No green shoots

A leader worth his salt would try and focus on the green shoots that spring up even when his empire lay devastated and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was trying to do just that when he addressed the Chief Ministers on Tuesday and Wednesday in the backdrop of pandemic Covid-19.

But the fact is that the government he heads has consistently focused on picking the low hanging fruit rather than on the job at hand.

The claim that the number of Covid-cured persons in the country is more than the number of active cases, made on a day when the number of new cases and deaths touched new peaks, can be termed as height of apathy if not worse. Not one segment of the economy has showed firm signs of a recovery but the optimist in the Prime Minister has discovered green shoots.

He told the chief ministers that the fight against the virus was conducted in the spirit of cooperative federalism when the stark reality is that every state was made to fend for itself without enough resources financial, human or technical.

His claim that timely tracing, treatment and reporting helped India control the pandemic is completely at variance with the facts: India is rushing to the top in the list of nations with the highest number of Covid cases.

This is not the first time that the Prime Minister’s words reflect his disconnect with reality and that is sad. India has to cover a lot of ground before it reaches safety and its citizens can breathe easy without the mask.

But that calls for a proper understanding of the situation followed by extensive planning and resolute and aggressive action, keeping the citizen at the focus. Random green shoots are no sign of prosperity, and any farmer will tell you that.