Biggest mistake Indian voters made since the start of covid-19 pandemic

The biggest mistake most of the Indian voters made since the start of the covid-19 pandemic (February 2020 to March 2021) is to not hold the state governments accountable for the poor health infrastructure in their states.

People failed to understand that health is a state subject for administration. People failed to realise that a state is responsible for oxygen availability, doctors, nurses, an ample number of hospital beds and the availability of basic medicines.

Just because covid pandemic is a national emergency does not mean that the Central government is responsible for everything. There are different types of emergencies and covid pandemic is a health emergency. While the Central government is responsible for certain tasks (such as restricting air travel, negotiating with vaccine manufacturers at scale for vaccine production, research, national policies, coordinating various tasks between states, etc), the states are responsible for the actual healthcare provided on-the-ground.

Unless people start holding various actors in the ecosystem accountable for their respective duties, the problems will persist.

Most of the efforts of almost all state governments (including that of the chief ministers, state health ministers, state health departments) have been subpar.

Biggest mistake Opposition Parties made since the start of covid-19 pandemic

The biggest mistake almost all Opposition Political Parties made since the start of the covid-19 pandemic (February 2020 to March 2021) is to spread the disinformation that vaccination is not effective and certain big businessmen are profiteering from it. They are responsible for fanning vaccine hesitancy.

Some opposition political leaders went to the extent of saying Covaxine is "BJP vaccine". Some others said that Modi "gets a cut" from SII, the manufacturer of Covishield, and vaccination drive is just a money-making scheme. Many questioned the veracity of clinical trials conducted by Covaxine. Most of the Opposition leaders rarely took pictures of them getting vaccinated to share publicly, while Central Government Ministers and BJP MPs were promoting vaccination.

Opposition political parties tried to politicise the vaccination drive. They succeeded in instilling doubt in the minds of many common people about vaccination, resulting in low vaccination participation among elderly people during Jan, Feb and Mar 2021. They chose to speak anti-science.

These same politicians are speaking in a completely different language now, without apologising for their past utterances.

They did not even attempt to persuade the Central Government to make big advance payments to vaccine manufacturers in 2020, at a time when many other rich countries were placing their bets on vaccine manufacturers. This concept was beyond their comprehension.

Thousands of lives could have been saved if these Opposition politicians conducted themselves in a responsible manner.

Biggest mistake Central Government made since the start of covid-19 pandemic

The biggest mistake the Central Government made since the start of the covid-19 pandemic (February 2020 to March 2021) is to conduct themselves in a very miserly manner with regard to encouraging more vaccine production in India.

The advance money paid to the two vaccine manufacturers in India is too low and too late. Also, no financial incentives (such as a financial commitment to purchase crores of vaccine shots) were provided to other vaccine manufacturers, so that they rush to India to try to start production with Indian partners.

Prime Minister Modi is known to take big risks (demonetisation, total nationwide lockdown in 2020) in anticipation of big benefit to the society. But in this instance, he did not have the political will to take a calculated risk of transferring big chunks of advance money to vaccine manufacturers.

Now, the financial loss to the nation is many times of that risky bet that was not made.

My Facebook page audience is overwhelmingly male

My Facebook page audience is overwhelmingly male

The major topics of my Facebook page are:

• Opinion on Indian current affairs

• Opinion on global economics

• Opinion on Indian politics

• My activities in social service

So, almost all of my posts are gender-neutral because the topics are gender-neutral. Yet, my Facebook page audience is overwhelmingly male. At least 93% of my audience are male. I am aware that the situation is similar with many other thought leaders.

This is actually sad because we as a society want women to be more curious and engage more (at least through Internet) with what's happening around us. I hope women would engage more with these topics.

What the most important task that the Indian Government should do for the economy now?

 What the most important task that the Indian Government should do for the economy now?

--> Borrow money to spend on repairing the existing infrastructure.

Repair the railway lines, repair the bridges, repair the warehouses, repair the ports, repair the effluent lines to rivers, repair the power lines... repair all the Government infrastructure.

Why?

1) Generates massive short-term employment opportunities for unskilled and the semi-skilled people.

2) Kickstarts the economy with the new money in the system

3) Often new infrastructure can be unnecessary. Repairing existing, crumbling infrastructure ensures that the money spent is well-spent.

4) Decades of neglect to existing infrastructure has resulted in it crumbling.

Please note that repairing existing infrastructure can be unglamorous compared to headline-grabbing new infrastructure.

Who will pay the interest for the borrowed money?

The goal is that the repaired infrastructure will improve the efficiency and the size of the economy that pays for the interest of the borrowed money. A tricky job indeed!

Note: Repairing is not adding new capacity to existing infra. Repairing is fixing the existing infra. For example, repairing is not converting a 2-lane road to a 4-lane road, but to fix potholes in the existing 2-lane road.

The term 'liberalism' is being hijacked

I am a liberal on social issues; conservative on economic issues; and nationalist on security issues.

But unfortunately, the Left has hijacked the word 'liberal'. Due to this, a majority of common people are not aware of the real meaning of the word 'liberalism'.

Many people who know me now say: "He says he is liberal on social issues. But he does not have any of the bad qualities of those libtards."

Almost on a daily basis, I cringe when Leftists speak nonsense while calling themselves as 'Liberal'.