DailyOh! China's 2015 bioweapon plot, to why Kangana is unhappy with Instagram too
After having been booted off Twitter last week Kangana Ranaut took to Instagram to call Covid-19 a
Good evening. To start with, 80 doctors (as per the last count) tested Covid positive from a single hospital in Delhi. Then there was the tragic death of a 26-year-old male doctor who died of Covid complications within hours of testing positive. If that was not enough, a female doctor and two nurses in Tamil Nadu, who were all treating Covid patients, themselves succumbed to the virus. What makes this even more heartbreaking is that the 32-year-old doctor working at the Anupanady Government Primary Healthcare Centre was eight months pregnant.
It is a picture of despair all across.
The country logged over 3.66 lakh fresh cases and 3,754 deaths in 24 hours ending Monday morning. The total caseload has reached 2.26 crore on Monday and the total death toll due to the infection has crossed 2.46 lakh.
With no place to cremate, people are floating the dead bodies in rivers. In Uttar Pradesh's Hamirpur district, dozens of bodies were seen floating in the Yamuna. There is speculation about the bodies being of Covid victims from the villages in Hamirpur where the death toll is so high that crematoriums are overwhelmed. UP, meanwhile, has extended the lockdown till May 17, as of now.
Covid deaths or not, floating dead bodies in rivers can embark a fresh sanitary-related crisis if it remains unchecked. The healthcare system is already stretched beyond capacity to deal with any further crisis.
That being said, healthcare facilities are coming up with innovative measures to keep patients in quarantine occupied and sane amid the insanity. In Bhopal, for instance, a thousand-bed quarantine centre for Covid patients has been inaugurated, with facilities like mobile-charging points, hot water and of course, the basics — oxygen concentrators and medical equipment.
Add to this, they will also broadcast episodes of Ramayana and Mahabharata for the patients daily. Religious viewing or for entertainment, you need something to keep your mind occupied with something besides Covid.
For those locked up at home, if Ramayana and Mahabharata are not what float your boat, feel free to watch The Good Place on Netflix. We all need to be in a good place, even if is only virtually and in our heads. To quote the wise words of Albus Dumbledore, "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”
What is real, though, is the virus. And the battles against it. And those who battle to keep the country safe, are as proactive to help as we battle the invisible enemy — the Coronavirus.
Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat said that the armed forces are utilising all the resources to handle the Covid crisis. While there are constraints in handling it, "such synergy between the three armed forces has never been seen before."
The three services — Army, Navy and Air Force — along with other wings of the defence ministry have been supporting the government in dealing with the massive spike in cases.
Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat: “Armed forces resources being deployed to move oxygen cylinders”. General Rawat also talks about how the virus has impacted border deployment. Listen in #Covid19India #IndianArmy #OxygenCrisis| @rahulkanwal pic.twitter.com/kOgcRTdsE9
— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) May 10, 2021
As they guard our borders against the military attack by hostile neighbours, one crafty neighbour has allegedly been plotting on bio-warfare for years before the pandemic. And it is the same country that unleashed the pandemic (albeit unknowingly, we would want to believe) on the world.
According to global media reports which draw on documents obtained by the US State Department, Chinese military scientists have allegedly discussed weaponising of coronaviruses in 2015, and may have predicted World War-III fought with biological weapons.
This latest unpleasant surprise comes from the documents obtained by the US State Department, according to reports first released by The Australian newspaper. The documents were obtained by the US officials as part of their own investigation into the origins of Covid-19. These reportedly were written by Chinese military scientists and People's Liberation Army (PLA) commanders making the sinister prediction in 2015. The scientists have described SARS coronaviruses — of which SARS CoV-2 (that causes Covid-19) is one example — as presenting a “new era of genetic weapons".
EXCLUSIVE: Chinese military scientists discussed the weaponisation of SARS coronaviruses five years before the COVID-19 pandemic https://t.co/cGtPZLT2zg @SharriMarkson
— The Australian (@australian) May 7, 2021
Our Word Of The Day today if from there: weapon. The dictionary defines it as 'an instrument designed or used for inflicting bodily harm or physical damage.’ It traces its origin from the Proto-Germanic *wēpną, which has the same meaning.
If you are struck by a weapon, you will be harmed. How do you protect yourself from it? With an armour or a shield. In the case of Covid-19, your shield is the mask. Double mask, we would say.
The bioweaponry angle has come as a shock to the world and is bound to create more global controversies. Back home, meanwhile, Kangana Ranaut seems to see no controversy in calling the Made In China virus, subpar. Kangana Ranaut took to Instagram to call Covid-19 a "small-time flu which got too much press." This, after having been booted off Twitter last week for making objectionable comments on Didi Mamata Banerjee. Decision-makers at Twitter are probably watching with concern for their colleagues at Instagram, who have just begun a painful tango with the Queen of stress ulcers and of unaware ironies (she tested positive two days ago). However, completely unhurt by Kangana’s sass, the virus continues its dance of death across her country.
We count on Kangana and Corona to grab all our eyeballs. What else grabs eyeballs in this country? Politics, of course. The latest from the arena is that Himanta Biswa Sarma, who has finally ascended to the Assam Chief Minister’s chair after struggling for decades. BJP’s captain in the Northeast has replaced the outgoing CM Sarbananda Sonowal (also from BJP).
We said he was struggling for decades. That is because Sarma has been the crisis manager for every leader he has worked with. He was the Man Friday for Hiteswar Saikia and Tarun Gogoi of the Congress. After differences with Gogoi, he joined BJP in 2015 and was appointed as the party's Convener of the Election Management Committee. He won the Assembly elections for BJP in 2016 and 2021. He has since then been Mr Dependable to CM Sonowal. Yet the top chair in Assam always eluded him. Until now.
Before plunging into state-level politics he was the “wonder boy” for All Assam Students' Union (AASU) member in the 1990s, where he handled the pickle during the Assam agitation for his first political gurus — Mahanta and Bhrigu Kumar Phukan.
Memories from past(1978-79 ). With my senior colleagues during the period of Assam Agitation pic.twitter.com/qLly5qBxf2
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) March 12, 2021
The wonder boy has more wonder that has been under wraps. Long before the political spotlight shone on him, he was in the spotlight in movies. As a child artiste in a peppy number from the 1980s Assamese blockbuster — Kokadeuta, Nati aru Hati — he was seen commandeering an elephant. And now, he will be commandeering the state with one of the largest elephant populations in the country.
We leave you on that sprightly note and promise to come back with more tomorrow.
Stay healthy and stay happy.
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