You lose all influence if you force them to leave.

"Indians have expressed shock and anger after a junior minister told parliament that no Covid deaths had been reported due to oxygen shortages," BBC. In May, The Wire confirmed 178 deaths due to lack of oxygen and another 70 deaths where families alleged that their patients died due to lack of oxygen but this was not confirmed by authorities. "In one prominent Delhi hospital, at least 12 patients, including a doctor, died when it ran out of oxygen on 1 May." "Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday accused the Central government of 'lying' in Parliament that no deaths were caused due to oxygen shortage during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country," Hindustan Times (HT). Several states like Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, with non-BJP governments, also said that no one died of lack of oxygen in their states, HT. "At least 195 deaths from 5 states on shortage of oxygen," Times of India (TOI). Naturally, many people were outraged and expressed themselves over social media, TOI. Just as no one died of lack of oxygen, India is reported to have suffered over 31 million cases of coronavirus with only 419,021 deaths, worldometers. "Nearly 50 lakh (4.9 million) may have died from Covid-19 in India between January 2020 and June 2021, making it arguably the country's worst human tragedy since the Partition and Independence, a new US study has said, even as the Delta variant of the coronavirus is causing a fresh wave of concern across the world," Economic Times (ET). "In India, a global study suggests, almost 1.2 lakh (120,000) children lost one of their parents -- 25,000 lost their mother and 90,751 lost their father -- and at least 12 children lost both their parents," TOI. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has been blamed for supporting the use of unproven drugs in the treatment protocol for Covid. "Over the past year, the government and the ICMR have also been accused of withholding data about Covid and its variants that left physicians in the country flying blind, and of promoting a homegrown vaccine before it had passed key clinical trials," It is no surprise, therefore, that, "India has surpassed the United States as the country that sent the most number of legal requests seeking information about accounts from Twitter, the social media company's latest transparency report covering the period from July to December 2020 said," HT. A paranoid government keen on hoodwinking the nation will also want to know what people are saying or doing. "Spyware Pegasus, which is sold by the NSO Group of Israel, may have been used to conduct surveillance on about 300 Indians, including two serving Cabinet ministers at the Centre, three opposition leaders, a Constitutional authority, government officials, scientists and about 40 journalists,according to French media nonprofit, Forbidden Stories, and Amnesty International," TOI. Exposed for its illegal activities the BJP brought out its leaders in states who resorted to its tried and tested obfuscation of bluff and bluster. "Most of the state leaders made wild claims about how these revelations -- released globally by a consortium of media organisations who have been investigating the leaked list together -- was some sort of 'international conspiracy' to 'defame India'," The Wire. "Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Tuesday demanded a ban on human rights body Amnesty International's activities in India for its role in the Pegasus controversy," The Indian Express. Sarma seems unaware that Amnesty International shut down its operations in India in 2020 after its accounts were frozen by the Enforcement Directorate. "However, this does not mark the end of our firm commitment to, and engagement in, the struggle for human rights in India," warned Acting Secretary General Julie Verhaar. Out of the 50,000 numbers released by the Pegasus leak not one is from the US, wrote Mihir Sharma. That is because of strict privacy laws in the US which should exercise greater control on the sale of surveillance tools to autocratic governments like India and Hungary. Stripped naked by Amnesty. Forgot the old adage of keeping your enemies closer .