Who could have imagined that after a year the virus will unleash itself with a fury never known before. The scenes in different Indian cities are so unsettling that it brings one to tears. The enormity of human tragedy is simply indescribable. People are dying in the most miserable ways. Hard is to watch the video coverage at different hospitals. The health system is not close to crumbling, it seems it has already collapsed. Not to talk of poor and marginalized, even the rich and influential are not getting a bed in any hospital. The life of any person is valuable, and there is no distinction between a rich and a poor in terms of the value of life, but when even rich people fail to get treated it displays the scale of crisis. Here in J&K we are also witnessing a steep rise in the covid cases. Of late the authorities have taken some decisions to control the situation. The schools were closed just as the cases started peaking. Even the normal surgeries, and regular OPD were stopped in some hospitals. Then a decision was taken to open the markets with only half the shops alternatively. This all was done to minimize the movement of people outside so that the chances of virus carrying from one person to another are curtailed. But there are some crucial question that stare us in the face. Now that we had the advantage of hindsight, the officials should have managed the crisis more efficiently. But that was not the case. One f the prime examples of mismanagement is that when schools were closed, teachers were still asked to attend the schools. Now one can turn back and ask the relvant authorities about the logic of this decision. We have a huge number of teachers in J&K, and in these times it means as many families. If they were to conduct classes online, what difference would it make if they did it from home. Similarly there are college and university teachers. They also could have been asked to work from home. Not just this, before asking the business sector to open shops alternatively, all the government employees who perform no crucial or emergency services should have been put on an online mode working from home. The time is running out fast. Authorities at the helm need to sit down and take a long shot of the crisis that have just begun. Before it is too late, we need to gear up. Gear up, real fast. Don’t pass incomplete, or silly orders.
Monster wakes up again
