True name: On Armenian genocide

Us president recently  has fulfilled a long-pending American promise byrecognising the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915-16 as “an act of genocide”, but the move has clearly infuriated Turkey, a NATO ally. In 2019,both Houses of the U.S. Congress passed resolutions calling the slaughter by its true name, but former President Donald Trump, like his predecessors, stopped short of a formal recognition of the genocide, mainly because of Turkish opposition. Ankara has challenged the “scholarly and legal” basis of Mr. Biden’s announcement and warned that it will “open a deep wound”. Up to 1.5 million Armenians were estimated to have been killed during the course of the First World War by the Ottoman Turks. When the Ottoman Empire suffered a humiliating defeat in the Caucasus in 1915 at the hands of the Russians, the Turks blamed the Armenians living on the fringes of the crumbling empire for the setback. Accusing them of treachery, the Ottoman government unleashed militias on Armenian villages. Armenian soldiers, public intellectuals and writers were executed and hundreds of thousands of Armenians, including children, were forcibly moved from their houses in eastern Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) to the Syrian desert. Many died during this exodus and many others, after reaching the concentration camps in the deserts. Turkey has acknowledged that atrocities were committed against Armenians, but is opposed to calling it a genocide, which it considers as an attempt to insult the Turks.

Mr. Biden’s move comes at a time when the relationship between the U.S. and Turkey has been in steady decline. In 2016, Ankara accused the U.S.-based Turkish Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen of being the mastermind of a failed coup, and asked the U.S. government to extradite him, a demand Washington paid no attention to. Turkey’s decision to buy the S-400 missile defence system from Russia, despite strong opposition from the U.S., prompted American leaders to oust Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet training programme and impose sanctions on their ally. When Mr. Biden assumed office, Turkish President Reccep Tayyip Erdogan had sent feelers for a reset, saying Turkey needed help from the West to resolve the Syrian crisis. But Mr. Biden’s move on the Armenian killings appears to have widened the cracks. For Turkey, this overreaction to anyone calling the Armenian massacre a genocide is not doing any good in foreign policy. Instead of being defensive about the crimes of the Ottoman empire, the modern Turkish republic should demonstrate the moral courage to disown the atrocities. It shouldn’t allow the past to ruin its present interests.

Right priorities: On U.S. COVID-19 aid to India.

l with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden said that his government would quickly deploy a number of COVID-19-related supplies to help India battle its current crisis with the pandemic. The move comes after what many saw as a delay in the U.S.’s response to the situation. After a few days, where the Biden administration seemed to dither, making the point that protecting Americans first was in the world’s interest, it appears to have amended its stand, in some part due to pressure from U.S. Congressmen, business chambers and academics. Over the weekend, senior U.S. officials reached out to India and made public comments expressing concern and sympathy for the people affected as India sees over 3 lakh new cases a day and a record number of deaths. In the short term, what India needs from abroad is two-fold: medicines and oxygen-management devices, including containers, concentrators and generators. It is heartening that more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., have promised to supply these within a week, and some of those supplies have already begun to arrive. In addition to the U.S. government’s supplies, the U.S. private sector has also mobilised aid for various COVID-19 resources in India. In the longer term, New Delhi wants Washington to consider a shift in its long-held state policies for the duration of the pandemic, which may be a more difficult proposition as it includes setting aside patent rights for pharmaceuticals produced in the U.S. and supporting the India-South Africa petition at the World Trade Organization for waiving all TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) so vaccines can be manufactured generically for the next few years. The U.S. should consider its assistance to India both in light of their relationship and of the fact that as a key global supplier of pharmaceuticals and vaccines, India’s faltering steps in the fight against COVID-19 will impact the world.

There is no denying that the perceived delay in the U.S.’s response to the crisis in India, which is not just a bilateral strategic partner but key to the U.S.’s Indo-Pacific strategy as a member of the Quad, has caused some disappointment in South Block. However, it is unlikely that this will seriously impact the partnership, nor should such matters affect the broader relationship. There is also a kernel of truth in the U.S.’s earlier assertion that the American government has a “special responsibility” to American citizens first and addressing their COVID-19 needs was also in the world’s interests. Instead of chiding the U.S. for its delay, New Delhi would do well to learn from this prioritisation, and complete its vaccination programme for all Indians, even as it uses all its resources and those received from the U.S. and other countries to rescue the nation from the current ravages of the pandemic.

Oscars this year saw many firsts, and also a fair amount of continuity and predictability

Parasite, there were those who peddled the myth that lightning will not strike the same place twice. It kind of did in the 93rd Academy Awards, when the Best Supporting Actress award went to South Korean Youn Yuh-jung, for her role as granny Soon-ja in the heart-warming Minari, beating off competition from Glenn Close’s mad-haired Mamaw in Hillbilly Elegy. Anthony Hopkins winning his second Best Actor Oscar (he first won for The Silence of the Lambs) for The Father was disappointing, even if deserving. The sentimental favourite was the late Chadwick Boseman, who turned in an incendiary performance as the mercurial trumpeter, Levee Green, in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. As expected, Nomadland won big with Best Picture, Best Director for Chloé Zhao and Best Actress (Frances McDormand). It is a historic win for Zhao as she is only the second woman to win the award and the first woman of colour to do so. While elegiac in its beauty, Nomadland should have looked at privilege. Only a white person can feel safe enough to drop off the grid. Wandering white people, even if they are hulking ex-military policemen, are enlightened and definitely not lost, while a homeless black person will always be looked at with suspicion.

Unfair and dangerous: On vaccine inequity

Vaccine inequity will make containment measures more difficult

In the midst of a raging second wave, which is touching new peaks each passing day, the Central government has abdicated its responsibility to ensure vaccine equity through free vaccination for the poor across all age groups. While State governments were never consulted or given prior notice about the change in vaccination policy, giving the two vaccine manufacturers a free hand to decide the price at which vaccines will be sold to State governments has made universal COVID-19 vaccination a difficult task to achieve. A large percentage of those aged 18-44 years does not have the resources to pay for vaccines and hence will fall through the cracks. So, the States will have to take a leading role in the free immunisation programme. While nearly two dozen States have already committed to vaccinate for free the target population, it remains to be seen if they use any criteria to identify the beneficiaries. Never before has universal immunisation of nearly 600 million people been left to State governments and the private sector while the Union government restricts itself to vaccinating for free just 300 million. With this precedent, States will probably be required to vaccinate children too, when vaccines become available, thus burdening them even further and thereby actively promoting vaccine inequity. If making States pay for vaccines is an ill-conceived idea, forcing them to shell out more than what the Union government pays for the same vaccines is a sure recipe for exacerbated vaccine inequity. With vaccination being the only safe way to end the pandemic, undertaking any exercise that leaves a large population unprotected will cost the country enormously in terms of lives and livelihoods.thank you.

Jai Shree Krishna.

Must act on safety

must act on safety

Maharashtra has been facing the merciless onslaught of COVID-19 cases, but its public health response has also had to combat a second, connected scourge of hospital fires. In recent days, the State has been adding, on average, over 60,000 cases and losing a few hundred lives daily in the second wave of the pandemic, straining its infrastructure and institutions. It is also frequently hit by deadly fires, of the kind witnessed on Friday in the ICU of a small hospital in Mumbai’s suburb of Virar, where at least 15 patients severely ill with the coronavirus died. With about seven lakh active cases now, many of the patients in the State require oxygen support and hospitals are stretched to the limit. Many are small institutions, while a number of facilities are simply not built for purpose, such as the hospital located in a mall in Mumbai’s Bhandup area where several lives were lost in a blaze last month. Now that many COVID-19 hospital fires have been reported during the first peak of the pandemic last year and later, in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh in particular, State authorities should be able to document their learnings and put out a checklist to save patients. They should clarify whether fire safety guidelines for hospitals issued by the Centre in September last year, prioritising a strict compliance strategy, third party accreditation on safety, and adoption of a fire response plan were acted upon. This is particularly important in Maharashtra’s context, given that devastating fires have been recurring, and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray should lose no time in ordering

The U.S.-India climate pact has the potential to aid sustainable post-pandemic development

The U.S.-India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership raises expectations that the coming decade will see sustained financial and technological cooperation between the two countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions. At the Leaders Summit on Climate organised by U.S. President Joe Biden, the world’s attention was focused on countries responsible for the highest carbon emissions. India ranks third, behind the U.S. and China, although its per capita CO₂ emissions are less than 60% of the global average, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out. There is little confidence in a pandemic-stricken world, however, that future growth pathways will be aligned away from fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency, in fact, expects a dramatic rise in emissions as countries race to shake off the impact of the coronavirus, as they did after the 2008 financial crisis. Yet, the years to 2030, as President Biden put it, are part of a “decisive decade”, and action to scale up funding and innovation can help all countries move closer to keeping global warming well below 2°C or even 1.5°C, as the Paris Agreement envisages. There are many aspects to the bilateral pact that could be transformative for energy-intensive sectors in India, starting with renewable power expansion to 450 GW. With open source technologies, India could incorporate innovative materials and processes to decarbonise industry, transport and buildings, the biggest emitters, apart from power.

Viral load: On lockdowns, lives and livelihoods

Lockdowns can be used as a smart instrument that saves lives without killing livelihoods

Hovering around 3.5 lakh daily infections, India’s current wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is still some distance from the peak. Some experts fear that it could hit a million daily infections in May, with daily deaths nearing 5,000. It is a different matter that the story these numbers tell is itself only a tiny fragment of the misery enveloping the country. The health-care infrastructure is stretched to breaking point in most parts of the country. Given this situation, more restrictions cannot be avoided. At the end of a week-long lockdown, Delhi extended it by another week on Sunday. After months, Chennai came under a complete Sunday lockdown with increased restrictions during the week; Kerala had the whole weekend in shutdown. A national lockdown was a sledgehammer approach last year and its memories still haunt. The Centre, once bitten and twice shy, has conveniently left any decision on lockdowns to the States. The learning from the first lockdown should not be that it is a political hot potato that is to be passed around; but that it could serve as a smart instrument in combating the outbreak.