THE people were looking forward to the prime minister’s address to the nation on the last day of the three-week countrywide lockdown.  These three weeks have thrown up many experiences that need to be addressed urgently in order, both, to strengthen our fight against the Covid 19 pandemic and to protect the lives and survival of crores of our fellow citizens.  On none of these issues of vital importance did the prime minister have anything substantial to say.

THE first one week of the lockdown in India, out of the declared three weeks, has once again displayed the callous and lackadaisical attitude of the BJP led Modi government towards the poor workers of the country. The sudden announcement of the lockdown, giving hardly a few hours’ time for the people to prepare themselves for it, and without the needed preparation by the government to minimise people’s, particularly the poor unorganised and migrant workers’ sufferings, led to utter chaos in many states.

THE country has experienced one week of the lockdown and a few things can be noted. The first is that citizens of India have been  responsible, by and large,  following government instructions. In spite of great hardship caused by the sudden announcement of lockdown, people have united to play their role in taking the required steps to prevent India from going into the third stage, which is that of community transmission. Across the country, in every state, people have rallied round.

THE CC of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), at its meeting in Thiruvananthapuram in January, had given a call for a door-to-door campaign to be conducted in the month of March explaining to the people why they should not answer any question in the forthcoming exercise of enumeration for the National Population Register (NPR), between April 1 and September 30.  This campaign was to culminate on March 23, the martyrdom day of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.  Subsequently, the Left parties also gave a similar call.  The choice of the martyrdom day was to highlight the struggle of the

THE fiscal crisis of 2008 struck wounds deep into the system. It shook the pillars of the world capitalist system and the sustainability of such a socio-economic system became a challenge. Compounding to it was the crisis of the environment and the sustainability of the planet, which continues to pose a serious challenge. The carbon emissions, if not checked, shall become disastrous to the eco-system itself. The five Ps i.e., people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership were conceived as the goal and targets under the sustainable development goals(SDGs) in 2015.