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As the 21-day lockdown in India completes the first week today the total infected of COVID-19 in the world crossing 800,000 persons with deaths at nearly 39 thousand, and in India the graph is still steady with around 1200 infected and 32 deaths. After reeling under a merciless torrent of deaths for the last few days Italy seems to have a sigh of relief with no new deaths recorded for the time being, and reduced deaths for Spain, Iran and USA—in the latter infections are still on the surge and deaths had doubled in the last 2 days, and better scenarios in terms of new cases for France, United Kingdom and Switzerland. However, absolute suspense continues in India where, experts still say that Stage-2 is not yet over and the real picture would materialize once Stage-3 is reached. The main point of interest being at the moment: has the lockdown helped India in controlling the spread of the Coronavirus. The Government of India has said that the measure seems to have a positive impact o

Last night while watching an Indian news channel I heard one ‘expert’ criticizing the 21-day lockdown in India as an ‘overreaction’ to the novel Coronavirus. Such criticism or comment is totally unwarranted and irresponsible at the present juncture, because there is no discernible premise. We shall never know what would have happened to the spread of COVID-19 in India had the lockdown not been imposed, and due to this fact of the matter we cannot find fault with the final possible outcome of the lockdown—whether it is a success or a failure as far as checking the virus is concerned. Furthermore, we also don’t know if the lockdown would have to be extended further. This deadly human-to-human virus is having all of humankind at its mercy now, and every human must realize this fact before trying to criticize or foment dissent on it. All of the medical and other experts of the world have agreed on one common observation: the  behaviour  of COVID-19 has been highly unpredictable, an

Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in his second address to the nation, last evening declared a 21-day lockdown in the whole of India effective from midnight of 24 th March, 2020—perhaps the biggest in human history. He emphasized that this is the only way to combat as deadly and fast-spreading a virus as the novel Coronavirus COVID-19—the intensity of the pandemic can at best be controlled or delayed only by this tactic. The Prime Minister also invoked the National Disaster Management Act so that Government of India declaration is binding for all the states and union territories of the country. The ‘Big Modi Move’ had been anticipated after his first address on the evening of 19 th March when he appealed to all for observing a public curfew on the coming Sunday making it clear that he wanted his countrymen all-ready for any action in the coming weeks. Now, all of the 1.3 billion-strong population has been asked or rather ordered to stay indoors, for their own safety and for the larg

For the first time ever the public transport system of the second most populated country and the largest democracy of the world, India, has come to a complete standstill—the biggest railway network of the world, Indian Railways, has stopped operating since the last two days and domestic flights of the country going to be curtailed completely, with exception only to cargo flights, from midnight tonight, that is the 24 th of March, 2020. More than 80 cities covering 30 states/territories of India are now under total lockdown with more and more states/territories joining all the time. The fight against the novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, is in full swing—a desperate preventive drive so that the country does not suffer like Italy or Spain or Iran or USA or England in the dreaded Stage-3 of the irresistible virus. Most Indian medical and other experts are saying that Stage-3 is yet to come to India, and so, there has been an atmosphere of frightening uncertainty, suspense and morbid antic

Pandemics, a pandemic is defined as worldwide spread of a new disease, are not new to planet earth and the Homo sapiens. The first reported pandemic was dated back to 1580 with at least four pandemics of influenza that happened in the 19 th century while three occurred in the 20 th century as per the data from Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The influenza pandemic of 1918, also known as the Spanish flue, infected about 500 million people, one-third of world population that time, and killed around 50 million worldwide; in 1957, a novel influenza called A H2N2 virus killed over 1 million including 116,000 in the United States; another strain of the avian influenza ‘A H3N3’ originating in China killed 100,000 there and 1 million worldwide in 1968; in 2009 a novel influenza virus H1N1 emerged which was known as the ‘swine flu’, it was first detected in the United States that spread fast killing up to half a million people worldwide. Several other viruses including

Devotedly following the universal principle that ‘when there’s a life there’s to be a death’ I think it’s my celestial duty to put up a sequel ‘I Know’ to my earlier banter-piece ‘I Don’t Know’ , and accordingly I’ve done justice by writing this piece for you, however contrived or artificial or egoistic it may ultimately sound! Surely, it’s not going to hurt you at all; it may only give you some pleasurable thoughts as, in India, you all are celebrating Holi —the Festival of Colours today. Well, one of the most primary human expressions ‘I Know’ can be of two main types—(1) when the person who expresses ‘I Know’ is honestly and factually correct, and (2) when the person who vociferates ‘I Know’ is exceedingly egoistic and factually incorrect. As with thousands of languages and dialects we humans of the planet earth are basically concerned about good communication the first variety is more common. We must remember that the expression ‘I Know’ almost always is a response to

Photo: latestly.com The cricket mandarins of India, if as short sighted as the shorter formats, might as well gloat over India’s 5-0 whitewash over New Zealand in the shortest format that is the T20I Series, and might as well reason that the process of experimentation has finally given a team for the T20I World Cup coming up in October this year. However, the said team is yet a team of probables only, and the IPL starting later this month might as well throw up again a plethora of new ‘talents’ for the ‘choices’ of the worthy Indian selectors; therefore, the experimentation is far from over yet.   In the second test match played in Christchurch New Zealand has beaten India by 7 wickets in just the third day today thus achieving the third whitewash of the tour of 2-0—the second whitewash being the Kiwis’ triumph of 3-0 in the shorter that is the ODI Series. New Zealand had earlier won the Wellington test by 10 wickets. India had had their chances though in both the Tests—in the f

Photo: en.wikipedia.org After presenting two well-crafted socially relevant films ‘ Mulk ’ (2018) and ‘ Article 15 ’ (2019) filmmaker Anubhav Sinha has given to us one more realistic cracker of a family drama ‘ Thappad ’ which translates to ‘a slap’. The movie centres on a slap administered by a ‘loving’ husband Vikram played by Pavail Gulati to his dutiful but self-respecting wife Amrita played by Taapsee Pannu. Although based on this protagonist couple the movie also delves into the lives and times of several other couples ranging from a housemaid, continuously abused and brutalized by her husband for all her domestic labour and also earnings, to the lawyer-wife of a ‘ khandani ’ family, constantly advised by her business-tycoon husband to capitalize on the family name and her hard work and efforts being nuanced with a businesslike elan. Director Sinha also adds to the charms of the film by his keen eye for details and subtleties involved in domestic matters. To the credit of