PM Modi Announces Booster Doses And Jabs For Kids Even As DCGI Approves Covaxin For 15-18 Age Group!

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 medical fraternity and others including even the opposition political parties. The ‘Booster Dose’ debate has been raging in India since the last few months. 

PM Modi has also presented a positive scenario with the logistics of preparation across the country. He hailed India’s vaccination drive started on January 16, 2021 which has now covered 61% of the population with double vaccine jabs and 91% of the population having at least one jab. The Prime Minister informed the nation that at the moment the country has 1.8 million isolation beds, 0.5 million oxygen supported beds, 1,40,000 ICU beds, 90,00 ICU and non-ICU beds specially for the children, more than 3 thousand PSA or Pressure Swing Adsorption oxygen plants, 0.4 million oxygen cylinders and more support to the states is being ensured for buffer stocks of vaccines and facilities for testing. While praising the efforts of the medical doctors, scientists and experts Modi said that India’s pandemic fight has been based on scientific principles, active consultations and methods throughout the period. 

There is some uncertainty about which of the two main vaccines being administered in India—Covishield and Covaxin—would be used for the booster doses. It is being speculated, with some medical logic behind it, that the doubly-vaccinated with Covishield would get Covaxin as the booster dose and the doubly-vaccinated with Covaxin would get Covishield jab as the booster dose. The priority of fully vaccinating about 40% of the Indian population who have either got one dose and not vaccinated at all, remains still. To make it happen as soon as possible experts across different fields and state governments have been asking the Government of India to reduce the gap of 12-16 weeks to a month for Covishield jabs. The gap between Covaxin jabs is 28 days, but Bharat Biotech has not been able to manufacture and supply enough doses in comparison to Covishield. 

It is also to be noted that Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for children of the 2-18 age group had been approved on October 12 this year by the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) and since then the regulatory body’s final seal has been awaited. It has been reported that, to make very sure of the safety issues, the DCGI had appointed another SEC to go through all aspects and finally approved the vaccine yesterday; but only for the 12-18 age group which is a disappointment. The delay has been more frustrating considering the fact that world’s first DNA-based 3-dose non-injectable vaccine for children above 12 years of age Zydus Cadila’s Zycov-D, was approved by the DCGI as far back as in August this year. Anyway, better late than never, and we hope for the best now. Many experts have commented about children having strong immunity against severe disease after infection; but our concern has always been that children may take the virus home where elders also live. 

There is also the issue of the efficacy of the existing vaccines and even the booster doses against Omicron and even the World Health Organization (WHO) is not able to make up its mind yet to suggest or to not suggest the booster doses even as many countries have already gone ahead with that. However, it is more or less accepted that even though the vaccines and the booster doses may not be very effective in preventing COVID-19 and Omicron infections or re-infections the full doses can certainly reduce the severe type of the disease, thus reducing hospitalization and deaths. We further hope that the PM’s steps and the level of preparedness is not used as a justification for going ahead with the assembly elections in 5 states. 

India: Rushing Through The Bills And A Clueless Opposition!

While the opposition political parties of India have been clueless about what to stand for and how to stand for, the ruling political party with its huge majority or a brute majority have been getting used to rushing through the bills in Parliament of which the prime example had been the Three Farm Laws in 2020 pandemic times (had to be repealed last month due to sustained opposition by the farmers) along with other examples, especially after the party’s second landslide in 2019. ‘Rushing through’ essentially means getting the bills passed in a hurry with mostly voice votes rendering ‘debate’ a mere formality. Yesterday, Monday the 20^th of December 2021, the Election Laws (Amendment) Bill-2021 was passed by the Lok Sabha without any debate despite strong opposition to the move. Today, the Bill has also been passed by the Rajya Sabha amid an opposition walkout, and with the Presidential assent being only a formality this move to link the Aadhaar Card to the Voter ID is set to become a law.

 

Why oppose this inevitable move as it traces back to 2013 and only thanks to the verdicts of the Supreme Court of India in the past few years responding to pleas against the moves, the linking could be accomplished only partially till now? The Election Commission of India (ECI), a supposedly independent constitutional authority, has been asking for this reform since long time in a bid to eliminate bogus voting and duplication of voter cards. The Government justifies this move by standing with the ECI and adding to it that the said linking is still ‘voluntary’; that it proposes to be ‘gender neutral’ changing ‘wife’ to ‘spouse’ that will allow both husbands and wives in service vote from the same location; that the voters can register for voter cards four times in a year now instead of just once so far; and that not providing the Aadhaar Card does not necessarily mean that the applications will be rejected.

 

The opposition political parties and some other stakeholders are saying that this is a ‘dangerous’ move leading to deletion of the names of many voters the likes of which had been seen after the ECI decided upon the linking in 2015, enrolling more than 300 million citizens already; that the Government is set to resort to ‘target’ the voters having the profiles of the citizens thus stored in the ECI data base in view of the forthcoming assembly elections in five states; that the fraudsters can have a very good time thanks to possible exploitation of the same data base; and most importantly that the country still not having a Privacy and Data Protection Law in place this might lead to breaches and leaks of personal data. The last point carries a lot of weight, and ideally, the Government should’ve first ‘rushed through’ the Privacy and Data Protection Bill, and then could’ve made the elections reforms bill fool-proof.

 

However, leaks and breaches in the personal data bases have been taking place all over the globe from various sources quite frequently in these digital days—the banks to the social media—and fraudsters have been in the act of resorting to various ‘creative’ measures to cheat people. While as per the Supreme Court orders that submission of Aadhaar Cards cannot be demanded by private entities, the banks, public or private, and the telecom companies have been making the card mandatory for accounts, credit cards, SIM cards, address proof or for change of address and so on. Besides, the linking of the Aadhaar Card to the PAN card has been made mandatory for Income Tax purpose. Of course, the Supreme Court has given some relaxations to some of the above and more for the purpose of digital payment gateways; but the distinction between ‘voluntary’ and ‘mandatory’ disclosures of Aadhaar Card details through the biometrics often gets blurred. We would say there is actually nothing wrong in going for the Card by all the citizens of the country and thus release the outlets for a range of benefits and conveniences.  

 

Politics has always been the mainstay in a democracy like India, and the ‘brute majority’ enjoyed by the ruling party has been the real concern for the largely disjointed opposition political alliances. Now, all the opposition parties are alarmed about the possible benefits through this ‘linking’ law for the ruling party in the forthcoming assembly elections rather than the justifiability of the ‘linking’. As far as we the citizens are concerned both the ruling party and the opposition must focus on the real issues of concern rather than indulging in petty and electoral politics.

 

In the midst of repeated disruptions in the winter session of the Parliament over issues, prominently on a union minister and his on being involved in the Lakhimpur-Kheri incident in Uttar Pradesh where at least four farmers were mowed down by the son’s vehicle, another bill, the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill has been presented in Lok Sabha today, aiming at making the marriageable age uniform for both men and women, again leading to opposition protests. The proposed bill wants to raise the marriageable age for girls from 18 to 21 which makes it uniform with the boys. Some of the opposition political parties are protesting against the move saying that at the age of 18 one becomes an adult, eligible to vote also, and therefore, the girls attaining the age of 18 should have the right to decide about their future in choosing to get married if preferred. Such was the ruckus in the lower house that finally the bill had to be referred to a Parliamentary Panel for scrutiny, and with just two days left for the winter session it may not be possible for the ruling party to ‘rush through’ again.

 

However, this move must be supported for the simple reason of uniformity between males and females. To add more reason to our support, the boys become graduates at about the age of 21 and many of the girls getting or forced into marriage are thus deprived of higher education. The argument by many social activists that the practices of child marriage and child labor still persist in our society does not hold much water. The opposition against the bill is more of a reflection of the mindset of a patriarchal society than having any solid ground to object to the proposed move by the Government. A step in the right direction can always help better our society in future, and most importantly, no government can ever change the values of a society whatever way it tries. The feudalistic patriarchal domineering mindset still prevails in this country and this includes many political leaders too across various parties, not excepting the ruling party at all. No wonder, the crimes against women continue unabated and the bill for ensuring reservation for women in Parliament has been pending for years. 

Movie The Devil Made Me Do It: The Conjuring-3 Has All The Scares, But A Weaker Storyline!

 

The third installment of the much-celebrated ‘The Conjuring series’ and the eighth film of the Conjuring Universe Horror Franchise—The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It—was made ready for release in September 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it till June 2021 when it was released in the US and on HBO Max simultaneously. Unfortunately, it could not be released in the Indian theatres again thanks to the pandemic. Since the HBO Max show-term was very short the Indian fans of the franchise have been wondering where to watch the movie, the way they were thrilled and intrigued by the haunted-house stories of The Conjuring (2013) and The Conjuring-2 (2016) with the adored real-life pair of paranormal investigators Ed Warren and Lorraine Warren, played brilliantly by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in all of the flicks of the trilogy and in one of the Conjuring Universe franchise movies. Finally. Amazon Prime Video started streaming this movie from the 15^th of December 2021, and the horror ‘fun’ has come roaring back.

  

As usual, the story of this film too is based on a real-life court case in 1981 where the murder accused, Arne Johnson, pleaded not guilty under the guise that The Devil Made Him Do It as he claimed was demonically possessed while committing the act, for the first time in the US court case history. Ed and Lorraine Warren testified for Arne as they were convinced about the demonic possession and gave all their evidence in terms of captured camera images and videos. However, since such a premise could never have a legal basis, the accused was convicted and sentenced to 15-20 years of imprisonment; but he got out of jail in five years due to his exemplary behavior and that he married his girlfriend while still in jail. Dry court proceedings can never be an apt subject for a suspense-horror flick and therefore, a thrilling storyline and a script was built around the case.

 

The film opens with the scariest scene of the movie and perhaps one of the scariest scenes ever in horror cinema history. The scene depicts the exorcism of a little boy, maybe around 10 years of age, named David with the presence of the stricken family, Ed and Lorraine and the exorcist. The chaotically horrifying developments that follow had better be watched than explained, with the results that Ed gets hurt and has a heart attack while the character of Arne Johnson (played by Ruairi O’Connor), boyfriend of David’s elder sister Debbie Glatzel (played by Sarah Catherine), looked into the eyes of the violent David and invited the demon to leave David and possess him, which, incredibly enough, happened. To my experience of horror films this is a new twist as it raises some questions: it seems to be too easy that may lighten the job of the exorcists and that a demon or a ghost possesses someone with a definite purpose and so, why should it leave its prized victim! Anyway, this was necessary as a prologue for the reel-life Arne Johnson to go on to murder someone and face trial.

 

As compared to the earlier absolutely absorbing and tension-filled two films of the trilogy the third one lacks a flow of storytelling hampered by flashbacks, jerk-cuts and scenes left half-treated, jumping to other scenes and then coming back to the former. This can be interpreted as a treatment style of the director, but it does not help storytelling keeping in mind the viewers’ continued involvement. For example, Ed Warren who suffered a heart attack probably rested for about a month (not clearly indicated) during which the demon in Arne preferred to do nothing atrocious. However, the moment Ed recovers with a telepathic dream he communicates to Lorraine to warn the police about an impending tragedy in the house of Arne’s employer and landlord. And inevitably, Arne in a sudden burst of possessive fit murders the landlord and is arrested by the police.

 

Now comes the real turning point of the story: Lorraine, with her super intuitive and psychic powers visualizes a grim connection of the Arne’s act with the murder and suicide of two young girls in the recent days. The police were yet to find the body of second girl who supposedly killed her friend in a fit of the same kind of demonic possession and then committed suicide. So, for the first time in the history of the trilogy the police join the investigations with the paranormal help of Ed and Lorraine, ultimately finding the submerged body of the second girl as Lorraine leads them through a dramatically crafted and a light-n-shadow scene, eminently worth watching.

 

With the ‘connection’ confirmed, Lorraine and Ed revisit the house of David and Lorraine discovers a witch’s totem in the underground chambers of the house, filled with rats. The angle of occultist practices come in here, again for the first time, and Lorraine, convinced that the connection works both ways and it is in the process of completing a curse implying more murders, starts the hunt for the source of the evil—if it was an evil spirit or a devilish human being with supernatural powers should be avoided here, lest it becomes a spoiler. While the first half of the film is very engaging and tension-filled the second half becomes rather predictable. The climax, unfortunately, fails to shock-thrill the viewers.

 

But the film is immensely worth watching thanks to the intense performances, as usual, of the couple—Wilson and Farmiga—and also the jump-scares that come when not expected and do not come when expected, keeping the viewers guessing, particularly a scarily delightful scene of David jumping on a bubbling mattress as if filled with water and then something unexpected happening to him. The sequel, different from the other two as mentioned above, reminds us of the brilliant South Korean horror-mystery-suspense flick ‘The Wailing’  of which we wrote about recently.

 

‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’ is not directed by James Wan who created the Conjuring Universe horror franchise with his Atomic Monster Productions and New Line Cinema of Warner Bros Entertainment thus completing the 20-year efforts led by Tony DeRosa-Grund and his team to make a series of films on the supernatural case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, and directing the first movie of the franchise ‘The Conjuring’ in 2013. Huge commercial success of the first venture led to productions of supernatural horror sequels and prequels one after the other: Annabelle in 2014, The Conjuring-2 in 2016, Annabelle Creation in 2017, The Nun in 2018, The Curse of La Llorona in 2019, Annabelle Comes Home in 2019 and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It in 2021 which is directed by Michael Chaves who made his directorial debut with a franchise film, ‘The Curse of La Llorona’. The Conjuring Universe has become the second highest-grossing horror franchise in Hollywood history and one of the most critically acclaimed. Almost all of the eight films have been huge commercial hits the world over with positive to mixed reviews. The franchise is at the moment working on two more horror films—the first being titled ‘The Crooked Man’ and the second film’s title, reported to be a sequel to ‘The Nun’, is to be announced.