The Union Home Ministry has entrusted the Committee for Reforms in Criminal Laws to define what constitutes ‘hate speech’. The panel which was originally constituted to suggest reforms in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), will soon submit the report to the ministry which would have a comprehensive definition of ‘hate speech’.
The committee constituted by Home Ministry may propose a separate section of offences
According to reports, the committee may also propose a separate section on “offences relating to speech and expression”.
The committee is examining a gamut of subjects pertaining to reforms in the IPC. Instead of ad hoc changes, it was decided that all the pending issues such as those on hate speech as recommended by the Viswanathan committee can be examined and comprehensive changes are brought in,” said a Home Ministry official.
The Viswanathan committee proposed including Sections 153 C (b) and Section 505 A in the IPC for incitement to commit an offence on grounds of religion, race, caste or community, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, place of birth, residence, language, disability or tribe. It proposed punishment by up to two years along with a Rs 5,000 fine.
Home Ministry mulling to define ‘hate speech’ for a few years now
In it pertinent to note here that earlier in 2018, the Home Ministry had asked the Law Commission to prepare a distinct law for online “hate speech” acting on a report by a committee headed by former Lok Sabha Secretary General TK Viswanathan who recommended stricter laws. The committee was formed in the wake of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which provided punishment for sending offensive messages through communication services being scrapped by the Supreme Court in 2015.
In 2019, the Ministry decided to reexamine the IPC sections, framed in 1860 and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) after seeking suggestions from States, the Supreme Court, High Courts, the Bar Council of India, Bar Councils of States, universities and law institutes on comprehensive amendments to criminal laws.
However, until now there was no clear definition of what constitutes “hate speech” in the IPC. In absence of a comprehensive definition, it’s difficult for the investigating agencies to identify and prosecute the offenders. Therefore, the Committee for Reforms in Criminal Laws, constituted by the Home Ministry, is attempting for the first time to define such speech, reports The Hindu.
“Who will decide what constitutes a hate speech? Legally speaking, for criminal Sections to be invoked, any such speech has to lead to violence or disturbance of law and order. We will refrain from using the word ‘hate speech’ as it is a loaded term, merely criticising someone is not hate speech,” G.S. Bajpai, Chairperson of the Criminology Centre at National Law University (NLU), Delhi, one of the members of the committee, told The Hindu.
Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday said he has not sought any relief package for the devastation caused by Cyclone Yaas from the Centre, which is already hard-pressed in warding off the threat posed by the coronavirus outbreak.
Patnaik took to Twitter to inform that his government would overcome the crisis through state resources and not burden the central government at a time when the country is witnessing the peak of COVID-19 pandemic.
“As the country is at the peak of COVID19 pandemic, we have not sought any immediate financial assistance to burden the Central Govt and would like to manage it through our own resources to tide over the crisis,” Patnaik tweeted.
As the country is at the peak of #COVID19 pandemic, we have not sought any immediate financial assistance to burden the Central Govt and would like to manage it through our own resources to tide over the crisis. #OdishaFightsYaaspic.twitter.com/1ScXEBp6LF
The tweet by Odisha CM came against the backdrop of a review meeting between the state administration with PM Modi in Bhubaneswar on Friday over the damages caused by Cyclone Yaas. Patnaik appraised PM Modi of the large-scale devastation caused by the cyclone during the meeting. He also informed about the steps taken by the state government ahead of the cyclone and the ongoing relief efforts.
However, Patnaik did seek assistance for long-term measures to make Odisha disaster-resilient, pointing out the number of cyclones that frequently hit the coastal state.
“Sought assistance for long-term measures to make Odisha disaster resilient as we are frequented by such climate hazards every year. Highlighted Odisha’s demand for disaster resilient power infrastructure and resilient coastal protection with storm surge resilient embankments,” he added.
Odisha CM Patnaik had received PM Modi at the airport and had discussed the relief measures in a review meeting.
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee complained of ‘discrimination’ over relief money even before cyclone Yaas came
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier cried discrimination over Cyclone Yaas relief money even before the cyclone came and while the Met department had predicted a worse impact in Odisha than Bengal.
While addressing a press conference, Mamata Banerjee said: “MHA assured an advance relief of Rs 600 crores to Odisha and Andhra Pradesh but only Rs 400 crores to West Bengal. This is discriminatory.”
Interestingly, during last year’s Amaphan, despite PM Modi clearly announcing advanced interim assistance of Rs 1,000 crore for the cyclone-hit West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee had alleged that there was no clarity on the economic assistance provided by the central government.
It is also notable here that the TMC government’s Amphan relief saw massive allegations of corruption and party cadre were given compensation for cyclone damage. The reports of undeserving candidates receiving compensation for cyclone relief just because of their association with TMC had caused a major embarrassment for the Mamata government last year.
On Friday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stoked a massive political controversy by disrespecting the office of the Prime Minister and the Governor of West Bengal by deliberately making them wait for 30 minutes at the Kalaikunda airport.
According to the reports, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday visited Odisha and West Bengal to review the impact of Cyclone Yaas. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, along with Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, also conducted an aerial survey of cyclone-hit areas in the North 24 Parganas district.
Prime Minister Modi landed at the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal after his aerial survey, where a review meeting was scheduled between 2:30 pm and 3:30 pm today. The Chief Minister of West Bengal was expected to join the meeting with Prime Minister Modi to take stock of the cyclone situation in West Bengal.
However, Mamata Banerjee, in the act of violating the principles of federalism of breach of propriety, arrived 30 minutes late to the review meeting despite being at the same premises. Reportedly, Mamata Banerjee did not even bother to receive both the Prime Minister and the Governor of West Bengal.
Mamata did not attend review meeting
Upon entering the review meeting, Mamata Banerjee handed over papers related to the cyclone impact and left the premises claiming she had other engagements.
According to Times Now journalist Megha Prasad, the breach of protocol by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is the first such incident in recent history.
Earlier in the day, PM Modi also held a review meeting with Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar to discuss the impact of the cyclone. He undertook an aerial survey of the parts of Odisha that have been impacted by Cyclone Yaas. During the meeting, the Odisha government demanded long term solutions to mitigate problems caused by the repeated cyclones and provision of disaster-resilient power systems.
As India celebrates the legacy of freedom fighter Veer Savarkar on his 138th birth anniversary, the Congress party and his social media trolls began tarnishing his image by claiming that he had pleaded clemency from the British authorities. The grand-old party has tried to slander the freedom fighter’s sacrifices several times by portraying him a ‘traitor’, ‘British stooge’ and a ‘colonial loyalist.’
Congress workers, in the past, had garlanded Savarkar’s statue with a shoe or blackened it to express their hatred towards him. It, therefore, came as no surprise when on Friday (May 28), the party-sponsored trolls resumed hurling abuses and defaming Veer Savarkar. One such troll uploaded a picture of Veer Savarkar holding his ears and said that he should be renamed as ‘sorry worker’.
Screengrab of the tweet
One Syed Aleem Ilahi wrote, “Veer Savarkar was most obedient servant of British. Real Traitor and anti National Mr Savarkar”
Screengrab of the tweet
Another Congress troll compared the freedom fighter to a ‘dog’ and said that Britishers told the freedom fighter to not ‘bark’ unless he has the power to put up a fight and bite.
Screengrab of the tweet
Circumstances leading unto the mercy petition of Veer Savarkar
At Cellular Jail, Veer Savarkar was subjected to unconscionable torture and inhumane treatment that tested the very limits of his conviction. He was, reportedly, restrained in chains, flogged, and resigned to six months of solitary confinement. The British made him pound coir with his bare hands where his hands were often dripped with blood. He had to manually turn a massive wheel, that would squeeze coconuts for oil and had to produce about 30 pounds a day. While this punishment was only given to those who were “not behaving with the guards”, Savarkar was often made to do it despite his good conduct.
Left all alone, he scraped poems on the prison walls. In order to torment him, the guards whitewashed the walls on which he scraped poems. By some accounts, he was often forced to eat rotten food infested with worms and insects as punishment for his ‘crimes’ against the government. Having to go through life all alone, being allowed to write letters once in a year and a half, to his loved ones and going through tremendous physical and mental torture in a compressed cell.
Following the closure of the prison at Port Blair, Savarkar was eventually deported to Ratnagiri Prison in May of 1921, where his torture continued. Unlike numerous political prisoners who were driven to insanity or committed suicide, Savarkar showed remarkable resilience. He wrote strategic letters of ploy to the Britishers, not only for himself but for others also, to get out of jail, which the Congress has been shamelessly twisting for decades now. One here needs to ask, how many top leaders of the Congress had to suffer such harsh punishments?
Julia Kelley-Swift, a student of history at Wesleyan University, in her thesis titled, ‘A Misunderstood Legacy: V.D. Savarkar and the Creation of Hindutva wrote, “It is easy for any outsider, especially someone seeking to undermine Savarkar’s position, to disparage him for weakness under duress. However, such flippant criticism fails to acknowledge the incredible strain placed on the political prisoners at Port Blair. As Savarkar notes in one of the final sections of his memoir, by the last years of his sentence, he was struggling with continually disintegrating health, including a yearlong stint in the prison hospital.”
Nehru signed a bond pledging to not return to Nabha, was rescued by influential father
On September 22, 1923, former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested alongside K Santanam and AT Gidwani for defying British orders and entering the then princely State of Nabha. The British police had arrested several Akalis, who had launched a demonstration in Jaitu in Nabha, on September 14 of that year. They had demanded the reinstatement of Raja Ripdudaman Singh in the Princely State, after he was exiled by the British to Dehradun.
On learning about the incident, Nehru, Santanam, and Gidwani boarded a train to Mukatsar and then rode on horsebacks along with the Akalis to Jaitu. They were immediately handcuffed and lodged in a small cell at the Jaitu police station. The trio was then shifted to Nabha on September 22 morning and locked in district jail. Despite the police offering Nehru immediate release if he deserted his plans of ‘Satyagraha’, a defiant Nehru did not budge. He was arrested soon after.
It was here that the Satyagrahi in Nehru began to wear out. According to Santanam, the cell was small and the roof was covered in mud. No arrangements were made for new clothing, or shower. Nehru poignantly recounted the experience in his Autobiography where he said, “All this time, till the forenoon of next day, when we were finally delivered up at Nabha Gaol, the joint handcuff and the heavy chain kept us company. Neither of us could move at all without the other’s cooperation. To be handcuffed to another day and for a whole night and part of a day is not an experience I would like to repeat.”
There were no signs of his release. A desperate Motilal Nehru had to reach out to the Viceroy to learn about the whereabouts of his son Jawaharlal Nehru. “…The authorities of the Nabha jail suddenly changed their attitude and arrangements were made for our bathing. Our clothes were given to us and friends from outside were allowed to send fruits and other eatables,” Santanam had recalled the change after Motilal Nehru’s intervention.
In the case of political arrests, the usual policy for accused freedom fighters has been to not defend themselves in case of arrests. Although the former PM initially thought that he would only be tried for violating State orders, the invocation of ‘conspiracy’ by the prosecution made him baffled. It implied a jail term of 2 years. And Jawaharlal Nehru, who had earlier pledged to not defend himself, began seeking for an outside lawyer. However, he was not provided with a counsel and instead sentenced to 6 months for violation of State orders and 18-24 months for conspiracy.
Motilal Nehru then deputed lawyer K D Malviya, who later became a Cabinet Minister after India’s independence. And surprisingly, his sentence was suspended on the same evening. In the words of Professor Chaman Lal, he said, “Nehru was released from the Nabha jail only after he signed a bond that he would never enter the princely state again.” The former Prime Minister knew the case could be later used against him on a later date and therefore wanted to permanently quash it.
Jawaharlal Nehru had deserted his colleague Acharya Gidwani
When violence broke out on February 21, 1924 during which 19 Sikhs were officially believed to have been killed, Nehru’s aide Acharya Gidwani had visited Jaitu to help the wounded. He was in turn arrested by the Nabha State police and had to spend almost a year in jail, before he was released on health grounds. A shrewd Jawaharlal Nehru, who conceded that he did not want to relive his short jail term in Jaitu, deserted Gidwani and chose not to remain loyal to his colleague and visit Jaitu.
In his own words, the former Prime Minister recounted, “I took shelter behind the advice of friends and made of it as a pretext to cover my own weakness. For after all it was my own weakness and disinclination to go to Nabha Gaol again that kept me away, and I have always felt a little ashamed of thus deserting a colleague. As often with us all, discretion was preferred to valour.”
While the Congress party and its trolls have been busy shaming freedom fighter Veer Savarkar despite the torture and ill-treatment meted out to him, a ‘valiant’ Jawaharlal Nehru was quick to get his sentence suspended by signing a bond with the aide of his influential father.
A video has been doing the rounds on social media where the Christian evangelist Prof Rajendra Bihari Lal, vice-chancellor of the Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS) in Naini, Prayagraj, is heard making misleading statements regarding the ongoing pandemic to encourage fallacious hopes in his ignorant followers.
Addressing a crowd, Bihari Lal, who is dressed in saffron with a Rudraksha mala around his neck, usually worn by Hindu sadhus, in the name of Jesus, ‘orders’ Coronavirus to leave. “In the name of Jesus, we scold the pandemic and demand it to end right away”, Bihari Lal says.
“We abolish your (Corona) authority”. Wherever you come from, we send you there in the name of Jesus. From today and this moment, from this time itself, this demonic power would leave the country,” the evangelist adds.
Speaking at “Yeshu Darbar”- the church of the Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS), Bihari Lal says that the “evil spirits” of Coronavirus would leave only in the name of Jesus Christ. Basically what he tries to do is brainwash innocent people through its TV channel and instill superstition and fear in the minds of his followers that the only power which can save them from the pathogen is Jesus.
This Christian evangelist has made multiple such videos which are uploaded on his YouTube channel, where he preaches about the importance of Christianity. However, not everyone is aware that Lal, who has appeared in more than 400 such ‘inspirational’ videos, is accused in a multi-crore bank fraud scam.
In 2019, the Allahabad session court had rejected Rajendra B Lal interim bail and had sent him to jail. The FIR against the evangelist was registered on May 5, 2017, in which he was accused of cheating and criminal conspiracy regarding defalcation through illegal withdrawals from the accounts of SHUATS held with Axis Bank located at Civil Lines. The fraudulent withdrawals had run into more than Rs 23 crores between March 1, 2014, to November 31, 2016.
Christian evangelists use the pandemic to spread false propaganda
However, Rajendra Bihari Lal is not the only Christian evangelist who has tried to use the ongoing pandemic to peddle their propaganda. Recently, a complaint has been filed with the Ministry of Home Affairs against John Rose Austin Jayalal, the National President of the Indian Medical Association, seeking action against him for abusing his power and resorting to proselytization during the pandemic.
Last year, when people across the globe were dealing with the first wave of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Sundar Selvaraj, a Christian evangelist who owns ‘Angel TV’, had used his channel to fear monger and peddle false propaganda against the coronavirus vaccine.
He had claimed that the Coronavirus vaccine has an in-built chip. Instigating people against the vaccination drive, Selvaraj asked people to ‘run away from the vaccine’ as it has the ‘mark of the beast’.
On Thursday, the UNHRC passed a resolution to create an “open-ended” international investigation into violations surrounding the latest Gaza violence and into “systematic” abuses in the Palestinian territories and inside Israel.
In its resolution, UNHRC called to establish an “independent” international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law in the “occupied Palestinian territory”, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel since 13 April 2021.
The resolution, presented by Pakistan on behalf of the OIC, was debated during the special one-day council session. The UNHRC focused on the counter-terror operations launched by Israel in response to the terror attacks unleashed by Hamas.
The resolution was passed by 24 votes in favour, while nine countries voted against the resolution. The United States, which is is just an observer to UNHRC, cannot vote. This is the first time that a Commission of Inquiry has received a “continuing mandate”, that is, it is not time-bound.
Opening the session, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet claimed that she was concerned about the “high level of civilian fatalities and injuries” in the attacks on Gaza and warned the Israeli attacks on the enclave “may constitute war crimes”. The UNHRC chief said Hamas’ “indiscriminate” firing of rockets at Israel was “a clear violation of international humanitarian law”.
Biden administration expresses deep regret over purported UNHRC resolution
Following the passage of a resolution against Israel, the United States expressed its deep regret against the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) decision to launch an international investigation into alleged crimes committed in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
According to reports, the Biden administration has expressed its disappointment over the probe initiated by the UNHRC to look into the “grave human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
“The action today instead threatens to imperil the progress that has been made,” said the statement issued by the US mission in Geneva after UNHRC decided to set up a permanent commission to probe alleged human rights violations in Gaza, West Bank and Palestine.
It is worth mentioning that the UNHRC has repeatedly violated its mandate to launch a biased probe against Israel. The US has time and again criticised the self-claimed Human Rights watchdog UNHRC for its anti-Israel obsession. In fact, the then US President Donald Trump had exited the UNHRC in 2018, abandoning the US seat, to protest the council’s bias against Israel.
Many members of the UNHRC are themselves, systematic human right offenders. The council conveniently ignores the worst cases of human rights abuses carried out by powerful member nations while targeting Israel for its alleged violations.
UNHRC and its Anti-Israel bias
In fact, Israel is the subject of more resolutions than any other country. Since its founding in 2006, the UNHRC has exhibited its obsession with criticising Israel, which is also reflected in its work. The 47-member body has only two agenda pertaining to human rights violations in specific countries. The first, Agena Item 7, is reserved solely for discussing supposed violations by Israel. The second, Item 4, deals with the rest of the world, including the authoritative regimes in the Middle East and Latin America.
Continuing to demonstrate its anti-Israel bias, the UNHRC had called for a one-day special session to discuss the “grave human rights situation” in what it terms as “Occupied Palestinian Territory”. The UNHRC has dedicated its entire day to discuss and pass a resolution to the supposed human rights violations by Israel during the latest Israel-Palestines clashes that erupted over a property dispute in East Jerusalem.
It is pertinent to note that UNHRC convened the one-day special session on the request of the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Palestine. It is not an unknown fact that most of the OIC member countries are authoritarian regimes who themselves are accused of severe human rights violations in their own country.
Ironically, Pakistan, which provides a haven for terrorists to carry out grave human rights violations on its neighbours, moved the resolution demanding a serious investigation into the alleged crimes committed during the Israel-Palestine clashes on behalf of the OIC. Through this resolution, the Islamic countries, with the help of UNHRC, aims to portray as the aggressor and pin the blame on Israel for the recent clashes between the two sides.
The special session only focuses on Israel’s actions and fails to seriously consider the terror attacks that were unleashed against Israel by Islamic terrorists Hamas, which fired several rockets into Israel, killing more innocent civilians. Though it names Hamas for carrying out attacks on Israel, the UNHRC has conveniently ignored the repeated terror attacks on Israel while indirectly blaming Israel for sparking the clashes.
Meanwhile, Israel has reacted to the so-called resolutions saying the country would not cooperate with the probe and termed it as a bid to “whitewash crimes committed by the terror organization Hamas”. The Foreign Ministry noted that Israeli security forces have acted in accordance with the highest ethical standards and in accordance with international law, protecting their citizens from Hamas attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the resolution a mockery of international law and attacked UNHRC for its “blatant anti-Israel obsession.”
Palestinian terror attacks against Israel
The clashes between the Jewish nation Israel and Palestine are at an all-time high as Islamic terror groups continue to carry out terror attacks against Israel by launching rockets. Since last week, Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas has unleashed massive airstrikes against Israel, firing hundreds of rockets inside the country.
The main reason behind the current conflict is the Sheikh Jarrah property dispute, a dispute which can lead to the evictions of around 300 Palestinians from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood. The court ruling of eviction of illegal Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in east Jerusalem has stoked tensions and sparked fresh violence in the region.
In response to Hamas’s terror attacks, Israel has carried out its defensive counter-terror operations to eliminate terror threats emanating from Gaza. The Israeli army has struck more Hamas targets in the coastal enclave after Hamas started targeting civilians inside Israel. In a swift operation, the IDF also demolished a building that housed international media offices, including Al Jazeera’s in the Gaza Strip. The IDF has said that the building was being used by the Islamic terror group Hamas, making it a valid military target.
On Friday (May 28), the Bengaluru police fired shots at two of the accused, involved in the viral gang-rape incident of a Bangladeshi citizen, during an encounter. It must be mentioned that all the accused, namely, Mohammed Baba Sheikh, Ridoy Babo, Sagar, and Hakeel were arrested on Thursday in connection to the case.
As per reports, the four accused were taken on Friday morning to Karegowda Layout in K. Channasandra, where they stayed on rent. At that time, accused Sagar and Ridoy attacked the police and tried to escape. The cops then opened fire in an act of self-defense. Both the accused sustained bullet wounds in their legs during the scuffle. They are now undergoing treatment at a government medical hospital.
Ridoy is apparently a TikTok star in Bangladesh with over 71 thousand followers.
The accused were shot at by Police Inspector (Ramamurthy Nagar) Melvin Francis when the duo attacked ACP (Banaswadi) NS Sakri and other police personnel in the team. In a statement, the police informed, “Both were shot at their knees before they were nabbed and are now being treated at a government hospital.” The cops further said that a special team has been constituted to track the victim, who was forced into an international prostitution ring. The victim is believed to be in the neighbouring state of Kerala.
5 accused in the viral gang rape video case arrested by Bengaluru police
Recently, a video had gone viral on social media where 4 men and a woman were seen sexually assaulting and torturing a young woman. The video had caused outrage all over and police officials in several states were alerted to find the culprits.
By tracing the chain of video forwards, the Assam police were able to locate its origin to a mobile phone in the city of Bengaluru. Immediately, the Bengaluru City Police was alerted and special teams were deployed to track down the perpetrators. The four men, and a female accused were all arrested from a rented house in Avalahalli in Ramamurthy Nagar.
Reportedly, all the accused worked as laborers. According to the police, the victim, a Bangladeshi woman, was illegally trafficked to India under the pretext of a job and was later forced into prostitution. Although she was able to flee, the accused hunted her down. They had then assaulted and gang-raped her with the help of their female aide.
Meanwhile, two cases were also registered by the Hatirjheel Police in Bangladesh under the pornography act and the human trafficking act. One of the prime accused, Ridoy Babo, was identified by the Tejgaon division police through his social media accounts. His uncle, mother, and local residents also identified him from the viral video. He was a resident of Moghbazar in Dhaka and came to India 3-4 months ago, after being evicted from his house for disorderly conduct. He is reportedly a TikTok star with over 71K followers.
Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi held a press conference on Friday where he addressed the Coronavirus crisis in the country. During the press conference, he used various half truths and exaggerated lies to attack the government over the matter.
During the press conference, Rahul Gandhi made a bizarre argument about the death count in the country. He said that he can “guarantee” that the death statistics are wrong. But he also said that he has told Congress governments not to lie, essentially saying that only BJP Governments are lying.
Spoke to CMs of Congress-ruled States, told them that lying will only harm them, reality needs to be accepted. Actual death numbers might be disturbing but we must stick to telling truth: Rahul Gandhi on whether deaths in Congress-ruled states also wrongly reported pic.twitter.com/eitL4lOPih
There are multiple reasons why the line of reasoning he has peddled is completely wrong.
Rahul Gandhi’s version of death stats
Rahul Gandhi recently shared a New York Times estimate of deaths on his Twitter account that presents an extremely exaggerated figure without any basis. The NYT estimated 1.6 million deaths by the 24th of May without any proper reasoning.
They presented a worse scenario of 4.2 million deaths due to the Coronavirus. According to official statistics, we know that in 2020, the death rate was significantly lower than the year before, by as much as 10%.
Therefore, an overwhelming majority of the 1.6 million deaths or the 4.2 million figure has to come in 2021 for the estimate to be accurate. Assuming that 27,000 people die on an average in India everyday under normal circumstances from all causes, which is the most credible estimate, then, 3,888,000 people are estimated to have died this year due to all causes until the 24th of May, barring Covid-19.
Thus, since according to the NYT death figures, at least 1.6 million people are expected to have died from Covid-19 in India since the beginning of the pandemic, and taking into consideration that the death rate was less in 2020 than 2019, then Covid related deaths in India by between the 1st of January and 24th of May this year is at least 35% of the estimated all cause deaths.
Furthermore, if the 4.2 million deaths is to be taken as true, then it means that at least as many people died from Covid-19 this year as deaths due to all other cases combined. This is an utterly bizarre estimation which would be completely at odds with data from other parts of the world.
Also, if these numbers were true, then we would have been looking at a societal collapse, not just a collapse of the health system. Furthermore, the health system was strained for only a couple of weeks or so. Until then and since then, a shortage of resources in hospitals has not been reported from most states of the country.
Thus, Rahul Gandhi’s claims of “exponentially” higher deaths fall flat.
Only non-Congress states lying?
The second part of the argument by Rahul Gandhi is even more bizarre as he places the blame for uncounted deaths solely at the feet of non-Congress governments. It is to be noted here that the central government does not provide the death statistics on their own.
It is the state governments which send their respective numbers to the Central Government, which the Ministry of Health uploads on its website. Thus, to blame the Central Government for the official death figure is incomprehensible in itself.
Even so, let us look at the case fatality rates and the cases per million figure from some of the state. We took 8 states, 3 ruled by the Congress party, 3 by the BJP, one by a non-Congress, non-BJP party and another where the Congress party is in an alliance with the Shiv Sena and the NCP.
Congress ruled states are in green (alliance included), BJP ruled states in saffron and AAP Government in Blue
From the table, it can be seen that there is no “exponential” difference between the death rates of the states regardless of which party is in power. Delhi has the highest rate of confirmed cases and along expected lines, its death rate is also one of the highest.
Punjab, the heart of the ‘farmer protests’, has not been conducting enough tests it appears and as a consequence, its death rate is vastly higher than the rest. Therefore, for Rahul Gandhi to claim that Congress ruled states are reporting accurate data is quite farcical.
The death rate for India as a whole is 1.16%. Barring Punjab which is way off the charts, all the other states here are not too far from the average. Therefore, the suggestion that India is vastly undercounting Coronavirus deaths and only BJP ruled states are responsible for it is shameless politicking that has no basis in statistics.
Rajasthan has a significantly lower CFR than Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. If Rahul Gandhi indeed believes that the deaths in India are exponentially higher than the official figures, then how can he claim that the BJP ruled states are underreporting deaths but Rajasthan isn’t?
The NYT numbers, which Rahul Gandhi appears to believe, would require all states to majorly underreport deaths. It clearly cannot be argued that Congress party has its hands clean while blaming others for it.
In the long list of lies peddled regarding the Covid-19 pandemic to target the Modi govt, a new one has been added, that the govt is not allowing corporate vaccination. On Friday, actor-singer Siddharth tweeted that “corporate vaccination drives are being disallowed by the Government”.
In a tweet, he asked whether the corporates in India should be allowed to mass vaccinate their employees, and asked that big corporates should be made responsible and use their abilities to achieve faster vaccination.
However, the claim made by the actor is completely wrong, and currently there is no ban on corporate vaccination programs, as he is claiming. In fact, several corporate houses are already vaccinating their employees and their family members against Covid-19.
At present, the corporate houses have tied up with various hospitals to run the vaccination programs in their premises. As several corporate houses also run hospitals, they are using their own hospitals to run the vaccination programs.
Yesterday, Reliance Industries had announced that they will vaccinate its all present and retired employees free of cost under the largest corporate vaccination program in the country. The company will vaccinate over 1.3 million employees, associates, partners and their family members in 880 cities across the country.
India’s largest IT company TCS is also going to vaccinate its employees and their family members through direct partnership with suppliers. HCL has said they will vaccinate their 350,000 employees by June 30, with around 25% employees already vaccinated. PSU organisations like BHEL, State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, NTPC etc have already started running corporate vaccination programs.
Contrary to claim that Govt of India has not allowed corporate vaccination, the govt has actually issued detailed guidelines for running vaccination programs at workplaces, both public and private sector. The govt had issued the guidelines in the beginning of April, and vaccination at workplaces had started on 11th April. Initially, it was allowed only for employees, but last week the union health ministry had clarified that their family members also can be vaccinated.
Even though it has been allowed for almost two months, corporate vaccination had not got much momentum due to lack of enough vaccines. But now that vaccine availability has started to increase, the number of corporates starting vaccination has also started to increase.
Recently, states like Telangana, Odisha etc have also issued guidelines for vaccinations at workplaces.
When several Twitter users informed Siddharth that he is wrong and corporate vaccination is not banned by the govt, he claimed that he has talked ‘personally’ to several companies regarding the matter. According to him, those companies told him that they are waiting for vaccine allotment by quota. However, he refused to take back his earlier tweet that corporate vaccination is banned by govt, and didn’t apologise for spreading false information.
In an ironic turn of events, Punjab farmers, who are largely responsible for spreading the UK strain of the coronavirus in Delhi through their ongoing demonstrations, recently staged a protest against the COVID-19 mismanagement in Punjab.
The Punjab body of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) has called a three-day protest to oppose Captain Amarinder Singh-led Punjab government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak. This comes a day after Singh announced the extension of COVID-19 restrictions in Punjab till June 10.
Punjab farmers protest against ‘#COVID19 mismanagement’
According to farmer leaders, 2000 to 3000 protesters are expected to join the demonstrations against the state government’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus outbreak. They have alleged that the Punjab government has failed in building its health infrastructure, because of which there has been a surge in the number of caseloads in the state.
Farmer protests, gatherings in Punjab key to the spread of UK strain in northern states: Report
Even as farmers hold the state government of mismanaging the COVID-19 crisis, it is worth noting that the epidemiologists from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have linked the farmers’ protests to the rising number of coronavirus cases in Punjab and Delhi caused by the UK strain.
“Punjab played a key role in the rise of cases related to the B.1.1.7 variant. There were at least four major clusters (super spreader events), marriages, farmer protests from February 1 to February 28, that are responsible for large spikes. By March, Delhi was warned about a possible 15,000 critical cases,” said Dr Sujeet Singh, who is a director at NCDC.
As per reports, the UK strain was first found mostly amongst the NRIs who had returned from the UK. As per reports, in March Kapurthala and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar accounted for nearly 26 per cent of all COVID cases in Punjab. Punjab’s Doaba region comprising of these two districts contributed to 25.6% of all COVID related deaths on March 19. On April 5, it accounted for about 28% of COVID deaths in Punjab.
Doaba is also known as the ‘NRI belt’. As per reports, the NRIs in this area are also a huge supporter of the Aam Aadmi Party. Ahead of the 2017 state assembly elections, AAP supporters from abroad had campaigned for AAP candidates in the region. It is believed that many of the NRI relatives who visited their ancestral homes back in Doaba unknowingly brought the UK variant virus with them. Of the four districts falling under the Doaba region, AAP has two MLAs. The virus had then spread across most of Punjab and subsequently to Delhi on the account of farmers’ protests.
Rising number of COVID-19, Black Fungus cases in Punjab
Ironically, Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government in Punjab had initially thrown its weight behind the farmers’ protests that have now trained its guns on the very same government. The COVID-19 caseloads in Punjab have risen sharply in the last few weeks, along with the increasing number of Black Fungus cases. As many as 3,914 fresh cases of Covid-19 surfaced in Punjab, while the virus claimed 178 more lives on Thursday. In the last 24 hours, four more patients infected with Mucormycosis died, taking the death toll to 27 for the state. So far, 222 people have been infected with the disease of which 192 are from Punjab.
