oppn parties Second Wave: There Is No Denying That We Were Totally Unprepared

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  • Allahabad HC said that the UP Police is acting as law unto themselves as they detained a person unlawfully even before his arrest
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  • Neha Bora was subsequently released and Dipke is to appear before a magistrate today at noon
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  • India directed oil marketing companies to stop diverting sugar-based feedstocks for ethanol production in the 2026–27 supply year, according to a new tender issued on Friday. The companies have invited bids for 11 billion litres of ethanol made from alternatives including corn and broken rice, amid concerns about domestic sugar supplies and prices
  • Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said India's trade imbalance with China was growing sharply and attributed the problem partly to restrictions on Indian goods and services entering the Chinese market. China subsequently said it was ready to work with India to address mutual economic and trade concerns; India's trade deficit with China reached $69 billion in the first half of FY2026–27, up 27% year-on-year
  • Indian equity benchmarks extended their recovery on Friday, with the Sensex rising 413.66 points to close at 74,729.27 and the Nifty 50 gaining 148.80 points to settle at 23,146.15. Information technology shares, including Tech Mahindra, Infosys and TCS, helped lift the indices
  • India defeated Zimbabwe by four wickets in the opening women's T20 International in Raipur, taking a 1–0 lead in the three-match series. Deepti Sharma and Niki Prasad combined in an 82-run stand after India's top order collapsed, helping the hosts chase down Zimbabwe's total of 114 for five
  • Indian wrestler Komal won bronze in the women's 59 kg category at the Under-23 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas, defeating Kazakhstan's Viktoriia Khusainova 7–2. Fellow Indian Amruta Pujari advanced to the women's 72 kg final after recording two pinfall victories
  • Indian shuttler Jagsher Singh Khangurra secured a bronze medal at the BWF World Junior Badminton Championships in Cairo
  • The Supreme Court of India upheld the Bombay High Court's decision quashing the 2020 write-off of ₹8,415 crore in additional tier-1 bonds issued by Yes Bank (Yes Bank). The court ruled that the bank's administrator lacked the authority to extinguish the bonds under the final reconstruction scheme, strengthening bondholders' claims
  • The Supreme Court issued notices to the Election Commission of India, Delhi Police and opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, in separate petitions concerning electoral-roll revision and protests held in Delhi on October 10–12. The court also directed the preservation of CCTV footage linked to allegations of police excesses
  • The Supreme Court ruled that a person converting from Hinduism to Islam cannot automatically claim backward-class reservation benefits in the new religious community solely on the basis of their previous caste status. The judgment upheld the Madras High Court's decision striking down a 2024 Tamil Nadu government order that permitted such certification for specified communities
  • The Election Commission of India ordered a Special Summary Revision of electoral rolls in 14 states and three Union Territories, using January 1, 2027, as the qualifying date for voter eligibility. The draft rolls are scheduled for publication on November 12, claims and objections will be accepted until December 11, and the final rolls are due on January 4, 2027
Delhi HC refuses to ban CJP's Tiranga rally at Central Park in Connaught Place today /////// Police says will control and regulate it /////// NDMC closes the park for the public on Friday and Saturday
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Second Wave: There Is No Denying That We Were Totally Unprepared

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2021-05-12 06:08:18

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack

The world is now increasingly acknowledging what most observers in India have been saying for a long time that throwing caution to the winds and getting into a self-congratulatory mode too early after the first wave has meant that India was caught totally unprepared by the severity and ferociousness of the second wave. Dr Antony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and chief medical advisor to US President Joe Biden told the US Senate committee hearing on the Covid situation worldwide that "the reason that India is in such dire straits now is that they had an original surge and made the incorrect assumption that they were finished with it, and what happened, they opened up prematurely and wind up having a surge right now that we're all very well aware of is extremely devastating."

Instead of acknowledging its mistakes and taking corrective action, the government seems to be in denial and has adopted a combative (as usual?) mode. It has taken to rebut articles in foreign newspapers assessing the Covid situation in India by saying that they were wrong. But do images lie? Do reports in India media about shortages of testing kits, hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, concentrators, Covid drugs and most importantly, vaccines, all fake? Are people not dying in hospitals across India due to oxygen shortage? Are social media cries for help part of a design to embarrass and humiliate the government? Are the unending lines at crematoriums and bodies floating in the Ganga part of the wrong assessment?

The fact is that the government made an "incorrect assumption" about having won the war against the virus despite knowing that second, third and even fourth waves had hit Europe and the US and will certainly hit India in due course. All our Covid facilities, built urgently during the lockdown, were silently dismantled all over India. In this, the state governments are also to blame as health is a state subject. Many isolation and Covid centres were opened in marriage halls, stadiums and parks in the first wave. They were dismantled all too soon without keeping up the preparedness for the second wave. The experience of the first wave, for example having oxygen plants at hospitals, was not carried out with tenders not being floated even eight months after the expert committee's recommendation. Elections with physical rallies flouting all Covid norms were allowed and so was the Kumbh mela with a congregation of over 20 lakh devotees. Despite knowing that we would need more than 200 crore doses of vaccines to fully inoculate about 70 percent of the population, orders were not placed nor were production facilities ramped up. Even now, the government is not using compulsory licensing method to allow all vaccine manufacturers to produce the vaccines.

The truth is that the government did absolutely nothing to prepare for the second wave and is now in denial. That will not do. It has to urgently address the shortcomings and bring the situation under control. Since the second wave is showing early signs of reaching a plateau, the government should not now make the mistake of letting the guard down. Experts have already warned about the third wave given the huge number of infections in the second. The government had earlier said that experts had not warned that the second wave would be so ferocious. That is not a valid excuse. It must now assume that the third wave would be even more ferocious and should prepare accordingly. 

pic courtesy: modified from an image at thehansindia.com

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