and nurses. Never mind, let's light a candle to melt away the virus. From the same FP article:Modi told Indians on March 19 that he had already created a special task force to mitigate the economic distress that the coronavirus would invariably provoke. He had done no such thing: Among those who had not heard of the task force’s existence until that moment was India’s finance minister—the person who, according to Modi, was supposedly chairing it. The first budgetary allocation for all of India’s emergency health care needs—$2 billion, or roughly $1.50 for every Indian—was also announced on March 24, 54 days after the first case was detected in the country.
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Modi will not supply lifesaving equipment to Indian doctors. He will not interact with journalists who might ask him why he isn’t supplying lifesaving equipment to Indian doctors. Instead, it has energized him to seek to muzzle the media and curtail the free flow of information when it is most needed. Anger, confusion, and frustration are accumulating everywhere in India. Millions of Indians don’t know where their next meal will come from. Yet there are no regular briefings by the prime minister. What Indians got most recently was a short video posted on Friday in which Modi invited them to light candles for nine minutes at 9 p.m. on Sunday. His admirers then spread the rumor that the heat generated from the candles would melt away the virus.
