Modiji has really raised India’s prestige internationally !
Except with these United Nations/ European Union Human Rights bodies, noble laureates, media houses, current affairs columnists, talk show hosts, journalists, civil rights activists, celebrities, political leaders, press freedom bodies, religious freedom advocates. Even a medical journal. And the MIT Technology Review.
I am sure I missed many more. After all, the whole world respects Modiji!
International Press Institute: ❝ IPI demands his [Siddique Kappan’s] immediate release. We condemn the unacceptable conditions and ill-treatment he has faced in prison. ❞
EU Special Representative for Human Rights Eamon Gilmore:
US State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom:
Mary Lawlor, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders: “The news from India today is devastating. Human Rights Defender and Jesuit priest Fr. Stan Swamy has died in custody, nine months after his arrest on false charges of terrorism. Jailing Human Rights Defenders is inexcusable.”
Reporters sans frontières (RSF): ❝ Modi’s leading weapon is to flood the mainstream media with speeches and information tending to legitimise his national-populist ideology. To this end, he has developed close ties with billionaire businessmen who own vast media empires.
This insidious strategy works in two ways. On the one hand, by visibly ingratiating himself with the owners of leading media outlets, their journalists know they risk dismissal if they criticise the government. On the other, prominent coverage of his extremely divisive and derogatory speeches, which often constitute disinformation, enables the media to achieve record audience levels. All that is left for Modi is to neutralise the media outlets and journalists that question his divisive methods. ❞
MIT Technology Review: Even after it became clear that a second wave was inevitable, the government went ahead with superspreader events that served its own political purposes — and gave the virus a new opportunity. And at the center of the crisis — paying little attention to science, seemingly refusing to heed good advice, and appearing concerned primarily with holding on to power at any cost — stands India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist whose arrogance and underpreparedness have cost the country an incalculable amount.
TheConversation : “Even as significant pockets of the country had not fully suppressed the virus, Modi and other members of his party held jampacked outdoor campaign rallies before April elections. Few attendees wore masks. Modi also allowed a religious festival that draws millions to proceed from January to March. Public health officials now believe the festival may have been a superspreader event and was “an enormous mistake.”
Wall Street Journal: India’s Covid-19 crisis has resulted in record numbers of cases and deaths. WSJ breaks down the chain of events that led to the fastest-growing wave of infection since the pandemic started, and what it means for the world.
BBC : “The bodies on the river banks, taken together with funeral pyres burning round-the-clock and cremation grounds running out of space, tell the story of a death toll unseen and unacknowledged in official data.”
The Canberra Times : “Anger about the mishandling of the pandemic, which has seen the country’s health care systems and inoculation campaign crumble, has put Modi’s government under growing pressure in recent days.
The leader has been blamed for an ineffective response that left the responsibility for fighting the pandemic to poorly equipped state governments.”
Nikkie Asia: India’s situation is full of lessons for governments whose officials have failed to implement integrated policymaking that cuts across administrative lines, and whose citizens are becoming increasingly lax after being constantly “asked” to social distance and show self-restraint.
THE NEW YORKER: The coronavirus thrives off of complacent leaders, such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi — and has exacerbated the contours of global inequality.
The Lancet: At times, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government has seemed more intent on removing criticism on Twitter than trying to control the pandemic.
Despite warnings about the risks of superspreader events, the government allowed religious festivals to go ahead, drawing millions of people from around the country, along with huge political rallies — conspicuous for their lack of COVID-19 mitigation measures.
The E
David Pope twitter.com/davpope for The Canberra Times
Washington Post: Modi’s own lapses and missteps are an increasing source of anger. As coronavirus cases skyrocketed, Modi continued to hold huge election rallies and declined to cancel a Hindu religious festival that drew millions to the banks of the Ganges River, despite pleas from health experts.
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah: ❝ You know things are getting bad when a leader’s response to criticism of his failures is to try and shut down the criticism and not the failures. Modi got Twitter to censor his enemies. He out there holding huge rallies in middle of a pandemic. ❞
Financial Times :“ The pandemic punishes hubris. Narendra Modi is not the first world leader to have paid the price for acting too slowly — or declaring victory too early.”
Israel’s HAARETZ: Responsibility for India’s 200,000 COVID deaths (and rising) rests with Prime Minster Modi and his arrogant, hypocritical, incompetent government, which even now prioritizes subduing legitimate criticism over saving lives.
The New York Times Opinion : The law, as India’s 200 million Muslims have correctly surmised, has nothing to do with helping migrants and everything to do with the campaign by Mr. Modi and his home minister, Amit Shah, to marginalize Muslims and turn India into a homeland for Hindus, who comprise about 80 percent of the population of 1.3 billion.
TheAtlantic : “Now we are a very different country. Today, that a majority of Indians are Hindu is not a demographic fact, but a governing premise; whereas liberty of thought was once prized, journalists are now arrested; and what was once a union of states, united in their diversity, is a society divided, where Muslims are not welcome, where farmers are beaten for defending their rights.”
John Oliver on the Last Week Tonight show: ❝ Since Modi came to power, there has been an overall rise in attacks against minorities. And it is incredibly depressing to see India headed in this direction. ❞
TIME : Can the World’s Largest Democracy Endure Another Five Years of a Modi Government?
[May 9, 2019] Not only has Modi’s economic miracle failed to materialize, he has also helped create an atmosphere of poisonous religious nationalism in India. One of his young party men, Tejasvi Surya, put it baldly in a speech in March 2019, “If you are with Modi, you are with India. If you are not with Modi, then you are strengthening anti-India forces.” India’s Muslims, who make up some 14% of the population, have been subjected to episode after violent episode, in which Hindu mobs, often with what seems to be the state’s tacit support, have carried out a series of public lynchings in the name of the holy cow, that ready symbol of Hindu piety.
