Newborn named 'Lockdown' to show support for PM's appeal to stay indoors

Lockdown relief

Not only have the central and state governments stepped in to provide relief to daily-wage earners who have suddenly lost their livelihoods following the lockdown, political and social organisations have also come forward to do their bit... and more. Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav has found in this an opportunity to subtly attack the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments at the Centre and Uttar Pradesh for the hardship being faced by the poor owing to the lockdown, the forced migration by labourers and the purported scarcity of relief material. Earlier he had asked his party leaders to help the needy at the local level. Now, he has alleged that the Uttar Pradesh administration is creating hurdles for the SP leaders in their efforts even as the ruling BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh volunteers are being allowed to carry on with their relief work.

A question of answers

Amid flip-flop by the government’s information machinery on allowing journalists to attend the daily media briefing on Wednesday, many questions remained unanswered. First, a message was sent to reporters from Press Information Bureau asking not to send journalists for the presser and that “only some agencies will be called to ensure proper information dissemination”. A protest in the ministry’s separate WhatsApp group followed, after which questions were invited to be posed to the government’s spokespersons and later, some journalists were allowed to attend the conference. However, the attendance was largely symbolic as none of them was allowed to ask any questions. Also, every question put on the ministry’s WhatsApp group remained unanswered. Only three questions were entertained even as it sparked fears of information curbing at a crucial stage of the pandemic’s progress in the country.

My name is Lockdown

As people across the country start to associate the word "lockdown" with things like human tragedy and job loss, a couple in Uttar Pradesh's Deoria has decided to play contrarian. The new parents have named their child "Lockdown" in a bid to show support for the call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for people to stay indoors and businesses to cease work to arrest the spread of the coronavirus. The child was born on Monday, almost a week into the lockdown in the country. Pawan, the father, said it was in the nation's interest to adhere to the guidelines of the lockdown. Uttar Pradesh reported its first Covid-19 casualty the same day.