This whole Adar Poonawala melodrama is a side show designed to distract from the real questions: why hasn’t the central government placed more orders? Who took the decision to only order a measly 11 million doses upfront?
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Why did the ICMR allow only Bharat Biotech to manufacture covaxin given their low manufacturing capabilities? Why didn’t they simultaneously license all public sector vaccine manufacturers at least to make it?
What is the 35,000 crores allocated in the budget being used for?
And even now, re the April 28th order, when the govt has sanctioned a 3000 crore advance payment for Serum, why would they limit the order amount to 1732 crores and 110 million (11 crore)? Why not order more?
Surely now we know we need it?
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The “give them what they want to hear” media model is not new. It’s was what spurred Bennet Coleman’s (Times Group) rapid growth in the late 90s and early noughties.
But it’s important to understand fully how it has harmed all of us and how that harm began before 2014
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First - it created a vicious feedback loop.
We’ve always been aware of communalism in our society. But the fact that you didn’t see it portrayed on television or in major newspapers made its expression limited in day to day affairs. It wasn’t “normal” or civilised.
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Of course it would break through from time to time around festivals or rumours or specific events. But it wasn’t openly expressed in workplaces and social conversations.
At the end of the day sports stars, movie stars and other celebrities are all in the business of monetising our emotions. They convert our adulation into wealth for themselves
The smarter ones give a small portion of that money back to the community.
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It’s an investment - that money then generates more adulation which they can monetise further.
Some use their platform for genuine good, but that’s the exception not the norm. Most just raise their voices when they know that will generate more adulation at minimal cost
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When there is a cost involved to raising their voice, they weigh it. Carefully. Is angering a authoritarian government in India worth the adulation it will get you? If it isn’t, they don’t speak. An elephant in an opposition ruled state is an easy win- so they speak.