 For more videos and people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Inequality kills Oxfam's latest report on global inequality has highlighted some alarming statistics on how wealth distribution has worsened during the pandemic. While the wealth of the world's 10 richest men doubled since the pandemic began, the incomes of 99% of humanity became worse off because of COVID-19. The total wealth of these 10 men is more than the combined wealth of the bottom 3.1 billion people across the world. Since the pandemic began, a new billionaire has been created every 26 hours. At the same time, over 160 million people are projected to have been pushed into poverty. Historical social inequalities have intensified tremendously during the pandemic. Today, 252 men have more wealth than the combined wealth of all women and girls and around 1 billion people from across Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This inequality is systemic. How do our economic systems perpetuate this inequality? Paranjoy Guharthakurtha, journalist and author, talks about this in the context of India. We have seen certain structural issues, greater dependence on indirect taxes, which are regressive and lower collections of progressive taxes, including income tax, as a share of the government revenue, indirect taxes have gone up, and corporate taxes. The large corporates are benefitted. The structure of revenue is such that the central government or the union government is getting the bulk of the revenues and yet states have to bear the responsibility for looking after those in the pandemic. Now, I mean, there are some amazing calculations that are there in the report. It says that if you just impose a 48% tax on the 10 richest Indians, the union health ministry would have enough money for two years. At a time when an estimated 460 million Indians have slipped into extreme poverty in 2020 and 2021, the wealth of the 100 richest Indians has surged by about 20%. So, it is unfortunate that we are here seeing a country ravaged by the pandemic and in that situation has become more and more unequal. The gap between those who have, those who don't, the underprivileged and the super rich have reached obscene levels. The economic systems that have caused this inequality are also responsible for making the COVID-19 pandemic deadlier and so long. An estimated 17 million people have died from COVID-19. The report underlines that inequality of income is a stronger indicator of whether you will die from COVID-19 than age. It claims that millions of lives would have been saved if they were vaccinated on time. These millions were denied access to vaccines as pharmaceutical giants refused to share the vaccine technology and expand production for the sake of profits. According to the report based on conservative estimates, inequality contributes to the deaths of at least 21,300 people each day. That's one person every four seconds. The report reinforces how people in poverty, marginalized genders and racialized groups are often disproportionately impacted by these structural inequalities. An estimated 5.6 million people die every year because of lack of access to healthcare in poor countries. At least 67,000 women die each year due to female genetic mutilation or murder at the hands of a former or current partner. Hunger kills over 2.1 million people each year at a minimum. 231,000 people each year could be killed by the climate crisis in poor countries by 2030. The report found that the emissions of the richest people are driving the climate crisis with the CO2 emissions of 20 of the richest billionaires estimated on average to be 8,000 times that of the billion poorest people. It's truly inexplicable why those who are in power are refusing to see, refusing to understand the reality. It is to my mind absolutely ridiculous and it completely bears any rational explanation that you should allow inequality to grow to such obscene levels. What then are the solutions to this crisis? What's the way forward? Clearly, if corporations are taxed, if the rich are taxed, you would be able to fund your healthcare budget, you would be able to fund education for all, you would be able to generate more jobs. According to this report, the kind of inequality that we've seen in India has contributed to the death of an Indian every few seconds, every four seconds. Contrast that with the amazing rise in the national wealth of the richest. So the policy prescriptions that emerge from this report are very, very clear and that is unless the government goes in for progressive policies, the entire taxation system is tilted against the rich in favor of the underprivileged and one way to do that is to lower your dependence on indirect taxes and increase your dependence on direct taxes. That's a clear message The report recommends that 812 billion dollars could be raised if a 99% tax is imposed on the windfall gains made by just the top 10 billionaires during the pandemic. That would be enough to provide vaccines for all in at least 80 countries and cover their expenditures on social protection, universal health, financial gaps in climate measures, and efforts to stop gender-based violence. Even after this tax, the top 10 richest men will remain 8 billion dollars richer than they were at the beginning of the pandemic.