Death is absolute. How can they deny that?

As the second wave of Covid -19 has hit India, "There have been reports of a decline in testing in several Indian states and cities. Some states have allegedly given threshold for positivity rates to private laboratories, which they are not allowed to breach," wrote Bibek Debroy & Aditya Sinha, who are Chairman and Assistant Consultant at the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. A blatant attempt to pass the responsibility on to states when, "as many have noted, chief ministers have been reduced to satraps. The real power is with the Centre, which has the all important 'agencies' and holds the purse-strings in these fiscally-challenging times" wrote Harish Damodaran. "Eleven states that have presented FY22 budgets are likely to witness a tax revenue shortfall of Rs 1.5 lakh crore (Rs 1.5 trilllion) this fiscal year. The states' own tax revenue is expected to slip quite sharply to from Rs 9.31 lakh crore (FY21 Budget Estimate) to Rs 7.82 lakh crore (Revised Estimate), translating to a 16 percent decline over initial projections," wrote Sunitha Natti. "Today, it takes 3-4 days for test results to be reported" "Pending test results most people do not take preemptive medicines." The latest guidelines for mild cases from the Government of India recommend 24/7 caregiver (from where?) who should take hydroxychloroquine HCQ) and the patient should wear triple layer mask at all times. Covid causes cough so how is a person to breathe wearing a mask even while sleeping? Patient to take Ivermectin and inhalation of budesonide. HCQ and Ivermectin are useless, according to Dr Zarir F Udwadia. Genome sequencing data is sent to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in Delhi, but frontline staff are not collecting samples, write Debroy and Sinha. So, they blame doctors. "While the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has granular data on all residents who have been tested so far, it restricts access and this database must be opened to outside experts as well, almost 300 scientists from research and teaching institutions requested in an online appeal," Business Standard. "Another perennial issue is the quality of our mortality statistics," which should be collected by states, write the duo. This can be calculated by counting all cause mortality from crematoriums and burial grounds and comparing with previous years, but the latest data in India dates back to 2018, wrote Rukmini S. "In India, the second wave has brought with it scenes of devastation reminiscent of the dark ages," wrote Ruchir Sharma. "Among the world's 25 biggest emerging markets, India ranks last for the number of hospital beds per 1,000 citizens, fifth from last for doctors, fourth from last for nurses and midwives." "Today, welfare spending accounts for 9% of GDP -- far higher than the miracle economies India would like to emulate, like South Korea and Taiwan, when they were at similar levels of development. The government has meanwhile done little to modernise the basic structure of India's sate, which harks back to British rule." In India, "In one way or another, everyone is battling the virus. Everyone, it seems, except the Indian state," wrote Mihir Sharma for Bloomberg. "Denialism about the scale of the problem seems to be official policy." Things are even worse in paces such as Uttar Pradesh (UP), India's largest state." Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party the BJP won UP assembly election in 2017 by three-quarter majority, Wikipedia. In UP, "Few deaths are being recorded and the state's administration has warned those spreading online 'rumours' -- including about family members gasping for oxygen -- that they might be prosecuted under draconian national security laws." "Today, private entities and citizens are left with no option but to seek legal recourse for essential amenities in a pandemic," wrote Abhik Chimni. Meanwhile, 300 government officials attended a course to "create positive image of the government" and to make it seem "to be seen to be sensitive, bold, quick, responsive, hard-working etc," Hindustan Times. Maybe, that's what Debroy and Sinha are trying to do. Utterly shameful.