Has anyone seen what's going on on India?

[twinkletits99]

I've just seen some of the footage and am reduced to tears. People bring beaten in the streets. Migrants being forced to bathe in disinfectant spray. People breaking down because they fear they are going to starve to death before coronavirus has a chance to take them. I'm quarter Indian and whilst I have no real connection to India other than that, I couldn't help but feel utterly hopeless for them.

It is a disgusting place full of economic inequality.

Yes I saw this on the BBC website and cried as well.

I'm quite surprised that people haven't heard about what's going on, there is plenty of news coverage however I can appreciate that many people may be trying to avoid the news right now

There was some coverage on the BBC news yesterday but not much.

I've just been using the BBC news app. I haven't seen anything like this reported. I may have missed it however

It was always going to be like this when it got to India

I can’t see how anything other than hundreds of thousands lives lost across the world’s poorer countries. Millions with undiagnosed and un managed underlying conditions, malnourishment, inability to quarantine from a financial,perspective. Utter humanitarian disaster.

On paper this virus shouldn’t be impacting India at all. People under 15 account for 30% of the population. You have grandparents at 36 in a lot of poor areas and great grandparents at 50, and there is a very small proportion of the general population in the actual at risk group. Where the problem lies is that rising inequalities mean the poor get age related conditions such as high bp, heart failure, cancer and diabetes in their twenties and thirties due to smoking and conditions meaning they just age faster than the rich. And these conditions are more likely to be undiagnosed - it’s why I still get ‘healthy’ relatives in India dropping dead suddenly in their thirties and forties. So if this lock down wasn’t in force the death toll would be horrendous. Modi isn’t wrong when he says this is worse than World War 2 - Covid could end up wiping out more of the young population than even the Spanish Flu did.

Seen this a few times over the past 3 days on Sky News

Feel like if those Indians who were in insane crowds/getting beatings whilst trying so hard to get back to their home villages to isolate (with barely any money in their pockets) were to see how people are getting "bored' of being at home in the UK they would be a bit saddened.

The police have to be firm - remember in India people die all the time. The government isn’t doing this to protect the elderly, it’s doing this to protect the young who have no access to healthcare (probably the majority of the population).

I saw thin on Tweeter on 27/02 where people started walking by foot from Delhi back home
twitter.com/Geeta_Mohan/status/1243531869305495559

Then my friend sent me this link www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/india-coronavirus-covid19-narendra-modi/608896

I was going to say about us moaning about the fact the police said it might be sensible to not consider Easter eggs as essential hah.

There's been some coverage of this is in the US and it's truly horrific. Really puts our complaints about lockdowns into perspective. At least we have homes to stay in, food to eat, etc. Some ppl never have that security their entire lives, let alone during a pandemic.

Does anyone know if there's anything we can do? Are any charities helping them?

shocking how the British media don't mention the truth on our news!!

They do, it was on the BBC news last night, made me want to cry.

Dear God, this is awful.
My thoughts are with them all, along with prayers.

I do wonder how logical it is for governments in developing countries to be copying the policies that were put in place in developed ones. We can afford a lockdown as most people have at least some savings, are not self employed, and we have the ability to pump huge government stimulus to support those that don’t fall into these categories.

But somewhere like India or even less developed countries will be risking many millions of lives from lockdown due to absolute poverty (starvation, lack of access to healthcare, long term impacts of millions more people being pushed below the absolute poverty line) combined with likely instability (deaths through riots, police brutality etc) and I do wonder if the coronavirus deaths will offset these.

Unfortunately I don’t think there’s any way for the governments to accurately assess this, and they’d risk major local instability if they took a “do nothing” approach. It’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

Unfortunately the long term impacts won’t just be on an individual lives ruined basis but also on future development as these countries will then have crazy huge national debt to service to fund any stimulus packages, without necessarily the growth to fund the interest payments - probably not India, but this is the case for many less rapidly growing developing economies.

What a mess.

Yes, DH and I saw this on the news yesterday, and were still discussing this this morning, when someone in this country was moaning about something inconsequential - so inconsequential I can't even remember what it was. It's heartbreaking.

Good god that's horrendous, it's clearly brutality for it's own sake,

The BBC have been running this on their 10pm news bulletins since it started when they went in to lockdown at 4 hours notice so I'm slightly surprised that people haven't seen anything about it. There was a harrowing report on Sunday or Monday about a man walking 100 miles home and his children dying en route. Excellent reporting from the BBC's India correspondents plus this two days ago on their website:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52086274

When the virus hits India and Africa properly its going to be a total shit show. I'm so so sorry for the people there.

There was some coverage on the BBC a few days ago. My Indian colleagues talk about it every day, they are so horrified.

And people here bleat police brutality if they are drone filmed or asked what they are doing?

But that's the point. Being able to and prepared to speak up over the minor transgressions are what keep the major ones at bay.

We're not 'lucky we live in a country where this doesn't happen (much)' - we're lucky we live in a country where the people that went before us were prepared/able to stand up against state and police injustices.

It is exactly the reason why we should always hold our government and police to account. We must always guard against this kind of thing. We must never just take a fair justice system for granted. We should never assume our rights are safe just because we have them now.

I’ve seen an awful out of posts on Facebook about it. Lots of videos of police running up to beat the shite out of people without even asking why they’re out. I’ve no doubt that this horrific situation has brought absolute joy to some of the psychopaths within the police force. I’m not saying all of the Indian police are bad, btw.

Peole sayingit,s not on british tv are wrong think it was the bBC showing the indian police or militaru spraying people with disinfected. Also India is not a good place right now any way greater discourse between Hindus and muslims and also Christians as the PM is strong on Hinduism. Not ure how the Sikhs and budhists fair.