Combating coronavirus
Thanks to Covid-19, which has triggered the worst health crisis in our lifetime, everyone now realises more than ever what it means to be alive and wanting to live. We have become starkly aware of the vanity of human ambition, greed, power, beauty and brilliance and begun to rethink the very conception of earthly life in the face of the havoc and fear caused by the rapid progression of the infection.
We have to be sensible about the way to fight Covid-19. “Stay at home to stay safe” is not optional advice; but a piece of life-saving advice. The golden rule in the time of corona is to “cease to be social animals” for the sake of survival till the containment of the epidemic. How far we will succeed in eradicating the dreadful virus is hard to tell now. The terms, ‘containment’ and ‘eradication’ are not interchangeable.
The unprecedented health crisis entails not just individual behaviour; but ‘social responsibility’ too. Individuals by their irresponsible or reckless behaviour put not just their own lives to risk, but those of others too. We must behave rationally and responsibly to save our and others’ lives. In a way, we must all act as ‘warriors’ in the virus fight. We should show resilience to undergo hardships and ‘make sacrifices’ to win the battle against the killer virus.
A lockdown — an extended Janata Curfew — or severe restrictions and testing (none of us is immune to the infection) and contact tracing are in our interest; our cooperation with the government and health workers is critical to retard the spread of the disease. Together and “apart”, we should be able to make it.
The government must address serious concerns over shortages of food, water, and cooking gas and other essentials and likely steep rise in prices and support impoverished multitudes who lead a hand-to-mouth existence.
G David Milton
Maruthancode, TN
Stock markets bleeding
The virus-impacted stock market is bleeding and this will have a cascading effect on the income of individual investors and other players in the economy. Though the market regulator SEBI and RBI are initiating steps by relaxing the trading norms and infusing additional funds into the system at regular intervals, these have not been able to give the required respite.
The Central government, in consultation with SEBI, should invoke Section 12A of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, which provides the Centre the power to suspend the business of stock exchanges in a situation of emergency. Else, SEBI/government must declare a holiday for stock exchanges till a specific date, upholding the payments and trade contracts under execution as on date.
Sitaram Popuri
Bengaluru
Release of Omar Abdullah
This refers to ‘Omar Abdullah released after nearly 8 months of detention’ (March 24). It was interesting to learn that the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was released after being in detention from the time the government announced abrogation of special status for the erstwhile State on August 5 last year.
Significantly, the National Conference leader was initially detained under preventive custody and later slapped with charges under the Public Safety Act on February 5. His father, Farooq Abdullah, who was released on March 10 after 'in-house' detention for around seven-and-a-half months has neither made any public appearance nor given any reactions since then. The moot question is whether Omar too will react the same way. Has the highly fragile situation in J&K come a full circle?
SK Gupta
New Delhi
Covid misinformation
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology must be appreciated for asking all social media companies to remove reports spreading misinformation about Covid-19 from their platforms with an immediate effect. Circulation of false information is only creating more panic among the people. Social media companies should initiate an awareness campaign on their platforms on the ill-effects of uploading false information about coronavirus.
MN Musaeed
Mumbai
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