India Coronavirus Dispatch: IIT heads warn postponing JEE will cause issues

Odisha villagers' unique protest, Uttarakhand CM on state's migrant crisis, and an expert's advice on what Delhi Metro should do--news on how the country is coping with the pandemic

Writings on the wall: In this hamlet in Odisha, basic facilities are hard to come by. The literacy rate is 35 per cent, lower than the district literacy rate of 48.54 per cent. The village’s school-going children had to travel over two kilometres for education. After the singular school shut down due to the pandemic, villagers decided to voice their discontent in a creative way: by writing on walls. Almost every wall in the village now speaks about students needing classes and the school, a facelift. The wall-writing trend has now been picked up by other villages in the state and now over 6,000 tribals have painted their walls to talk of inequity in education caused by the pandemic. The tribals earlier had joined hands to raise awareness about their issues through signature campaigns and so on. But due to the pandemic, they had to resort to their own surroundings to amplify their voices. Read more here.

Tight schedule: IIT Delhi director says that if the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) is delayed any further, it will cause serious disruptions for the upcoming academic year. He is supporting the government’s stand on not delaying NEET and JEE anymore. “If the JEE happens according to the schedule, we at the IITs will still be able to finish the syllabus in six months. But if it’s delayed further, finishing the academic year will be almost impossible,” he says. He adds that in case there is a postponement, the IITs will have to work on weekends and holidays to somehow complete the syllabus. Other IIT directors also hold the same view and say that postponing the exam will result in hardships for students as the entire year will be washed out. Read more here.

Interview

Uttarakhand’s migrants: In this interview Uttarakhand’s chief minister, Trivendra Singh Rawat, speaks about the migrant crisis that the state has been hit by. He says his government had set up Rural Development and Migration Commission to look into reasons for migration, decide how it can be stopped and for recommending ways to generate employment. He further adds the government announced a slew of schemes for migrants returning to the state after the pandemic hit. A statewide sample survey showed that about 45 per cent who returned to the state amid Covid-19 will stay back. He says that the state has been offering interest-free loans for polyhouse farming and now some youths are engaging in pisciculture, while others are rearing goats and chickens. Meanwhile, he says that MGNREGA has also been effective but notes the fact that it does not include short-term works. Read more here.

What Delhi Metro can do: Amit Bhatt, Director of Integrated Urban Transport at World Resources Institute India, speaks about the kind of protocol DMRC can put in place to ensure safe travel. DMRC should be looking at increasing frequency and lowering its previous yardstick of 7 people per square meter. Ensuring that every passenger is wearing a mask would be very crucial. Also, DMRC should regulate the temperature, humidity and air circulation to ensure conditions for spreading virus don’t prevail. Further, sanitising high-contact surfaces after every trip would be a must. DMRC will also have to put into place a change in operations to ensure that huge number of people don’t interchange on the same station as this would lead to social distancing going for a toss. Read more here.

In numbers

More deaths, more cases: For three consecutive days, India has reporting over 1,000 deaths daily. Even the number of deaths being added daily are usually high. However, the rise in deaths and the unprecedented spike in cases are not part of the same trend, argues the writer, since the people who have died are not from the same lot as those who have reported to be infected. In most cases, deaths happen several days after infection is confirmed. But since there is no fixed time lag between infection and death, any spurt in deaths cannot be correlated to an increase in cases. As far as fatality rate goes, any full understanding of how fatal a disease can be will be arrived at only after the full spread of the disease. The correlation is further complicated by the fact that a huge number of cases are not detected. On the other hand, issues with how Covid-19 deaths are recorded also exist. Read more here.

Comment

What behavioural science tells us: It has been widely noticed that fear of the virus in the initial stages was high but as the pandemic progressed, the fear evaporated. Behavioural science studies show that statistics don’t move people. However, finding out that some one you’re close has succumbed to the virus is what gets people thinking as they feel vulnerable. Our response to the pandemic, like most things, is guided by emotion. Emotions cause us to misunderstand risk. This colours our assessment of the situation and hence our decision-making. A way around this, the columnist says, is to identify the activities that are extremely likely to result in infection and those that are not. Colour coding these activities in one’s routine will then lead to better decision-making about what we should do, and what we should not amid the pandemic. Read more here.