOS for oxygen, desperate doctors even breaking down; and round-the-clock media reports and most disturbing visuals.   The reason given by the government is even more ludicrously insensitive: that the states did not report the deaths due to the lack of medical oxygen. Well, most of the states, particularly the ones ruled by the same dispensations would hardly advertise their failure or the stark lack of preparedness. The gove...

The largely preventable or at least controllable marauding second COVID-19 wave in India seems to be ebbing with around 39000 new infections in the last 24 hours and around 700 fatalities in the same period. However, the crisis is far from over with the spree of unlocking taking place all around the nation and the most feared third wave lurking somewhere in the corner. Most of the places except for educational institutions and cinema halls have been reopening in most of the states, with only containment zones still put under strict restrictions. The grim milestone of deaths at over 4 hundred thousand has also been reached with at least two hundred thousand extra fatalities suspected. Further, unlocking cannot be avoided indefinitely due the issue of livelihoods, and in light of the fact that the national positivity rate is now around 2.5% unlocking is technically justified. However, the state governments of India must display extreme caution and aggressive testing, tracing and containm...