 Hello and let's talk about COVID-19 in India. We are now the country with the second highest number of cases in the world at close to 4.3 million. We also have record over 72,500 deaths. Yesterday's number of new cases was in the mid-70s after a few days of massive surges but there is really no sign of the crisis abating. Meanwhile, like you almost got tired of saying, there is not a peak from the government regarding how it intends to deal with this crisis. News Clicks Prabir Purkayashta talks about where we are at right now and how we got here. The disturbing part about the India's growth and if you look at the India's charts which we have on News Clicks, for example, you will see the graph of new cases or the graph of total cases, what is called as basically the slope. It shows you the speed at which the epidemic is developing. In India has been constant for the last three to four months but that is surprising because most countries, either because of natural reasons, that means the pool of infected people burn out because the numbers of people already in that area have been infected and then it looks for new areas to spread and then you can get in that sense an interagnum before it takes off again. So you get this kind of figures if like in Brazil, for instance, where you really have no measure, the government seems to have taken, people have taken measures, they have social distance themselves, they are using masks, the government is nothing. So in that cases, you do find that after some time, still the epidemic starts to slow down. In other places because of the lockdown, the slowdown takes place. In the US, as we know, we have had a muddled policy, sometimes on, sometimes off, initially off, a completely muddled response by the US government. The public health system has been in shambles, all of that we know and that has led to slowing down, increase, slowing down, increase as a cycle. And as you can see, US, now if you look at the map, you'll find new areas coming under the grip of the epidemic. India on the other hand, which had a very draconian lockdown, it's interesting, it didn't serve any purpose, except of course, destroying their productive forces of the economy. So you don't see in India any impact of the lockdown because it was premature, there was no preparedness for the lockdown. That is, it explains why India's had the biggest hit to the economy of any of the large economies. If you take the large 20 economies of the world, what's called the G20, you'll find India's GDP drop is the sharpest. That's also because India made no preparation for the lockdown, imposed a lockdown without any warning. And that is why the economy took a big hit. At that time when the lockdown was imposed, India had only about 600 odd cases. So it is also a completely premature lockdown in the belief that we'll be able to crush the epidemic completely. What they didn't realize is that in order to do that, you need really a good system by which you can identify who are the people infected at that stage, people who are really coming in from outside who are infected and interdict them, stop the disease further by isolating them, quarantining them, and of course treating them and also completely contact tracing. It was manageable at that stage without such a draconian lockdown. Instead of that, the lockdown meant that we focused on the other hand how to stop people from meeting each other, how to impose a lockdown, how to get food to people, all the paraphernalia which a lockdown requires for a state to deliver, focus was really on that. So instead of really the focus being on what should have been, which is how at the initial stage to look at the people who are coming from outside who could be infected and stopping that. And don't forget India has close connections to West Asia. It is close connections to Southeast Asia and also to the United States and Europe. So you had various sources of people coming in, not many from China. So this were the sources to which infections did arrive. And if you could have focused on that in the first three months, maybe the economy would not have taken such a big hit. Instead of that, we closed the economy down. It didn't help the economy not only suffered, but even the quarantining of the people, all those measures failed, because at the end of it, people have to go home to eat, eat, their families have to survive. So essentially the lockdown became porous. And therefore the purpose of the lockdown, when the infection started to increase, that is the time and the purpose of the lockdown was defeated. As a consequence, the lockdown served very little purpose in terms of stopping the epidemic. And now we are in various phases of unlocked down. We are calling it the unlocked down for by which even the metros will start, for instance, in Delhi. Once we do that, you can see the epidemic which Delhi had started to come down again going up. So you are starting to see a repeat search after the, you know, various measures were taken that it came down. It's also starting to go up again. So it simply shows that there does not seem to be a thinking in the government, how to combine health, the economy, society, all of it together. And the three months, four months of the lockdown, unlocked down, as we call it, sequence that we have built in this, the health stretch system, which needed to be strengthened, does not seem to have been strengthened. We find, for instance, ventilators not available in district towns, in other states, which are relatively economically poorer. In those places, these things don't seem to be there. So the strengthening of the public health system which should have been attempted in this period was also not possible because you are under a lockdown. So all your focus was really the lockdown, how to do that. So we decided there is only one instrument to solve the problem of the epidemic, the police lockdown. And we did not regard it as a public health issue, as a public health system, and how to involve the state, the local governments and the central government, work out a policy that also includes the people. Instead of that, we had a completely alienating police approach to the problem. And as we see, the draconian lockdown was also a very poor lockdown. We suffered on both counts. And at the moment, we don't seem to have any weapons in our hands to stop the epidemic. So now we are asking the police again to impose masks and other things. And of course, police is imposing this. You can see car drivers being hauled up for not having masks. Now, the reason perhaps is that they will at least pay the fines, that goes into the police funds as well. So as a consequence, it may fund the police partially, but it doesn't really mean much to the rest of the infection spreading people. In our next segment, we bring you a conversation between writer Vijay Prasad and musician Roger Waters. They're talking about the trial of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in some of the issues around it. The extradition hearing for Assange resumed yesterday. He's being punished and persecuted for exposing US war crimes. He faces charges under the SPNR Act in the US. And this is the first time a publisher and a journalist is being haunted this way. If he is extradited, and if he's convicted in the US, he faces up to 175 years in prison for the crime of telling the truth. Vijay Prasad and Roger Waters discuss some of the issues around the case, as well as the state of the media in the US and around the world. The thing is a complete charade. That is what this is my exasperation is that you cannot have the conversation because you can have it till you're blue in the face. Julian's partner Sarah Naras is it. And his father and his brother and his, you know, this Icelandic guy who runs Wikileaks now. We marched down Whitehall with all these good people. But we could march up and down Whitehall till we were blue in the face. And they would still say, they try and brush us off as if we're insects, you know, that are irritating their skin. Our voices are so ill-heard. And the sad thing is that now that they've discovered that all was right, and if you give enough power to the Ministry of Truth, and if you exercise your right to own all the newspapers and to deliver your propaganda and all the television stations and everything, because you're wealthy, because you're the ruling class, so you can buy all ways of disseminating information, then you can provide propaganda that is to which there is almost no resistance. You have no idea, PJ, how many people I meet who are friends of mine, who I've known for 25, 30, 40, 50 years, who come out at me with things and I go, what are you talking about? I had a great friend. I won't mention his name. I spoke to him on the phone two days ago, because I wouldn't want to embarrass me, because he was saying, I'm really worried. I may have to leave to United States. It's so frightening. Trump this and Trump that and the other and blah, blah, blah. And then he went, if you think about it and you think that the Russians hacking the bar and meddling in the 2016 election got this guy, and he's in bed with them. I went, whoa. I nearly said his name there, but whoa, eggs. Shut up. Don't tell me that you bought the Russia Gate nonsense. Are you insane? What on earth makes you think any of that is relevant in any way? And have you not noticed the DNC National Convention? Nobody mentions Russia Gate, not a single word, because they all know it's complete bullshit. It was just a way of wasting time so that nobody who has questions to ask about the judicial system, about Assange, about Chelsea, about the whole crazed way that the deck is loaded so that no truth is allowed to escape at any point. And you, my friend, have bought into it by listening to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC banging on about Russia Gate. That's just her way of saying, Hillary was right to take money from Wall Street, and she's, and then what's wrong with being a born in the game of the real, the real people are the people who have all the money who buy everything. And so don't, you know, this is the Overton, he said, what? The Overton window. Nobody knows what I'm talking about. It's a bit like nobody, when I say, I talk about the Patriot Act to American citizens, and I talk about amendments to it, 1021 and 1022. What are you talking about? And I said, well, you can, you, anybody, if they, if Donald Trump thinks that you might be helping a terrorist organization, you can be arrested and locked up forever. No phone call, no lawyer, no nothing, just because he thinks you might be. And they go, what? And I go, you see, they don't even know that 1021 and 1022 are on the statute books and are the law of the land. Nobody gives, and that's bizarre beyond all belief. They don't care that they're completely enslaved. And people have various theories about that. My theory is that the theory, this is the theory that's right, is they're so close to being homeless that they're clutching desperately at straws. And the straw that they grip to most often is, it's the blacks, it's the Muslims, it's the Chinese, it's that's the easiest propaganda to sell them. Oh, thank God, I found a straw. I don't need to know the truth. I don't need the collateral murder videos. I don't need a sarge. I don't need BJ Prashad. I don't need the tri-continental institute. I don't need Roger Woods. I don't need anybody to try and help me out of this bog that I'm drowning in. I'm fine. It's them. Trump is right. And unfortunately, somehow that gives them comfort, even though the next week, they do get thrown out on the street. They are homeless. They are one of the 25% of the homeless who are veterans with no arms and legs, who get no help from the VA and the this and that and the other, who kill themselves, you know, faster than any of us can possibly imagine, because life carrying the burden of guilt is so desperate. And they're not getting help. They're not getting the help that they would need from any society that gave a shit about, oh, we love our boys, our heroes from the day they say that. But they, the people of this country don't give a fuck about them. Because if they did, they would force the government. They would force the rich people to look after them. Say, welcome home, brother. Oh, Jesus, you're tough. Here, what can we do for you? We need to organize. We need meetings. We need and you need money. We need to support your financial. You can't be homeless. You can't be homeless on the street. You're damaged. But the attitude is, you know, you're coming for them and we don't need you anymore. So screw you. That's all. We are time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from the country and the world. Until then, keep watching NewsClick.