01-05-2021 The Asian Independent

22 01-05-2021 to 15-05-2021 NEWS
www.theasianindependent.co.uk
‘System collapse’ to
bring private monopolies
in the Health Sector
(Samaj Weekly)- The system
has collapsed’, is a general
cry these days as event unfolding
everyday bring more uncertainty
and desperation. As an
Indian, I can say, we were never
so helpless as we are feeling it
today. I mean, you cant help any
one, you cant go to meet families
of friends, you cant meet
relatives. Common man is just
alarmed if things happen to him
then what will happen. People
are dying of utter neglect and
we never heard a single journalist
asking question to top two or
top three of this government.
So many people died because of lack
of Oxygen in country’s prestigious hospitals
and yet no questions were being
asked. Officially the death figure due to
Covid 19 has crossed 1,92,000 till this
morning. The second wave has exposed
India’s unpreparedness to deal with it.
People are dying due to lack of Oxygen
and non availability of beds in the hospitals.
If our memory is not too short,
then remember what has happened last
year during April. The government
used Railway coaches as isolation centres.
Many of the artificial structures
were created but I don’t know how fast
we ‘dismantled’ those structure when
we knew that things are still in the air
and no medical doctor has declared
ultimate victory over Corona except the
top ministers of this government.
Where have those makeshift hospitals
or facilities gone which were prepared
to meet the challenge hospitalisation of
Covid 19 infected people ? Will any
one ask how much money was invested
in it and who were the companies and
people who got the contract ?
Now we are hearing that the government
will do the same. Make an artificial
structure to deal with the rising
number of Corona infected people but
it is also a fact that it is not Corona that
is killing but lack of our preparedness,
non supply of Oxygen that was responsible.
It was shameful and deeply disturbing
to see many of the chiefs of
these prestigious hospitals were feeling
suffocated and desperate at the situation
because of their inability to deal
with it.
As report after report castigate the
government with inefficiency and
insensitivity, the ruling party has again
attempted to deal with it with ‘multi
pronged strategy’. One side heavy PR
exercise through their ‘favourite’ channels
and newspapers who are ready to
play for them in lieu of big favors and
money and the other side is more dangerous
where some of these ‘respected’
‘patrkars’ and ‘sampadaks’ i.e. journalists
and editors, are asking the government
to ‘control’ the ‘freedom of
expression’, in the ‘national interest’.
Not to be outdone in his service to the
supreme leader, our minister for the
Information Technology and law asked
the social media platform Twitter to
remove the tweets which speak of systematic
failure. The minister has always
been speaking of threatening language.
In the state too, journalists who are trying
to give authentic information are
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
being threatened.
When North Indian states are suffering
from mismanagement and crisis of
Oxygen, in South particularly Kerala
and Tamilnandu have shown the way.
Kerala’s 10 medical colleges have two
Oxygen plants each to provide them
uninterrupted supply. The state
increased its Oxygen capability by 58%
in the last one year. It planned meticulously
by understanding the importance
of it during the crisis last year.
Tamilnadu has much more Oxygen
than it is needed during the year. It has
the capacity of producing 400 MT
Oxygen per day while its demand for
the hospitals so far is merely 240 MT.
In Delhi Arvind Kejriwal used nearly
150 crore on his publicity exercise during
the first three month of 2021 while
crying over the lack of Oxygen because
most of the plants have moved out of
Delhi. The issue is did he not know that
a crisis can happen and he has to deal
with it given the nature of the central
government which was not keen to
allow him any freedom to do things.
The problem is that after deaths of
so many known journalists, activists,
academics, common persons the media
woke up to show some concern about
the situation and mismanagement at our
hospitals. Rather than asking Narendra
Modi the question, they have now started
paddling a new ‘term’ ‘system collapsed’.
Now this needs to be explained
as what collapsed and who is responsible
?
Well, India has never invested heavily
on health and education. But whatever
was being spent has been reduced
by the Modi government which is on a
privatising spree. This government has
only one agenda and that is to privatise
India’s public sector rapidly and they
found the Corona period the best
opportunity to do so when trade unions
and people will be busy or engaged in
their own survival and nobody would
have chance to question but they know
well that things are not that easy hence
a new narrative has to be started to benefit
them.
When Shekhar Gupta and other
‘experts’ start the ‘system collapse’,
then you must understand what narrative
they are planting. Yes, these are the
people who benefitted from their networking
in Business and political circles.
The system collapse will suggest
that ‘government’ ‘alone’ cant handle
this crisis so give ‘freedom’ to private
companies. The whole idea is to discredit
the public institutions, dismantle
them and degrade them. That
way, the ‘liberals’ who are
actually economic right and
more dangerous as they look
‘seculars’ to us but work for the
benefit of the big companies
who fund their projects, media
empires.
A good case work would be
to find out which countries performed
better in dealing with
Covid and what is the role of
the government in the health
sector. The worst was the
United States and the best are
Taiwan, Newzealand, Iceland,
Singapore and Vietnam. And look who
did the worst : USA, Brazil, Mexico,
India and UK. It will be good to look at
the health care system in these countries.
The UK for sure failed because
the government did not take timely
action though the National Health
Services ( NHS) proved best bet for
them and at the moment they have
reduced the fatalities and returning to
normalcy. USA is the model of ‘corporate’
hegemony that funds a large number
of ‘opinion makers’ so that they can
say hosannas on the role of ‘corporate’.
India needs to be careful at this
moment. I can again say, strengthen the
health care system. If the centre fails to
do so, let the state come with their own
state owned health care system. States
can always do so whether in Education
or Health and invest more money in it,
build big public institutions and that
would work as a wonder. If the states
have vision they can be the role model.
Southern states in India are still far
ahead of the north because north Indian
hospitals have become money minting
machines. It is time for the governments
to strengthen health services at
the districts, block and town levels so
that people can go there and get quality
treatment.
So system collapse should mean
strengthening our health infrastructure
through public sector or government
money but not to hand it over to the
corporate and asking them to charge
exorbitantly as per their whims and fancies.
This needs to be questioned. First
you blamed Nehru for your failure and
now you are bringing ‘system failure’
to protect your inefficiencies’ and failure.
But the problem is what is the use
of asking a government or a leader
about its failure when it still is ‘acceptable’
to the people or when they are
ready to listen to his ‘man kee baat’. A
good joke that roamed around various
WhatsApp groups was : Why are people
asking for good hospitals and oxygen
cylinders when they voted for
‘Ram Mandir’. Modi ji is fulfilling the
historical demand of the people to build
a ‘grand’ Ram Temple so they should
be satisfied. Hospitals, schools everything
can come later or we can still do
without them.
It is a wake up call. We have already
lost. Let us not give a chance to those
who ‘weave’ new stories and make the
‘system collapse’ a means to bring private
monopolies in the health sector as
well as elsewhere. Understand the
chronology.
Artist Doctor Troller
Sells NFTs Worth
£14, 500 in Under
1 Minute on Lunch
A U.K based digital artist sold an
entire collection of digital artwork in
under 20 seconds when they went
online this week.
Doctor Troller, whose real name is
Andrew Brown, an artist from south
London, launched his digital collection
of 40 works for £380 apiece via
his website https://www.doctortroller.com
and sold one of each
totalling £14,500 in under 1 minute.
Andrew Brown, aka Dr Troller, a
UK artist, sells digital works using
Non Fungible Tokens (NFT). NFTs
are registered tokens on Ethereum’s
blockchain and prove ownership of a
piece of digital art. Sales of NFTs
have shot up in the past month by a
digital artist called Mad Dog Jones’
who sold his Fax Machine NFT for
$4.1m in March this year.
He is well known on social media
platform Instagram, where his unique
artistry has grown his fan base close
Intermediate board
exams in Andhra as
per schedule: Minister
Amaravati : Andhra Pradesh will
conduct the intermediate or Class 12
state board examinations from May 5 as
per schedule, Education Minister
Adimulapu Suresh said on Thursday.
Addressing media, the minister
stressed that the examinations will be
held with Covid protocols in place to
ensure safety for the students.
The examinations will take place
from May 5 to 19, at 1,452 examination
centres that have been arranged across
the state.
Suresh said that intermediate board
examinations are very important for the
future of the students, as their certificates
are essential in future educational
to 900K, which generates an average
of 1.6 million views for his works.
Art produced by Andrew Brown
has increased in value since he
launched, bringing his NFT collection
to just over £228,000 in value.
Artworks, when resold, will earn the
current NFTs holders 2% royalties in
Ethereum when a resale has commenced.
NFT copyrights are tracked
mechanically via a commercial rights
management company “NFT
Intellect”, which monitor royalties
owed to current NFT holders.
Doctor Troller, also known as
Artist Andrew Brown, says: “The
future of art is digital, and the lockdown
has certainly sped up the transition
away from physical artworks.
This has been a great experience for
me and should open up new opportunities
for artists to be able to monetise
their content outside of the traditional
gallery model.”
pursuits.
He assured students and their parents
about the safe conduct of the exams, as
strict preventive measures will be taken
at every centre.
The minister stressed that the state
government is responsible for the future
and safety of the students and pointed
out that if only a pass is given in the certificates
without conducting the examinations,
students will suffer in the future.
A Covid Special Officer has been
appointed for each district and all the
test centres would be sanitised every
day. Thermal scanners have been set up
at each test centre, further ensuring the
students' safety, he added.