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Covid Is Killing At Least 2500 Indians Daily
And the PM Is Terrified Of A Press Conference
India is reeling.
Hospitals are overflowing. Oxygen is being imported. Vaccine appointments have been cancelled. Metal structures of some crematoriums are melting from continued use. We aren’t even at the peak.
Make no mistake though: this isn’t just Covid’s doing. It’s gross mismanagement, unpreparedness and hubristic complacency.
Since becoming the PM in 2014, Narendra Modi hasn’t attended a single press conference. Why? When I make a tiny change in my day-job, I have to justify my reasoning to at least two levels of hierarchy. So, how does the man responsible for serving 1.4 billion people evade questioning? Why does he get a free pass? More worryingly, why does he not want to explain his thinking to the world?
These aren’t tiny changes that he’s presided over. They’ve been monumental ones affecting hundreds of millions of people. He didn’t feel the need to take questions while demonetising 86% of cash in circulation in the country. Or setting up detention camps for “illegals”. Or spending $2.5 billion of taxpayer money on a new office. Or announcing a countrywide lockdown with four hours of notice.
