Manthan India's video: India s Covid Tragedy Harsh Mander Amir Ullah Khan

About the book The official figure of close to 500,000 deaths during the two waves of the Covid-19 pandemic in India is widely believed to be a gross underestimate. As Harsh Mander shows, the underreporting of cases and deaths was the least of the crimes committed by the Indian state in the summer months of 2020 and 2021. The first part of the book, ‘Locking Down the Poor’, describes the grave humanitarian crisis of 2020, which pushed the urban poor to the brink of starvation. It shows how this was a direct consequence of public policy choices that the central government made, particularly of imposing the world’s longest and most stringent lockdown—with just four hours’ notice—with the smallest relief package. From the highways and overcrowded quarantine centres, Mander brings us stories of the estimated 30 million migrant workers whose livelihoods were destroyed, forcing them to walk hundreds of kilometers to their villages. The second part of the book, ‘Burning Pyres, Mass Graves’, records the horrors of the following year, when everything from hospital beds to medical oxygen and essential medicines fell disastrously short. Mander traces the causes for these shortages to the criminal neglect of public health in India, a situation made worse under the current government. He holds the state culpable for indulging in pageantry—with the Prime Minister advertising himself as a messiah—when the country needed to brace for the impact of the second wave which experts had warned was coming. Harsh Mander www.harshmander.in is a human rights and peace worker, writer, columnist, researcher and teacher, who works with survivors of mass violence, hunger, homeless persons and street children. From the autumn of 2017, he established and led the important national initiative which he called the Karwan e Mohabbat www.karwanemohabbat.in , literally the Caravan of Love. He is also the founder of Aman Biradari www.amanbiradari.org , a people’s campaign for a secular, peaceful, just and humane world, established after the Gujarat communal carnage of 2002. Aman Biradari works closely with other people’s organizations and groups for the defence of secularism; for public compassion and justice; and for promoting the values of the Constitution. He is a prolific writer with more than 25 best selling books. As a Member of the Prime Minister’s National Advisory Council from June 2010-12, he convened many working groups including on the Food Security Bill, Disability Rights, Bonded Labour, Street Vendors, Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation Bill, Manual Scavenging Abolition, and co-convened the group on the Communal and Targeted Violence Bill. He was Special Commissioner to the Supreme Court of India in the Right to Food case for twelve years from 2005-17. In these years, he investigated for the Supreme Court starvation deaths, and reviewed implementation and directed public policy reform for advancing the right to food and nutrition in several states in India. He founded a campaign to work with homeless persons and street children, now run by the Rainbow Foundation India, through which around 5000 homeless street girls and boys, by providing them safe spaces such as residential hostels in 10 cities. He is also a founding member of the National People’s Right to Information. He was a member and then Chairperson of the Advisory Board of the Human Rights Initiative of the Open Societies Foundation from 2018-21. He was a Richard von Weizsacker Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin in 2021-22. The Peace Research Institute Oslo has included him in its 2022 shortlist of people recommended for the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Amir Ullah Khan Amir is a development economist and a former civil servant. He is the founder Vice Chancellor of Glocal University and teaches at the Indian School of Business, NALSAR and the MCRHRDI of the Government of Telangana. He is a former Deputy director and Strategy head at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was earlier Executive Director and Editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 📖Please purchase this amazing book by the speakers: https://www.amazon.in/shop/manthan With every purchase, you help . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 🚩Connect with Manthan🚩: ▶️ Subscribe to our Network: Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ManthanIndia?sub_confirmation=1 💳 Support our Efforts: Website: https://www.manthanindia.com/support-manthan/ 🐦 Tweet about us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/share?text=A%20Must%20Watch.%20Please%20Share!%20https://youtu.be/mpZpA73Dlns 👪 Share with your family and friends: https://wa.me/?text=A%20Must%20Watch.%20Please%20Share!%20https://youtu.be/mpZpA73Dlns 🌐 Like us on our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ManthanIndia 📸 Stay updated by following our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manthan_india/ 📩 Stay updated by joining our Telegram Page: https://t.me/manthan_india