The Atlantic’s article Calling India’s response Callous: A Critique
The Atlantic Called India’s Response to COVID-19 Callous, here is a critique of that article
By Indradeep Khan@IndradeepKhan, Head RIVR Capital,2kids,1wife, Finance|ex-DB/JPM|Kryptoguy|Always travelling|Sai Baba |XLRI
I will try to critique objectively this “piece” by @VidyaKrishnan @TheAtlantic
a) She starts by implying that govt busy in passing CAA did not focus on Corona. They were “slow”
This is complete Bumkum
The first case was recorded on Jan 30 -> On Jan 31, the country acted by getting Air India &other airlines to suspend flights to China -> On 4th Feb, they stopped E-Visas of Chinese – > We practically have no cases of Chinese Imported cases, unlike Europe &USA-> We were also early in banning flights to all the hotspots including Iran and Europe
Our only error was not banning Flights from Dubai and maybe not compulsory testing of every passenger landing
b) She blames govt failure in banning exports of Corona related equipment including PPE (masks)
India there is no shortage at all of masks &Indian companies like M&M instead of carping are doing their best to produce ventilators. India is not an exporter of ventilators
c) She says that medical equipment industry is in disarray because of lockdown
Medical equipment is under essential services act & is not affected. There might have been a day or so of logistical disruption, but that was always going to be temporary (which she knew when writing)
d) She casually mentions that tests will cost $70.
ITS FREE IN GOVT HOSPITALS. Cost is only if you want private testing
e) She talks about tracing.
India has one of the most AGGRESSIVE tracing programmes in India. Reference Bhilwara
In fact India is on track to trace ALL 1.5Mn who came back from abroad . Net net whatever can be done apart from mass testing is being done and much much much better than other countries
However due to mis information being spread by people like her, the world feels than India’s case is at least 100X and MILLIONS WILL SOON DIE
Final thoughts
I know a lot of liberal journalists are jealous of Rana and believe they must DO MORE to best her. I guess frizzy hair and unhinged “YOU WILL NOT BELIVE HOW BAD INDIA IS” has to be the starting stone. @TheAtlantic request a more balanced article next time!
This was published here first
Read some of the best twitter threads converted to articles here