 Hello and let's talk about the COVID-19 situation in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the country today where he warned against complacency and against taking the disease lightly and also advised the standard precautions. Now this was especially in light of the upcoming festival season. The Prime Minister spoke even as India on Tuesday reported less than 50,000 cases for the first time in many months. This was in the past 24 hours. India yesterday also did not report the highest number of cases across the world. This was after months of doing so. However, it is definitely too early to celebrate many countries in Europe are reporting fresh waves of cases in some cases even leading to lockdowns and parts of the USA too are seeing a fresh spike and this is a fate that can befall India too. A recent government report has been very confident saying that the peak has passed and India's COVID-19 burden is expected to be capped at 106 lakh symptomatic infections where early next year with less than 50,000 active cases from December. Now this may happen, but one thing that the disease has taught us is that predictions are tough to make. We talked to News Clicks Prabhupur Kaisa on why these on these estimates by the government and what is happening with the vaccines. Thank you Prabhupur for joining us. So today is a significant day because the numbers of yesterday released today morning show that for the first time after many, many, many months the number of cases has gone down below 50,000 and India is also second on the list of countries with regards to a new number of cases again after quite a long time. But how do we see the progress of the disease especially when we look at the statements by the government panel which said that there is a hope that by early next year we will be able to contain the pandemic. Well, you know the basic issue that we have is that US has gone to 57,000 some odd numbers after having gone down only a couple of weeks back. So these numbers going up and down unfortunately are not predictable. And anybody who claims that they are predictable that this is a trend which will continue till February when they expect that this will become completely under control. These are people who are actually talking, hesitant to use the word for government of India's officials, but talking nonsense because if you see the pattern of what's happened elsewhere in the world you will see there have been peaks and troughs. And there's a financial times there is a huge report which is there which is very nice because it's also animated, looks at various things. They said there is no correlation that we can make. Those which had peaks earlier the same places in Europe are seeing peaks again. So it's not that we have really built herd immunity because you have infections in certain places. And primarily this is because the disease or the epidemic is not predictable. It's not predictable because human beings are not predictable. And it is our network that really decides which and who will get affected. So if you decide that you actually can predict large populations, it may be possible. But when you're talking about small populations, which is where the epidemic really travels through, then this is not a predictable phenomena and that's why all the models that people have tried have shown that essentially these are not amenable to kind of modeling we do. We have, if we see today, we can perhaps predict next one week, two weeks. But that's about it. So yes, numbers are going down in the United States as you know, this is the third time numbers have gone down and increased. So US is already seeing a third peak. So we are actually seeing our first drop in numbers. So we still can have peaks, maybe the numbers will go down. But looking at what's happened, you will see if you look at the Indian map, for instance, you will see that states which have done badly, some of them are still doing badly. Some of them are not doing so badly. But if you look deeper down, then you will see some, in this state, some towns or cities which were doing badly, some have recovered somewhat. The numbers are not so bad now. But some of the cities which were affected earlier are still badly affected. They're in fact seeing a second peak, Pune being one of them. And Mumbai, you can see numbers are coming down. But Pune numbers have again gone up. Delhi numbers went down and again have started going up. It's only this kind of short-term predictions you can make. So government of India's attempt to talk about numbers going down, making a lot of song and dance about numbers coming down after having kept very silent for the long period after the lockdowns were supposedly lifted with unlocked dance of various kinds. No talk about any of this suddenly because the numbers are falling and with no correlation that we can see. Then suddenly they're trying to take credit by saying, oh, see, we have done things which we cannot tell you, but the numbers are really going down. Unfortunately, we are likely to see more peaks and we are also likely to see areas which did not see much of the epidemic. They are also areas which can now see more of it. So this is essentially the feature of this epidemic. And this is what we have come to now realize. And if you take Europe in the United States who had this crisis earlier and you can see their figures, the way they are going, France is now quite a large number of cases are coming from there, Spain, the United Kingdom. And as I said, the US is a classic example because it's a large enough country. And being a large enough country means different states, different parts behave differently. That's the nature of the beast. And we, of course, have a much larger population and also a population which is connected differently with different sets of people. So part of the mixing, of course, came from the migrations. But once that stopped, you can see that the states and the dynamics are different. And in this context, could you also maybe talk a bit about the situation regarding the vaccines? What has been happening with the trials? And do we know what logistical arrangements are being made right now regarding that? There seems to be a committee which has been set up under V.K. Paul, who's part of Nithya Ayoga. I think he's a member health Nithya Ayoga. Now, Nithya Ayoga, as you know, is supposedly a think tank. It doesn't really have any more role than that. But he's sort of chairing the high-powered committee. Everything in India, government of India is a high-powered committee, as you know. We don't know what the powers are. So none of the details about what powers they have, who are the members, are public. So this high-powered committee is supposed to correlate all of this. Now, in vaccines, there are two sets of issues. We are in this now talking about vaccine trials. We're not talking about the distribution of the vaccine, which is also being planned supposedly by the same committee. We are really talking about the vaccine trials at the moment. Now, how rigorously are the trials being monitored? Because if the vaccines are tried, and there are parallel trials going on, one is being done by the Serum Institute with AstraZeneca's vaccine. The second one now, which is going to be tried out, apart from the Indian vaccines, is the Russian vaccine. This is the one that's putnik-5. Putnik-5 is being the Gamalaya vaccine, which is also being tried. And they have been governed of India or the drug authority in India, which is really the DGRI. What is it? DGCI or DGRI? ECGI, Drug Controller General of India. Yeah, this is GI. But the India's Regulatory Agency, the Drug Controller General of India, DGCI, has asked Gamalaya vaccine, in this case, Reddy's Laboratory, who's doing it in India, to start from the phase two trials, because they felt that the phase one, phase two trials, the data sample was too small. Now, in Russia, they have moved beyond phase one, phase two to phase three trials, and they have been doing it for quite some time. So the fact here is that we have asked them to do, repeat the phase two trials, and then go on to phase three trials. The question for all these trials, and that also includes the Bharat Biotech vaccine, all these trials, the question that has been raised, is how closely are these being monitored, and particularly what is called the immunogenicity data? That means you look at the immune response. When you look at that response, the laboratory doing it, should it be independent of the one which is also doing the vaccine trials, or should it be an often independent agency? This has been the question which has been raised. How much monitoring is being done of the data being produced by these organizations, and do we have the capacity to monitor the trials and also cross check, are the trials really being carried out the way they're claimed to be being carried out? So all these questions have been raised. As of now, we have no answers. We have no answers because whole process is completely opaque. So we only have questions which have been raised, and similar questions are also being raised about the if the vaccines are made available, at what price, how will they be distributed, who are going to get them, who are your first rank of people who will get them, who will be the second rank of people who will get them, what will be the criteria decided on this, all of this again is up in there, we don't know. And we also don't know too much about the cold chain. The prime minister has said it should be like the election commission. Now you see election commission is a very different thing. This is not a public health exercise. Election commission does. So therefore you can use any body to do it, but this is a public health exercise. And therefore you need to have some understanding of what you're doing in order to be able to do it. So asking the election commission like system to be set up with just deputed volunteers from government agencies, I don't think it's the right way to go. Yes, you have to put the public health authorities in the leadership, and only under them can this be done. And that requires planning, which we are not sure the government of India is doing. So they say they are doing this. But as I said, all of this is completely opaque. We don't know what it is, but let's hope the things will not be as muddled as it has been till now, what we have seen in the lockdowns, because we have seen the home ministry essentially leading the efforts. We are happy to see the whole health minister at least speaking out. So at least the health ministry seems to be playing some role, but we'll have to see whether they will be able to play the role effectively or it will go down the way it has with all the lockdowns and all the other measures till date. So the jury is out on that one. But as I said, transparency, involvement of others, publicly acknowledging or saying what they're doing, none of this is happening. So we have the opaqueness that we have that has characterized the government of India's response still continuing on this. Thank you so much for your talk with us. In our next segment, we bring you a conversation with Zoe PC of People's Dispatch who is in Bolivia as part of an election monitoring team. While the final tally is still not out, all indications point to a clear victory for the movement towards socialism or the MAS party ticket of presidential candidate, Louis Arsé, and vice presidential candidate, David Chakavanka. The MAS, of course, is the party of Emma Morales who was overthrown in a coup in November last year, despite winning the presidential elections of October 2019. In the months that followed the coup, the members and supporters of MAS suffered great persecution even as a host of anti-people policies were implemented by a right wing government. The victory of Louis Arsé is hopefully a step in reversing that direction. As Zoe spoke to us yesterday when about 16.4% of the votes for the final tally have been calculated, as of 6.30pm today, or 50% of the vote has been tallied and the MAS has established a substantial lead. Here is what Zoe had to say. So could you first tell us what's right now the mood on the ground? What is the latest news regarding the results? And as well as the pollster results that have come out? Yeah, thank you so much for having me Prashant. It was a very emotional charge day. I think throughout the course of the day, people were peaceful, very going about the voting in a very peaceful and democratic way, but there's a certain sense of tension because of really uncertainty of what was going to happen. There was a strong sense that the MAS was going to win, but of course there's always room for some manipulation to be happening. So I think finally after hours from when the polls closed and finally the exit polls were released, it was a huge sigh of relief. I'm staying in a hotel in the center and I could hear fireworks going off for hours. People really, really feeling a lot of confidence and feeling proud that their vote was respected, feeling proud that their vote is reflecting, kind of the will of the Bolivian people. And as you said, while the final tally has not been finished, and it's as of now only 16.41% of the tally sheets, which is the sheets that are used to have the official results have been processed. The exit polls indicate an overwhelming victory for the MAS ticket, over 52%. And so we've seen figures from Alberto Fernandez, the president of Argentina recognizing the victory to even Luis Almagro, the secretary general of the Organization of American States. As we know in the last elections in Bolivia, the OAS was one of the key players in calling out the supposed fraud and calling for a second round. So this is actually one of the biggest milestones, I think. And even though we're still waiting on the final results, it seems like it's an irreversible trend. Also to mention there, Jeanine Agnes, the de facto president of the coup regime, also recognized the victory of Luis Arte, David Choquihonca last night itself. So I think at this point people are, in a celebratory mood, still waiting to see what happens with the final tally. But in general, it seems like the will of the Bolivian people has been respected. This is of course due to massive, massive mobilization, massive struggle over the past year since the coup. You know, the people have suffered massacres. They've suffered political persecution. There are hundreds of activists who are in jail just for being mass sympathizers or being trade union activists. And so this victory is not only the result of one day of voting, but it's the result of an entire year of being in the streets, being in every possible location, whether they're in exile and rallying, calling for the return to democracy. Aval's in Argentina and has been continuing to play a really important role in calling for the democracy to be respected. So I think that also has to be considered in this historic, historic victory. Absolutely. So Zoe, you talked about the final count, which is still in its very early stages. And could you just take us to maybe the process of how this counting takes place and what are the concerns, is there any concerns regarding it right now? Yeah, definitely. So the final count is essentially taking all of the tally sheets from across the country that come from each of the different polling locations and from those different polling locations, each of the polling booths. So each polling booth will tally up the number of votes that were cast for each party. And we got to see them yesterday, that these big sheets, and they do the bunch of different checks and say and tally up the number of votes that were cast for the party. And so all of these tally sheets are brought to the central computing location, and then workers from the TSE, which is the Supreme Left Coral Court, essentially do a processing of these tally sheets. And that's what's reflected on the website, which has the final count. As of this point, as I mentioned before, only 16% of the votes have been processed. And so right now, if you go to the website, it's reflecting a Mesa, Carlos Mesa Ciudad, Comunidad Ciudadana in the lead. But as I said, only 16% of the votes have been processed. And I think, for example, a lot of the rural areas of the actas from the rural areas have not been brought in. So I think people are still remaining cautious with this because we know anything can happen. But at this point with the amount of recognitions that have come in from the OAS, from all of these high level officials, it's likely that the final count will reflect the exit polls and that it will in a couple of days, it could be two days, three days, the final results will reflect a victory for the mass. That's all. We have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from the country and the world. Until then, keep watching news click.