Geeta Pandey: Coronavirus overwhelms India's most populous state

By Dilip -

With 240 million people, Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous state. Home to every sixth Indian, if it was a separate country, it would be the fifth largest by population in the world, just behind China, India, US and Indonesia - and bigger than Pakistan and Brazil. The state is also politically India's most important - it sends the largest number of MPs - 80 - to parliament, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, although from another state, contests from here. However, this political influence has brought it little development.

The state has 191,000 active cases at the moment and thousands of new infections are being reported daily - though numbers are believed to be much higher - and this has put the state's creaky health infrastructure firmly in the spotlight. Among the sick are the state's Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, several of his cabinet colleagues, dozens of government officials and hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health workers. Over the past few days, I have spoken to dozens of people from across the state, and heard grim stories.

Sakshi Joshi's YouTube reports on our reckless rulers and spineless media

BJP MP poses in front of vehicles carrying corpses

"We try to control our emotions. But it is unbearable."

Videos shared by a local journalist in Kanpur show a sick man lying on the ground in the parking lot of the government-run Lala Lajpat Rai hospital. A little distance away, an elderly man sits on a bench. They are both positive for Covid, but the hospital has no beds to accommodate them. Outside the government-run Kanshiram hospital, a young woman wept as she said that two hospitals had refused to admit her sick mother. "They're saying they have run out of beds. If you don't have a bed, put her on the floor, but at least give her some treatment. There are lots of patients like her. I've seen several people like me being turned away.

"The chief minister says there are adequate beds, please show me where they are. Please treat my mother," she said, sobbing inconsolably.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56799303

As the dead pile up in Gujarat, the state’s media is on a warpath with the government over Covid-19 // Soutik Biswas: How India failed to prevent a deadly second wave


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