India’s oldest Socialist Weekly!
Editor: Dr. G.G. Parikh | Associate Editor: Neeraj Jain | Managing Editor: Guddi
The lockdown underway in the Chinese city of Xi’an demonstrates again that public health measures combined with vaccination can suppress COVID-19 outbreaks. It stands in stark contrast to the disastrous policies of the USA and other governments that have allowed the virus to run rampant through their populations.
The deliberate policy of big pharma and rich countries to leave large populations in poorer countries unvaccinated could plunge the world into another downturn.
Christmas has become a holiday, a time to exchange presents and cards, to see friends and family. Yet Christmas is literally the mass for Christ, the celebration of the birth of Jesus, a time for prayer, for reflection, for service. The story of Jesus speaks to us still this day.
A compilation from two articles: China, with 1.4 billion people, has kept total cases below 100,000 and total deaths below 5,000. By comparison, the United States, with less than a quarter of the population of China, has had more than 50 million cases and 800,000 deaths.
A recent report by International IDEA, an inter-governmental think tank, finds that “70% of the global population now live either in non-democratic regimes or in democratically backsliding countries”. The report cites Brazil, India and the United States as the biggest backsliders globally.
The growth rate figures officially given are deeply flawed because they do not reveal the true picture of the Indian economy hit by the pandemic. Even going by the official data, the Indian economy has not yet recovered to its pre-pandemic level. Also: Five Lakh Companies Shut Shop Since 2016.
In its complaint filed with the United Nations on Sunday, the coalition of nursing unions argues that the proliferation of variants is a predictable outcome of rich nations’ refusal to “distribute vaccines and treatments equitably to the vast majority of people of low- and moderate-income countries.”
Agriculture contributes to 15-20 percent or more of world greenhouse gas emissions. And yet talks about agriculture comprised less than 5 percent of all official negotiations and less than 10 percent of side events, favoring the less controversial topic of renewable energy.
Allowing new variants to emerge and spread, 13 months into the vaccine era, is a policy choice by the rich world.
As rich countries hoard doses and Big Pharma refuses to share the knowledge required to ramp up manufacturing, Cuba’s public biotech sector could play a key role in defeating vaccine apartheid.
Janata Weekly is India’s oldest independent socialist weekly.
Ever since its founding in 1946, Janata has voiced its principled dissent against all conduct and practice that is detrimental to the cherished values of nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism, while upholding the integrity and the ethical norms of healthy journalism. For more than seventy years now, week after week, it has continued to analyse the changes taking place in the country and the world from a socialist standpoint, and thus promote the spread of socialist ideology in the country.
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