MyVoice: Views of our readers 2nd January 2022

Pandemic celebrates its second birthday

January 1, 2020 was when WHO announced the arrival of the new Coronavirus popularly called Covid-19. Initially dismissed as a joke or simple flu, there were boasts that the hot Indian climate would sound the death knell for the pesky virus. One of the chief ministers was on record saying that it was a simple flu and that a paracetamol tablet would take care of it.

The death dance of the Covid pandemic goes on and on, unabated and the death toll keeps climbing. The numbers are staggering: nearly 29 crores have been infected and 54.5 lakhs have succumbed to the deadly disease.

USA leads the tally with 8.5 lakh deaths, followed by Brazil 6.2 lakhs, India 4.8 lakhs, Russia 3.1 lakhs, Mexico 3.0 lakhs, and Peru with 2.0 lakh deaths. Truly a pandemic that continues to ravage the world!

The lessons learned so far:

1) Any technological advancement comes with a curse! The speed of travel that meant easy commute also meant that the virus had spread the world at a lightning speed. Any amount of restrictions or lockdowns have at best been a limiting factor but could not really stop the virus from spreading.

2) No country or region has been spared. Every country, poor or rich, irrespective of caste, creed, race, religion, or region, has reported the virus and is still fighting it.

3) Initially thought of as a virus that will die a quick death, Coronavirus is mutating and thriving. Two years into the pandemic, the end is still not in sight.

4) Some sectors have been affected very badly, especially travel by air, tourism, realty (real estate) and education have been dealt a severe blow.

5)The film industry has been brought to its feet with the theaters shut, ticket prices issue, and with 50% occupancy the film distribution is in utter chaos and if it was not for the OTT coming to the rescue the film industry would have been wiped out. Movie watching would be restricted and already OTT seems to be getting an upper hand as far as reaching the customers is concerned.

6)The house rental sector is in the doldrums and there are scores of apartments, commercial areas, and houses vacant as the I.T companies have extended work from home facility. This has resulted in IT employees moving to their hometowns and operating from their residences.

7) The plight of the IT workers who work from home is terrible. They put in long hours of work (in excess of 10 hours), can't socialize, have huge health-related issues (like obesity and lack of exercise). Families are falling apart as both husband and wife operate in the same house along with their children and too much interaction is leading to friction.

8) The worst affected are the children. They are forced to stay at home, attend lectures on mobile phones, can't interact with their friends, and can't play outside their homes. Houses are becoming prisons! This has resulted in violent behavior, mood swings, reduced attention spans, and consequently the children's performance in the examination had plummeted down and the failure percentages are going up all the time.

All in all, the two years of the Covid pandemic have been a disaster and let us hope that we don't have to witness its third birthday on the January 1, 2023!

Dr M Anil Ramesh, Hyderabad

A bold take on the politics of hate

It is heartening to see THI mincing no words in its first editorial of the new year "Let us boost Indianism in 2022" in conveying a powerful message to political leadership to not deprive India of its soul 'Indianism" in order to serve its political interests, to expand its vote bank and to retain/grab power at any cost. Unfortunately, India is hamstrung by the absence of a thorough political/legislative debates on maladies plaguing the country such as unemployment, flawed management of education and healthcare, agrarian crisis, infrastructural bottlenecks, foreign policy failures, crimes against women, poverty, hunger, malnutrition, corruption, drug abuse, human rights violations, economic inequalities, gender discrimination and religious intolerance.

More disturbingly, silence of the ruling class and inaction of enforcement agencies towards some zealots, fanatics and bigots working overtime in sowing the seeds of hatred among Indians by way of instigating the people to unleash a genocide against minorities have the potential to encourage fundamentalists to perpetrate the crimes against minorities with more vigour, with more frequency and with impunity.

Distressingly, a brazen attempt is made by unscrupulous politicians to see everything through the prism of religion for narrow political gains where fundamental rights of people are completely disregarded. When two men were lynched in Punjab for alleged sacrilege of places of worship, no political party dared to condemn the killings unequivocally for fear of losing votes.

When venom was spewed on Muslims at a religious conclave in Haridwar where mindless bigotry was displayed for the complete annihilation of that community, the silence of the party in power at centre bodes ill for democracy. Many attacks on Christians during celebrations of Christmas make us hang our head in shame. Even the name of Jinnah Tower in Guntur is being unnecessarily invoked by political class in a desperate attempt to boost its electoral prospects in A.P. Is it not an attempt to polarize voters on communal lines for political gains?

The time has come for people to exhibit prudence and wisdom to save India from being denuded of its core values such as unity in diversity, communal harmony, brotherhood among people, liberties and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. Unless people are mature enough to be not taken for a ride by the dangerous political rhetoric laced with poison of communal hatred, democracy would meet its doomsday in due course in the country. The thought provoking statement of your editorial is apt here to conclude "Hatred towards our own minorities or the majority is not helpful."

— Narne Raveendra Babu, Hyderabad

Travails of a textbook

Hello children, I am yourtextbook speaking. It is now more than two years since you have stopped going to school. Come March/April every year, you all would rush to the book depot with your parents where you will find us neatly stacked as per suitable age group and class. The darkest year of our life began in March 2020 when the bookmakers got us ready after several months of hard work to get into your new school bag.

Thanks to the virus called "Covid" which stopped you from going to school and prevented us from getting inside your school bags. Since then hundreds of thousands of us are confined to warehouses of the book makers. You may not know, it takes several months and people to give us a shape, sometimes more than a year or more as apart from those who think and ink, the artist adds pictures and colours to the textbook which your teacher and you use to learn a what is called a subject. Until we get a proper shape, we don't even know our name as we simply call it English, Mathematics, Science, Social Science and so on.

It is only after we are ready, we get our name, Radiant, Marigold, Gulmohar, New Horizon, Science ahead, Maths Ahead etc. Until you children go back to school, we textbooks would be in solitary confinement in warehouses. Now we hear that some of you are going to be injected against the so-called Covid virus so that you get ready to safely attend the school and the textbook can get into your school bags. It is sad that book makers, have no takers until now, resulting in those who make a living to take care of us are left with no work and their families struggling to live.

We the textbook see the year 2022 as a year of getting a new life and safe future in your school bags. But do remember your safety is in your hand which no textbook can teach you, so wear mask, maintain hand hygiene and physical distancing to keep Covid-Omicron away forever.

— N Nagarajan, Hyderabad

A good beginning in SA

A new era in Indian cricket with Rahul Dravid as the coach and Rahul as the white ball captain emerging with resignation and injuries to our key players. While the new coach is from the old school of preparation, focus, humility and performance, it remains to be seen how the captain is going to react.

While the new captain has had a phenomenal track record in IPL but his talent will be tasted for India as a stand in captain. let us wait and watch and find out whether he will be in sync with Dravid to push a new aggressive but empathetical team.

We are not Australia, and we should never aspire to be. We are not England and God forbid the thought even enters. We are the people who revel in our victories but don't humiliate the loser. Remains to be seen if this is a new era or hark back to the dark days of Kohli - Kumble controversy. Time is bidding for Team India's win in a test series in South Africa and complete the victory march in SENA countries.

— Krishnan Subramaniam, Chennai

2021 ends with decrease in journo-killings globally

Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the global media safety and rights body, wishes all media workers around the world a happy, secured and prosperous new year. The bygone year witnessed the killing of 79 media employees by assailants in 29 countries marking an improvement in journo-murder index by 14% (where 92 were killed in 2020).

PEC has lately confirmed the death of Burmese journalist A Kay Sai (also known as Sai Win Aung) because of serious head injuries by the shell operated by the Myanmar military junta at Maekheewar village of Karen State on 25 December last. Sai (38) was trapped in crossfire between the junta forces and KNLA rebels and finally hit by artillery from Tatmadaw.

"We strongly condemn the killing of journalists by the Burmese military personnel. Prior to him, Yangon-based freelance photojournalist Ko Soe Naing died under military custody on 14 December. PEC condolences their demise and urges the military dictator Min Aung Hlaing to deliver justice to the bereaved families," said Blaise Lempen, secretary-general of PEC.

Myanmar (also known as Burma or Brahmadesh) is witnessing a series of unpleasant incidents since 1 February 2021 military coup that deposed the democratically elected Aung San Suu Kyi-led government in Naypietaw, where the media fraternity also faces unprecedented atrocities. The military personnel detained nearly 125 journalists in the last 11 months and nearly 30 are still behind bars.

Afghanistan emerged as the most dangerous country for journalists with 12 casualties in 2021, followed by Mexico (10 dead), Pakistan (7), India (6), the Philippines, Yemen (4 each), Democratic Republic of Congo (3), Myanmar, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Burkina-Faso, Turkey (2 each), etc.

India has otherwise lost a huge number of scribes to Covid-19 complications since March 2020, only following Brazil (294 corona-media casualties). India (279) is followed by Peru (198), Mexico (122), Colombia (79), Bangladesh (68), USA (66), Italy (60), Venezuela (59), Argentina (46), Indonesia (42), Iran (34), United Kingdom (33), Turkey (29), Pakistan (27), Nepal (23) etc,

— Nava Thakuria, Guwahati