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Op-ED DECEMBER 24, 2021 | The Indian Eye 16

Democracy deficit,

Assange and the new variant

Views and opinions from the top commentators in Indian media

ndia has become a dangerous outlook, before that there was the
place for people who dissent
Iwith or resist the policies and ac- Delta variant.
-- Renu Kohli,
tions of the ruling establishment. It The Telegraph (India)
is routine for extraordinary anti-ter-
ror laws or colonial-era sedition laws
to be slammed on people who strug- india, Cover UP
gle against the targeting of minori- he Centre’s warning over drop
ties, protest in places like Kashmir, in mask usage and consequent
fight the displacement from forests Tinfection dangers comes amid
and lands of indigenous people, or the Omicron variant being detected
uphold civic rights. Student activists,
academics and rights lawyers, even even in those with no history of for-
eign travel. The upcoming holiday
poets and priests, have been jailed
indefinitely and denied bail but giv- season and the multi-state assembly
elections, which also include India’s
en no opportunity to establish their most populous state UP, provide fer-
innocence, because trials have not tile conditions for crowding. There
begun. are activities like hard physical labor
Among these, an ageing Jesuit
priest with Parkinson’s, who had de- where masking becomes difficult,
voted his inspiring life to fearlessly but for many other activities, espe-
cially politicking, socializing or sight-
and peacefully fight the displace- seeing, there’s no excuse. For a while
ment of indigenous people, was now state and local authorities have
jailed and he died in prison. Sudha A man walks past a “Please wear your mask” poster inside a mall’s compound been lax in enforcing masking but
Bhardwaj, a lawyer of exemplary in Mumbai on Friday (ANI) the new GoI warning and a global
dedication who lived and worked trend of infection spurts calls for a
with the most impoverished mine fresh start.
workers, was forced to spend three streets, charged by the US and extra- tested by high inflation, impending While vaccination has been prov-
years in prison. dited to the US on any charges the withdrawal of easy policies, and visi- en to reduce disease severity, there’s
Recently, a Kashmiri activist, US wants to bring.” ble scars of the pandemic. It was the
Khurram Parvez, was jailed, charged There has been a stream of crit- opposite last December. The year of no viable method other than mask-
ing to curb breakthrough infections.
with abetting militants — he is wide- icism against the High Court ruling. the pandemic had ended on an opti- Masks are affordable, not economi-
ly loved for the help he extended to Assange’s former PR representative, mistic note, with vaccine innovations cally disruptive like movement curbs,
thousands of families whose loved Richard Hillgrove, said via an email, brightening prospects of a gradual and abundant domestic production
ones “disappeared” during the de- “This has served the purpose of illu- exit and return to normalcy. These has reduced their prices manifold
cades of militant uprising in Kashmir. minating all of the global voices of expectations were, indeed, realized since the pandemic’s start. Surgical
-- Harsh Mandar, freedom to the authorities. ‘If this this year: countries grew out of their
The Indian Express can happen to Assange for simply downturns and inoculations pro- masks cost as low as Re 1 now and
N95 masks can be bought for as little
exposing the truth, then it could hap- gressed in places fortunate enough as Rs 20. According to the Institute
Press freedom pen to me for publishing a leaked to have sufficient vaccines, freeing for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s
document.’ At the same time, it has spaces to handle the pandemic. At
esponding to that judgment, created a petrifying and chilling ex- the same time, most of the appre- projections, India’s mask usage has
Assange’s biographer, An- ample to the global journalistic com- hensions came true too. These, at slipped to 59% presently, after rising
Rdrew Fowler, had said that the munity – crushing investigative jour- the end of the year, have become through April to touch 80% all of
May in response to the second-wave
judge’s ruling “sends a chill through nalism worldwide.” pressing challenges for the global surge.
journalism”. He said, “Essentially, it -- Nebanita Sircar, economy in 2022. A stock-taking -- Editorial,
showed that what journalists do for a The Quint shows how.
living is seen by British courts to be a The foremost risk and uncertain- The Times of India
criminal act. It sends a chill through tHe omiCron tHreat ties at the year’s beginning related to
journalism. And to say it’s his mental the virus’s trajectory; inter alia, new,
health that stands in the way is a way his year closes with Omicron’s deadlier variants and if these could Every week, we look at what the top
of dodging the real argument – and shadow upon the upcoming resist the workable vaccines. While commentators in the Indian media are
the argument is that every journalist Tone. Amidst the unknown at- Omicron and its still-to-be-fully-un- talking about and bring to you a slice
is now on alert that anything they tributes of this new mutation of the derstood lethality and vaccine-proof- of their opinions and comments
do ... they can be picked up off the coronavirus, economies are being ing inject uncertainty into the 2022

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