By Sidharth Mishra

The country in general and the national Capital in particular was badly ravaged by the second wave of onslaught by Covid-19 virus. As per the government figures, during this bout of the coronavirus surge, Delhi had over 14 lakh confirmed cases as of June 14, 2021, with over 24000 fatalities.

Now we are faced with the screaming headlines every morning of the likely arrival of the third wave, and accompanying claims by the government of how it was getting ready to face the possible menace. Here it would be worthwhile to recall what celebrated English poet TS Eliot once wrote in his vowed poem Hollow Men, “Between the idea, And the reality, Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow.”

By Sidharth Mishra

For the national Capital’s civic edifice, Master Plan of course is the guiding document. It’s to the credit of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the Urban Development Ministry (UDM) that they have without fail brought Master Plan Document (MPD) every two decades, which have been accepted by the government with some delays and changes here and there.

Going by the contents of the various Master Plans, one would have to concede that these are fine documents, products of diligent work of long years. However, these documents have found acceptance only in words and seldom in spirit.

By Sidharth Mishra

The millennial Indians born in the third and the fifth year of this century have been the worst sufferers of the pandemic and its related misgovernance. This is true especially with the respect to the students who were to appear for the secondary school (class X) and senior secondary (class XII) examinations this year. They have been at the receiving end of competitive appeasement policy among the freebie distributing political parties, which has left them in a state of maze.

By Sidharth Mishra

On the ongoing controversy on Yoga trainer and entrepreneur Ramdev’s utterances against allopathy and futility of vaccination, a senior ruling party law-maker Sanjay Jaiswal had a very apt comment to make. Jaiswal, a medical professional, called Ramdev a yoga trainer but not a Yogi. “A Yogi is one who has control over all his senses and brain. What he has done for yoga is comparable to what Coca Cola did for beverages. Indians have been, for ages, consuming shikanji and thandai but after the advent of the soft drink giant, every home seems to be stocked with bottles of Pepsi and Coke,” Jaiswal said.

By Sidharth Mishra

The relationship between the Centre and the Delhi government is increasingly coming to remind one of the Tom and Jerry cartoon shows. The two cartoon chracater created in the United States in the 1940s-50s, related to fights between Tom, a house cat and Jerry, a mouse. The plot of the several successful short films which were made centred on Tom and Jerry trying to get the better of one another, and in the process bringing chaos and ruin all around.

By Sidharth Mishra

By Sidharth Mishra

By Sidharth Mishra

My father, a medical graduate of early 1950s, often recounted the service he had rendered in the cholera, malaria and typhoid epidemics in the 1950s. He would end conversation saying, “Hope your generation never gets to see an epidemic.”

His soul must be sad seeing his country facing the epidemic for the past one year and with no light at the end of a very densely dark tunnel. In his epidemic stories, one thing was very clear that it was the government infrastructure and machinery which led the fight. During that time hardly existed any facility in the private sector. This time around government is not visible at the grassroots, and private sector unequal to rise to the challenge.