Western media and the deep state, dominated by left-liberals, are not able to digest the fact that Prime Minister Modi’s approval ratings remain one of the highest for any leader in the world despite the devastating second wave. The second wave of Covid in India was very devastating as the delta variant spread quickly around the country, giving little time for the government to prepare.
But the Modi government worked as a team with the state governments and managed the availability of oxygen cylinders (for which the apex court praised it) and medicines with efficiency and minimized the damage as much as it could. Thus, the popularity of the government, and more specifically of Prime Minister Modi, remained high after the second wave, and the West is not able to digest it.
So, to amplify the momentum against the government in national and international discourse, it is coming up with astronomical figures for the number of Covid deaths in India. As per a study published by the Centre for Global Development (CGD), a United States-based think-tank headed by a person named Massod Ahmed, the ‘excess death’ by Covid in India numbers at around 49 lakhs.
India’s official death number by Covid is 4 lakhs by end of June 2021, and even if one assumes 100 per cent or 200 per cent of ‘excess deaths (deaths which are not in official count/not reported), the figure would be 8 to 12 lakhs. But according to this study, 49 lakh people who died of Covid are not in the official figures.
The study is written by Abhishek Anand of Harvard University and Justin Sandefur of CGD, but most importantly, Arvind Subramanian, the former chief economic advisor who later joined Ashoka University and is now with US-based Brown University, is co-author of the article.
With this paper, the researchers add, they seek to “use these three sources to provide three new estimates of all-cause excess mortality for India, during the Covid pandemic for both the first and second waves”.
The three data sources being referred include: ‘extrapolation of state-level civil registration from seven states’, ‘applying international estimates of age-specific IFR to India Seroprevalence data’, and ‘analysis of the Consumer Pyramid Household Survey’.
“Given all the difficulties, getting at the true estimate will be difficult and only by piecing together data from different sources will we improve our understanding of the reality of the pandemic,” they add.
From calling B.1.617 an ‘Indian variant’ to publishing hyperinflated death tolls, the Western media, in collaboration with some Macaulay-putras of India, is making every possible effort to malign the Modi government and the country.
During the second wave, when Indian media was horrified with the scenes playing out across the country. For western media, an opportunity had arrived. The opportunity to deride India. The opportunity to blame Prime Minister Modi. The opportunity to laugh at India’s misery. Indian crematoriums had become photoshoot sites for international media. The privacy of Indians was being infringed upon; the sanctity of their last rites being made a show of. Cremation grounds with lit pyres were becoming first page pictures to be used by the likes of the New York Times to sell more copies of their publications.
And when with these they could not succeed in their objective to malign Prime Minister Modi, now they are publishing these hyperinflated figures of deaths to reignite the debate on the second wave in national and international forums. However, with their every attempt to malign Prime Minister Modi, he becomes even more trustworthy for the people of the country.