Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
Image copyright AFPImage caption Embankments have been washed away in Bangladesh
Millions of people across Bangladesh and eastern India are taking stock of the devastation left by Cyclone Amphan.
A massive clean-up operation has begun after the storm left 84 dead and flattened homes, uprooted trees and left cities without power.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived in West Bengal state to conduct an aerial survey.
Authorities in both countries had evacuated millions of people before the storm struck.
Covid-19 and social-distancing measures made mass evacuations more difficult, with shelters unable to be used to full capacity.
Officials also said people were afraid and reluctant to move to shelters for fear of contracting the virus.
The cyclone arrived with winds gusting up to 185km/h (115mph) and waves as high as 15ft.
Image copyright REUTERSImage caption Roads have been blocked by falling trees in BangladeshImage copyright AFPImage caption Many people have been injured in wall collapses in Bengal
It is the first super cyclone to form in the Bay of Bengal since 1999. Though its winds had weakened by the time it struck, it was still classified as a very severe cyclone.
Three districts in India’s West Bengal – South and North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore – were very badly hit.
In Bangladesh, there are reports of tens of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed and many villages submerged by storm surges in low-lying coastal areas like Khulna and Satkhira.
The affected areas include the Sunderbans, mangroves spread over an area of more than 10,000 square kilometres that spans both India and Bangladesh – the swampy islands are home to more than four million of the world’s poorest people.
Image copyright MUKTIImage caption Many homes, built of brick and mud, have been washed away
Those in the Sunderbans say it is too early to estimate casualties in the area, which is now cut-off from the mainland by the storm.
“There are houses which have collapsed and people could be trapped in them but we don’t know yet,” Debabrat Halder, who runs an NGO in one of the villages, told the BBC.
He recalls cyclone Bulbul in November 2019, which was followed by a huge incidence of fever, diarrhoea and flu, and is afraid that that the same may happen again.
And worse, he adds, is that the flooding from contaminated sea water, has likely destroyed the soil.
“Nothing will grow in this soil,” he says, adding that it will likely take years to convert it into fertile land again.
Image copyright MUKTIImage caption The Sunderbans delta is frequently hit by severe stormsImage copyright MUKTIImage caption Crops have all been destroyed by the flooding
Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, and one of India’s biggest cities has been devastated. Its roads are flooded and the city was without power for more than 14 hours.
The state’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, said the devastation in Kolkata was “a bigger disaster than Covid-19”.
But assessment of the damage is being hampered by blocked roads and flooding in all these areas.
The statement, issued on 27 April but only reported this week, singles out stadiums, exhibition centres, museums and theatres as public facilities where it’s especially important to ban plagiarism.
“City constructions are the combination of a city’s external image and internal spirit, revealing a city’s culture,” the government statement says.
It calls for a “new era” of architecture to “strengthen cultural confidence, show the city’s features, exhibit the contemporary spirit, and display the Chinese characteristics”.
Image copyright STR / AFP / GETTYImage caption – Not the Arc de Triomphe, but a college gate in Wuhan
The guidelines on “foreign” architecture were mostly welcomed on Chinese social media.
“The ban is great,” wrote a Weibo user, according to state media the Global Times. “It’s much better to protect our historical architectures than build fake copycat ones.”
Another recalled seeing an imitation White House in Jiangsu province. “It burned my eyes,” she said.
Image copyright OLIVIER CHOUCHANA / GETTYImage caption Thames Town, an English-themed town near Shanghai, pictured in 2008
In 2013, the BBC visited “Thames Town”, an imitation English town in Songjiang in Shanghai.
The town features cobbled streets, a medieval meeting hall – even a statue of Winston Churchill – and was a popular spot for wedding photos.
“Usually if you want to see foreign buildings, you have to go abroad,” said one person. “But if we import them to China, people can save money while experiencing foreign-style architecture.”
Image copyright WANG ZHAO / GETTYImage caption – Raffles City, Chongqing, in 2019 – mimicking the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore
China, of course, is not the only country to borrow – or copy – other countries’ designs.
Las Vegas in the US revels in its imitations of iconic foreign architecture including the Eiffel Tower and Venetian canals.
Thailand also has developments that mimic the Italian countryside and charming English villages, mainly aimed at domestic tourists.
US President Donald Trump has described the coronavirus pandemic as the “worst attack” ever on the United States, pointing the finger at China.
Mr Trump said the outbreak had hit the US harder than the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War Two, or the 9/11 attacks two decades ago.
His administration is weighing punitive actions against China over its early handling of the global emergency.
Beijing says the US wants to distract from its own response to the pandemic.
Since emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, the coronavirus is confirmed to have infected 1.2 million Americans, killing more than 73,000.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday, Mr Trump said: “We went through the worst attack we’ve ever had on our country, this is worst attack we’ve ever had.
“This is worse than Pearl Harbor, this is worse than the World Trade Center. There’s never been an attack like this.
“And it should have never happened. Could’ve been stopped at the source. Could’ve been stopped in China. It should’ve been stopped right at the source. And it wasn’t.”
Media caption Life for asylum seekers in lockdown on the US-Mexico border
Asked later by a reporter if he saw the pandemic as an actual act of war, Mr Trump indicated the outbreak was America’s foe, rather than China.
“I view the invisible enemy [coronavirus] as a war,” he said. “I don’t like how it got here, because it could have been stopped, but no, I view the invisible enemy like a war.”
Media caption US shopping centres re-open: ‘This is the best day ever’
Who else in Trump’s team is criticising China?
The deepening rift between Washington and Beijing was further underscored on Wednesday as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo renewed his rhetoric against China, accusing it of covering up the outbreak.
He stuck by his so far unsubstantiated charge that there is “enormous evidence” the coronavirus hatched in a Chinese laboratory, even while acknowledging there is still uncertainty about its origins.
“Those statements are both true,” America’s top diplomat told the BBC. “We don’t have certainty and there is significant evidence that it came from a lab.”
One of the most trusted US public health experts has said the best evidence indicates the virus was not made in a lab.
Dr Anthony Fauci, a member of Mr Trump’s coronavirus task force, said on Monday the illness appeared to have “evolved in nature and then jumped species”.
Why is the US blaming China?
President Trump faces a tough re-election campaign in November, but the once humming US economy – which had been his main selling point – is currently in a coronavirus-induced coma.
As Mr Trump found his management of the crisis under scrutiny, he began labelling the outbreak “the China virus”, but dropped that term last month days before speaking by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Both Mr Trump and his likely Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, appear to be fastening on to China’s unpopularity as an election issue, with each accusing the other of being a patsy for America’s primary economic competitor.
As the coronavirus began spreading in the US back in January, Mr Trump signed phase one of a trade deal with China that called a truce in their tariff war. The US president’s hopes of sealing a more comprehensive phase two deal are now in limbo because of the pandemic.
Image copyright ANIImage caption Millions of people across India have been stranded by the lockdown
The first train carrying migrant workers stranded by a nationwide lockdown in India has left the southern state of Telangana.
The 24-coach train, carrying 1,200 passengers, is travelling non-stop to eastern Jharkhand state.
Earlier this week, India said millions of people stranded by the lockdown can return to their home states.
The country has been in lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus since 24 March.
However, the movement of people will be only possible through state government facilitation, which means people cannot attempt to cross state borders on their own.
This train is a “one-off special train” to transport the workers on the request of the Telangana state government, Rakesh Ch, the chief public relations officer of South-Central Railways, told the BBC.
The train left Lingampally, a suburb of the southern city of Hyderabad, early on Friday and is expected to reach Hatia in Jharkhand on Saturday.
Mr Rakesh said that adequate social distancing precautions had been taken and food was being served to the passengers.
Image copyright ANIImage caption Railways officials said that adequate social distancing precautions had been taken and food was being served to the passengers.
He said each carriage was carrying 54 passengers instead of its 72-seat capacity.
“The middle berth is not being used in the sleeper coaches and only two people are sitting in the general coaches,” Mr Rakesh said.
Before the train pulled out of the station, all the passengers were screened for fever and other symptoms.
They had all been employed at a construction site at the Indian Institute of Technology, a top engineering school, in Hyderabad city.
The workers had earlier protested at the site against the non-payment of wages by their contractor.
Senior official M Hanumantha Rao said the contractor was asked to pay their salaries and arrangement made to send them back home.
The journey was organised at “very short notice”, senior police official S Chandra Shekar Reddy told BBC Telugu.
“We screened them at the labour camp itself and transported them to the railway station in buses,” he said.
India’s migrant workers are the backbone of the big city economy, constructing houses, cooking food, serving in eateries, delivering takeaways, cutting hair in salons, making automobiles, plumbing toilets and delivering newspapers, among other things.
Image copyright ANIImage caption Before the train pulled out of the station, all the passengers were screened for fever and other symptoms.
Most of the country’s estimated 100 million migrant workers live in squalid conditions.
When industries shut down overnight, many of them feared they would starve.
For days, they walked – sometimes hundreds of kilometres – to reach their villages because bus and train services were shut down overnight. Several died trying to make the journey.
Some state governments tried to facilitate buses, but these were quickly overrun. Thousands of others have been placed in quarantine centres and relief camps.
Documentary puts China’s literary hero into context: there is Dante, there’s Shakespeare, and there’s Du Fu
Theatrical legend Sir Ian McKellen brings glamour to beloved verses in British documentary
A ceramic figurine of Du Fu, a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty. Du is the subject of a new BBC documentary, thrilling devotees of his poetry. Photo: Simon Song
The resonant words of an ancient Chinese poet spoken by esteemed British actor Sir Ian McKellen have reignited in China discussion about its literary history and inspired hope that Beijing can tap into cultural riches to help mend its image in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The BBC documentary Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet has provoked passion among Chinese literature lovers about the poetic master who lived 1,300 years ago.
Sir Ian Mckellen read works of ancient Chinese poet Du Fu in Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet. Photo: BBC Four / MayaVision International
The one-hour documentary by television historian Michael Wood was broadcast on television and aired online for British viewers this month but enthusiasm among Chinese audiences mean the trailer and programme have been widely circulated on video sharing websites inside mainland China, with some enthusiasts dubbing Chinese subtitles.
The documentary has drawn such attention in Du’s homeland that even the Communist Party’s top anti-graft agency has discussed it in its current affairs commentary column. Notably, Wood’s depiction of Du’s life from AD712 to 770 barely mentioned corruption in the Tang dynasty (618-907) government.
“I couldn’t believe it!!” Wood said in an email. “I’m very pleased of course … most of all as a foreigner making a film about such a loved figure in another culture, you hope that the Chinese viewers will think it was worth doing.”
Often referred to as ancient China’s “Sage of Poetry” and the “Poet Historian”, Du Fu witnessed the Tang dynasty’s unparalleled height of prosperity and its fall into rebellion, famine and poverty.
Writer, historian and presenter Michael Wood followed the footsteps of the ancient Chinese poet Du Fu in Yangtze River gorges. Photo: BBC Four / MayaVision International
Wood traced Du’s footsteps to various parts of the country. He interviewed Chinese experts and Western sinologists, offering historical and personal contexts to introduce some of Du’s more than 1,400 poems and verses chronicling the ups and downs of his life and China.
The programme used many Western reference points to put Du and his works into context. The time Du lived in was described as around the as the Old English poem Beowulf was composed and the former Chinese capital, Changan, where Xian is now, was described as being in the league of world cities of the time, along with Constantinople and Baghdad.
Harvard University sinologist Stephen Owen described the poet’s standing as such: “There is Dante, there’s Shakespeare, and there’s Du Fu.”
The performance of Du’s works by Sir Ian, who enjoyed prominence in China with his role as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movie series, attracted popular discussion from both media critics and general audiences in China, and sparked fresh discussion about the poet.
“To a Chinese audience, the biggest surprise could be ‘Gandalf’ reading out the poems! … He recited [Du’s poems] with his deep, stage performance tones in a British accent. No wonder internet users praised it as ‘reciting Du Fu in the form of performing a Shakespeare play,” wrote Su Zhicheng, an editor with National Business Daily.
A stone sculpture at Du Fu Thatched Cottage in Chengdu city, China. Photo: Handout
On China’s popular Weibo microblog, a viewer called Indifferent Onlooker commented on Sir Ian’s recital of Du’s poem My Brave Adventures: “Despite the language barrier, he conveyed the feeling [of the poet]. It’s charming.”
Some viewers, however, disagreed. At popular video-sharing website Bilibili.com, where uploads of the documentary could be found, a viewer commented: “I could not appreciate the English translation, just as I could not grasp Shakespeare through his Chinese translated works in school textbooks.”
Watching the documentary amid the coronavirus pandemic, some internet users drew comparisons of Du to Fang Fang, a modern-day award-winning poet and novelist who chronicled her life in Wuhan during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Shanghai pictured in April. Devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic has brought about a new suspicion of China. Photo: Bloomberg
The pandemic has infected more than 2.5 million people and killed more than 170,000. It has put the global economy in jeopardy, fuelling calls for accountability. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab last week called for a “deep dive” review and the asking of “hard questions” about how the coronavirus emerged and how it was not stopped earlier.
Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at University of London, said the British establishment and wider public had changed its perception of Beijing as questions arose about outbreak misinformation and the political leverage of personal protective gear supply.
“The aggressive propaganda of the Chinese government is getting people in the UK to look more closely at China and see that it is a Leninist party-state, rather than the modernising and rapidly changing society that they want to see in China,” Tsang said.
On Sunday, a writer on the website of the National Supervisory Commission, China’s top anti-corruption agency, claimed – without citing sources – that the Du Fu documentary had moved “anxious” British audience who were still staying home under social distancing measures.
“If anyone wants to put the fear of the coronavirus behind them by understanding the rich Chinese civilisation, please watch this documentary on Du Fu,” it wrote, adding that promoting Du’s poems overseas could help “healing and uniting our shattered world”.
English-language state media such as CGTN and the Global Times reported on the documentary last week and some Beijing-based foreign relations publications have posted comments about the film on Twitter.
Wood said he had received feedback from both Chinese and British viewers that talked about “the need, especially now, of mutual understanding between cultures”.
“It is a global pandemic … we need to understand each other better, to talk to each other, show empathy: and that will help foster cooperation. So even in a small way, any effort to explain ourselves to each other must be a help,” Wood said.
He said the idea for producing a documentary about Du Fu started in 2017, after his team had finished the Story of China series for BBC and PBS.
Du Fu: China’s Greatest Poet first aired in Britain on April 7 on BBC Four, the cultural and documentary channel of the public broadcaster. It is a co-production between the BBC and China Central Television.
Wood said a slightly shorter 50-minute version would be aired later this month on CCTV9, Chinese state television’s documentary channel.
The film was shot in China in September, he said.
“I came back from China [at the] end of September, so we weren’t affected by the Covid-19 outbreak, though of course it has affected us in the editing period. We have had to recut the CCTV version in lockdown here in London and recorded two small word changes on my iPhone!” Wood said.
Image copyright ANIImage caption People participating in the chariot-pulling festival
Indian officials have suspended a local magistrate and a police official for allowing large crowds to attend a chariot-pulling festival at a Hindu temple on Thursday morning.
A case has also been filed against the trustees of the temple and another 20 people, police told the BBC.
Pictures of the crowds caused outrage after they surfaced on social media.
It comes weeks after Covid-19 clusters were linked to a Muslim religious gathering in the capital, Delhi.
Revoor village, which is in the state’s Kalburagi district, has been sealed off and officials are rushing teams of medical personnel to set up fever clinics there, the deputy commissioner of the district, told the BBC.
Kalburagi recorded India’s first coronavirus-related death – it is also the first district to implement “containment areas”, which involves sealing off villages where infections are reported.
Revoor is also close to another village that has been sealed off after a two-year-old tested positive for coronavirus.
The festival was held despite temple trustees giving officials an undertaking that it would not go ahead, a state lawmaker, Priyank Kharge, told the BBC.
Officials say that the daily rituals were performed at the temple on Wednesday evening in the presence of a few priests and temple trustees.
But early the next morning, the chariot was brought out of the temple premises and was pulled by “hundreds of people,” according to one official. They estimate that under 1,000 devotees attended the event.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption India’s railways are hoping to ease the burden on hospitals
India is preparing for a potential surge in Covid-19 patients by tapping into an unusual resource: its trains, which power the world’s fourth biggest rail network.
The country suspended its passenger trains for the first time after it announced a three-week lockdown on 25 March to contain the coronavirus. As of Wednesday, it had reported 4,643 active cases and 149 deaths, and the numbers are rapidly increasing.
“We, at the railways, thought: how can we contribute?” its spokesman, Rajesh Bajpai, told the BBC. “So we came up with this idea and everyone liked it.”
Work has already begun to convert 5,000 train coaches into quarantine or isolation wards, which amounts to 40,000 beds. And the railway ministry says it’s prepared to convert 15,000 more coaches.
The Indian railways – as the ministry is known – is a behemoth. Largely constructed during British rule, it’s still the mainstay of India’s public transport, and includes some of the world’s busiest urban rail systems. It transports 23 million passengers a day and its 12,000 trains crisscross 65,000km (40,389 miles) of tracks, connecting the remotest parts of India.
Mr Bajpai says the coaches can be spared as they are mostly trying to convert older ones, and passengers will be fewer than ever in the coming months even if restrictions are eased.
He adds that this is not unusual for the railways, which already runs several “special” trains, from luxury trains to exhibition trains to a hospital train, complete with operation theatres.
“The coach is a shell and inside, you can provide anything – a drawing room, a dining room, a kitchen, a hospital.”
A looming crisis?
And India may well need the extra beds.
States have already turned all sorts of spaces – sports centres, stadiums, wedding venues, hotels, resorts – into quarantine or isolation centres. But officials fear they will run out of space as the country ramps up testing.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption India suspended all passenger trains last month
For every person who tests positive, there are scores more who need to be traced, quarantined and, if necessary, isolated. But isolation at home is not always an option in India’s joint family households – and especially not in its densely-populated slums.
“There are so many options available and this [the coaches] is one of the options,” Mr Bajpai says.
He doesn’t foresee them being used until beds in existing quarantine or isolation centres are filled. But, he adds, they will keep them ready with the necessary facilities.
That includes converting one of the two toilets in each coach into a “bathing room”, providing oxygen cylinders in every coach, and modifying all the cabins so they can hold medical equipment. And then there are measures that are specific to Covid-19 – such as replacing taps that turn with those that have long handles, and fitting dustbins with foot pedals.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption It takes up to three days to turn a coach into an isolation ward
The ministry has also ordered extra coat hooks and mosquito nets for every cabin, and has instructed officials to make sure that charging points are working, the upholstery “is in good condition” and “broken panels are replaced”.
The coaches are being readied in 130 different locations across the country, but it’s yet to be decided where they will be stationed.
Mr Bajpai says it’s up to states to decide which stations they want the coaches in. But that in itself is a process because the coaches need regular water and electric supply.
And there are other concerns too. Summer has begun and large parts of India record scorching temperatures, often more than 40C. And the coaches that are being converted are not air-conditioned.
“The patient will be very uncomfortable. Doctors and nurses will be wearing protective gear, and they will find it very difficult,” says Vivek Sahai, a former chairman of the railway board.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Staff member of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) prepare train coaches to convert them into isolation wards for COVID-19 patients.
He also says not everyone might be comfortable squatting to use Indian-style toilets; and he wonders if all the designated coaches have a proper system of waste management. (Indian coaches are designed to dispose of human waste onto the tracks although new technologies have begun to be adopted in recent years.)
“I am not saying it cannot be done but they have to take care of these things,” he says. “But if anybody can do it, it’s the railways.”
However, some experts say that this by itself is not going to help solve India’s problems.
“You don’t just need space,” says Dr Sumit Sengupta, a pulmonologist. “We need thousands of doctors and nurses if you really have to make a dent.”
India is severely short of both, and at least three hospitals have been sealed this week alone after members of the staff tested positive.
Media caption As cases of coronavirus rise and the virus hits India’s congested slums, will the country cope?
“Why isolate someone who has symptoms when there is no treatment? Because you don’t want them to spread the infection,” Dr Sengupta says.
But, he adds, the virus is spreading anyway because so many patients are asymptomatic. He says isolating symptomatic patients will not help unless India starts testing aggressively.
“This will work only as part of a larger strategy,” he adds. “Test, trace and isolate. Test should come first.”
Image copyright MAJORITY WORLDImage caption Indian doctors have been working extra hours to halt the spread of the coronavirus
Several healthcare workers in India have been attacked as they battle to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Reports say doctors have been spat at and chased away from homes, and that in one case patients directed abusive and vulgar language towards female nurses.
Some physicians and their families have also been ostracised by their neighbours because of their exposure to patients infected with Covid-19.
India has reported more than 2,300 cases and at least 50 people have died.
One video, which has gone viral, showed a mob throwing stones at two female doctors wearing personal protective equipment in the central city of Indore.
The doctors had gone to a densely-populated area to check on a woman suspected of having Covid-19 when they came under attack.
Despite being injured, one of the doctors seen in the video, Zakiya Sayed, said the incident “won’t deter me from doing my duty”.
“We were on our usual round to screen suspected cases,” she told the BBC. “We never thought that we would be attacked.”
“I had never seen scenes like that. It was frightening. We somehow fled from the mob. I am injured but not scared at all.”
Dr Sayed added: “We had no reason to suspect that people would be agitated against medical teams.”
“We are working to keep people safe. We had information about a person coming in contact with a Covid-19 patient. We were talking to the person when residents got agitated and attacked us.”
Image copyright HINDUSTAN TIMESImage caption Doctors have been abused and attacked in different parts of India
Seven people have been arrested in connection with the incident.
Dr Anand Rai, who is also a part of the Covid-19 taskforce in Indore, told the BBC: “Nothing can justify the attack against medical team. But it happened in a Muslim-dominated area where there is general distrust against the government.”
“So that anger spilled over and took the form of this attack. But whatever maybe the reason, nothing can justify violence, especially against doctors during a national health emergency,” he added.
Thousands who attended the gathering in Delhi, organised by Islamic preaching group Tablighi Jamaat, have been put in quarantine, and authorities are still tracing others. It is believed that the infections were caused by preachers who attended the event from Indonesia.
At the Ghaziabad hospital, some of the quarantined attendees allegedly used abusive and vulgar language against members of staff.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Almost 400 cases of Covid-19 have been traced to a Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi
“Some were walking naked in the hospital ward and harassing women doctors and nurses,” a doctor who works at the hospital told the BBC. “They kept asking for cigarettes and tobacco.”
A senior police officer in the city told the BBC that cases had been registered against some people after doctors filed a complaint.
“Registering cases was the last resort. Police are still trying to make them understand the severity of the situation,” he said.
Image copyright SOPA IMAGESImage caption Doctors and nurses have asked people to follow their advice and not panic
Similar incidents have been reported in neighbouring Delhi.
Some attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat event who are being held in a quarantine facility run by the railways are said to have spat at doctors and misbehaved.
Deepak Kumar, spokesman for Northern Railways, said the situation there was now under control.
“The attendees have been counselled and they are now co-operating with the staff,” he said.
Delhi’s state government has reportedly written to the police, requesting more security for medical staff.
Reports of attacks on doctors and nurses have also come from the southern city of Hyderabad and the western city of Surat.
A doctor who was treating coronavirus patients is Hyderabad’s Gandhi Hospital was attacked on Wednesday.
Police have promised the doctor that “strict action will be taken against the culprits”.
Image copyright NARINDER NANUImage caption Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that doctors are “front-line soldiers”
But it is not just a work where medical workers are facing discrimination. It has followed them home.
One doctor, who did not wish to be identified, said she felt “extremely disheartened when I learnt that even my neighbours think that me and my family shouldn’t be allowed to live in the building”.
“We want our families to be safe. But we are being discriminated for doing our job.”
“A number of doctors have tested positive across India and that shows how tough our job is at the moment. And that is why we need everybody’s support to win this war against coronavirus.”
She added: “We are following all safety protocols. We are not meeting even our families and that is stressful.”
“But seeing this open discrimination just breaks my heart. But we will go on because there is really no other option.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Air India has flown a number of rescue missions
India’s national carrier Air India has been praised for flying a number of flights to rescue Indians stranded in coronavirus-affected countries. Now, a group of pilots have alleged their safety was compromised – a charge the airline denies.
Air India’s fleet has long been used by the government to help Indians in crisis. This has included everything from delivering relief materials during natural calamities to airlifting citizens from Middle Eastern countries during the 2011 Arab Spring.
But this time, as Covid-19 sweeps across the world, crew members have made several allegations about serious shortcomings with regards to ensuring the safety of crew and passengers on recent rescue flights.
In a letter seen by the BBC, the Executive Pilots Association, a body that represents senior long-haul pilots of the airline, says they have been given “flimsy” pieces of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that “tear and disintegrate easily on rescue flights”.
The letter, which has been sent to the airline and the aviation ministry, adds that “disinfection processes [for aircraft] are short of international industry best practices”.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Air India is India’s largest airline
“These inadequacies compound the chances of viral exposure and equipment contamination and may even lead to community transmissions of Covid-19 within crew members, passengers and the public at large,” the letter states.
The Indian Pilots’ Guild, which also represents Air India’s long-haul pilots, has written to the ministry citing similar concerns. The BBC has seen this letter as well.
A senior pilot, who did not wish to be identified, told the BBC it is not that the crew “doesn’t want to work in these testing times for the country”.
“All we are asking is that proper safety procedures should be followed. If we don’t have the right PPE and disinfection processes, we are risking the safety of everybody on the plane, our family, and residents of the buildings where we live,” he said.
“We are being compared to soldiers and that is very humbling. But you have to give the right gear to your soldiers.”
An Air India spokesperson acknowledged the letters and said: “Air India is proud of its crew.”
“Our crew has shown tremendous strength, integrity and dedication. All possible measures have been taken towards their health and safety. Best available PPE are procured for our crew,” he told the BBC.
‘Quarantine violations’
The pilot also added that in some cases the norm of following 14-day quarantine period for everybody returning from abroad was not applied to crew members.
The BBC is aware of at least one case where a pilot who returned from a Covid-19-affected country was asked to fly again within seven days.
The spokesperson denied these allegations, saying that “all crew having done international flights have been home quarantined”.
“They have been advised to self-isolate should they develop any symptoms and report immediately. We are following all government quarantine guidelines,” he added.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Air India is due to take stranded Europeans from India to Germany
The two letters add that the crew do not have any specific Covid-19-related insurance policies and don’t have medical teams to examine them when they return from international flights.
“Medical teams all over India are now being covered under a government scheme, although surprisingly air crew are not,” the letters say.
The pilot added that “we are not comparing ourselves to medical staff – they really are the frontline soldiers”.
“But we are also risking our lives, and an insurance will just give us some peace of mind,” he said.
The association has also highlighted the issue of unpaid allowances to the crew.
“Our flying-related allowances, comprising 70% of our total emoluments, remain unpaid since January 2020. This is grossly unfair,” the letter says.
The pilot added that this went against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s request to employers not to withhold or cut wages in this time of crisis.
“I will repeat again that we do not mind serving the nation, but we need our pay to be protected. We need to be able to look after our families,” he said.
The airline spokesperson said that “all salaries have been paid and efforts are on to clear some pending dues”, but pilots say the withheld allowances are around 70% of their total earnings.
Air India has been saddled with massive debts and several efforts to sell it have failed.
However despite this, the airline is in the midst of planning a massive operation to evacuate foreigners in India at great cost.
The passengers will be collected from several major Indian cities and flown to Frankfurt, but Air India will not be bringing back any Indian citizens who may still be stuck in Europe.
The pilot said “it’s commendable that Air India is helping those in need” but asked why Indians could not be on the return flights as the planes would be flying home empty.
“I want to stress that we will not stop flying rescue and supply missions at any cost. We just want to be heard,” another pilot told the BBC.
“Otherwise it feels like we are alone in this battle when the need is for all of us to work together and look after each other.”
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Punjab has 30 confirmed cases of the virus
Indian authorities in the northern state of Punjab have quarantined around 40,000 residents from 20 villages following a Covid-19 outbreak linked to just one man.
The 70-year-old died of coronavirus – a fact found out only after his death.
The man, a preacher, had ignored advice to self quarantine after returning from a trip to Italy and Germany, officials told BBC Punjabi’s Arvind Chhabra.
India has 640 confirmed cases of the virus, of which 30 are in Punjab.
However, experts worry that the real number of positive cases could be far higher. India has one of the lowest testing rates in the world, although efforts are under way to ramp up capacity.
There are fears that an outbreak in the country of 1.3 billion people could result in a catastrophe.
The man, identified as Baldev Singh, had visited a large gathering to celebrate the Sikh festival of Hola Mohalla shortly before he died.
The six-day festival attracts around 10,000 people every day.
A week after his death, 19 of his relatives have tested positive.
“So far, we have been able to trace 550 people who came into direct contact with him and the number is growing. We have sealed 15 villages around the area he stayed,” a senior official told the BBC.
Another five villages in an adjoining district have also been sealed.
This is not the first time that exposure has resulted in mass quarantining in India.
In Bhilwara, a textile city in the northern state of Rajasthan, there are fears that a group of doctors who were infected by a patient could have spread the disease to hundreds of people.
Seven thousand people in villages neighbouring the city are under home quarantine.
India has also declared a 21-day lockdown, although people are free to go out to buy essential items like food and medicine.
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