 Hello and let's talk about the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. We now have the highest number of cases in Asia, the number of overall cases in India crossed 2 lakh yesterday. More worryingly, the number of new cases being reported is seeing a steady rise. Today morning's numbers show that in the past 24 hours, close to 9000 cases were reported. Similarly, the number of daily deaths has been over 200 for a couple of days at least. All this is taking place even as the lockdown is slowly being eased in many parts of the country. As you asked in the show a number of times, what do we do now when the most powerful tool we have, the lockdown, can no longer be effectively used? We talked in News Clicks, Pabir Pukka is there on this issue. Pabir, thank you so much for joining us. So could we first talk about the current situation regarding how the disease has been progressing because we do know that India was under a very strict lockdown for quite some time and now the lockdown is slowly being eased. But we do see that the number of cases continues to rise at a very steady rate. Well, let's look at the big figures first. If we see that when we started the lockdown, we have about roughly about 600 cases. Of course, the actual cases might have been larger. But now as you have said, we have already reached 207,000 cases. And more important than that, the daily numbers is roughly at the moment around 9,000. If you take the world quote unquote rankings, if you will, so India at the moment is the seventh highest number of total cases. But if you look at the daily rise, then you will see India is jointly third with Russia, both having something like 8,900 cases per day, or roughly 9,000 cases per day, only behind United States and Brazil. So if you look at these figures, the Indian figures really look a little worrying, mainly because if you see that the lockdown has not really effectively been able to stop the epidemic, the epidemic is still growing. And even the Indian Council of Medical Research has said that we are likely to see the peak. We are far from the peak at this moment. We are likely to see the peak a couple of months, three months down the line. So we are really looking at an accelerating num in terms of acceleration in terms of numbers, not in terms of percentage of people getting the disease, but in terms of the new infection that we are seeing. But our figures, the base figures now are so large, 200,000 and more that these are obviously are quite large in terms of the global figures. So this is where we are. And if we look at the doubling rate at the moment, India, I'll go to the figures that take us in comparison to the global figures. If you look at the India figures, then you will see India figures at the moment are roughly around 200,000. But this figure, when did it, was it half of this? That means what is the doubling rate? You will find it double roughly in the last 14 days. That means India's doubling rate, which is the key figure we should take in the epidemic, is still at a rate which is pretty high. If we look at other countries which are having similar doubling rates, one is Brazil and all others, apart from Mexico, Mexico is a little lower than India. All others like the United States, Italy, Iran, for instance, even UK, all of them seems to have flattened their curve. We have a question of flattening their curves as we talk about this, but the three countries whose curves are still rising, Brazil, clear, India clear, and at the moment Mexico too. But Russia has more or less starting to flatten its curves. US has also started to flatten its curves and the countries which have flattened their curves are Italy, France, Germany, Iran. Now, one may say, well, you know, India is a relatively poor country. But if you look at Malaysia, these are the figures we have been showing from day one, is that Malaysia started a little ahead of India at higher figures for some time, but after that you can see how well it has been able to flatten the curve and that's something which is really striking. If we come to the states in India, then only state which has done reasonably well in this period and even now it's facing an upsurge is Kerala. And this recent upsurge in Kerala is of course because of a large number of migrants who have come from other states already infected and Kerala is dealing with that at the moment. But even otherwise, if you look at the figures, you'll see Kerala is the only state which controlled its numbers earlier and is still able to provide that degree of isolation support that we need. Now, ICMR and government of India has been talking about avoided deaths. I think that's bogus concept because you don't avoid deaths through a long time, you only postpone it. The real key issue where India has been paving is what is called mitigation figures and mitigation really means the ability to cut down your infections, new infections that are taking place through contact tracing, testing on a much larger scale and of course isolating the people who test positive and all this counts. India is actually in a bad position. Apart from Kerala, we have not been successful so much in contact tracing. Our numbers are rising because the testing is still low. In some of the states, the testing figures are really low and we therefore do not know what the infections really are and suddenly we get overwhelmed by new numbers. And at the moment, we still have some capacity in the hospitals to admit new patients. But if the figures double in 14 days, for example, or 15 days, 16 days, even if there's a bit of slowing down to 20 days, aren't the Indian hospitals in a position to face this in-cluts which might take place? I think that's not really, that's probably not what we've succeeded in doing. And if we look at what has happened, particularly in the last two weeks, not just because of the partial lifting of the lockdown, but because the huge number of migrants returning home and mainly because they couldn't provide support for them in the cities, I think we have ourselves created conditions of spreading this epidemic to all corners of the country. And that's not a good situation to be in. So the Indian government strategy has revolved, like you said, primarily around the lockdown and the hope that at some way this disease, due to some reason, will automatically subside. And that has not really worked. So right now, what are the options in front of the government as far as dealing with the pandemic is concerned? Well, you know, what you said is actually right. The government of India looked upon this as if it's a law and order problem, not a public health emergency. In fact, three major public health organizations in the country have come out of the statement saying this has been ad hoc. This has been ill thought out. And it doesn't show the influence of public health specialists. It's been crafted by people who do map modeling who don't understand epidemics to predict figures which are absurd. And also bureaucrats who do not really understand how a public health emergency has to be attacked. So they have made very strong criticisms of both discounts. And it is correct that the government of India responds to this has been what would be called the police response, which is what the colonial administration in India used to do. Put people in camps, isolate them, lock them down and hope that the epidemic will die by itself. As we know this time, that's not going to happen. And we are in fact seeing that even if the what would be called the areas which are hotter and better have slower rate of transmission. The point is transmission still takes place in a country like India, where there's a fact urban population and our density of population in some of the urban pockets and highest in the world. So in that case, you are really going to see much more transmission, not because of temperature or humidity, but simply because people are packed so close together. So that's the reason. I don't think weather is going to help us too much, given the fact that we already have in Indian temperatures are very high already. You're still seeing transmission pretty high, whether it's Maharashtra, whether it's Delhi, you'll see these transmission figures. So I think what has to happen is the public health figure, public health approach has to be there, which means really focus on hotspots, contact tracing, then separating the people from the other population that is there if they're infected. And the fact that we are putting them back in the homes means that the entire family is going to be infected. So it doesn't help us too much. And therefore, the number will still continue to go up. So I think these are the kind of figures that these are the kind of steps we need to take. But at the moment, lifting the lockdown that we have done, remember, we started at about $600, we are not to a more than $200,000. So lockdown does not seem to have flattened the curve the way we thought it would flatten. In fact, India's curve still continues to rise. And as we have said, this rising of India's curve that we see is the real cause for concern that India at the moment the curve is rising at a rate which will be doubling every 14 days. And this is under no condition a good state to be in. And if you remove the lockdown, relax the lockdown as we are doing, which we are bound to. But we are also allowing, for instance, places of worship, other places malls to open. So those are the kind of further risk issues that are coming up. And I think at the moment, what we have to look towards is how to strengthen the health system, which is in no condition to take the kind of burden that's likely to take place. We have seen the ventilator figures, we've seen the ICU figures, the hospital bed figures, it really doesn't look very good for India at the moment, particularly if the disease now spreads all over the country as it is likely after the major task that the government has created. In our next segment, we bring you part of a conversation with activist Claudia de la Cruz of the People's Forum in New York. As you know, massive protests have broken out in the US following the death of George Floyd in the city of Minnesota. These are some of the most powerful protests in decades. And Claudia de la Cruz talks about what are the key demands of these protests. Still the very early days, especially yesterday, saw the protests really spreading to many, many cities across the country. So right now, could you tell us a bit about what are some of the key aspects that are being raised? I mean, I think for the most part, and when you see the news clips, when you engage with the people on the ground, when you talk to people in the different cities and people coming out, the most pressing piece and demand is criminal response to criminal actions. Like a third degree murder is not enough for someone who killed someone in cold blood for the world to see. It was a public lynching. So people, the first demand is that if the criminal justice system does not take it upon themselves to hold police officers to the same standard as regular citizens, this will continue to happen. And historically, it's proven. It hasn't worked for them to talk about community and police relationships when these cops continue to brutalize and murder our people. And they do not receive the same type of treatment than someone who would kill a white person or will kill a cop. It's not the same. The value of life is not the same. So that's the first demand. I think there are a lot of people, so in the more leftist movements that are calling for the abolition of prisons and the abolition of policing that are calling for community policing in different ways in which people are able to be protected. And so unfortunately, because it also needs to be said, there's a level of disorganization from grassroots movements and the left in the United States. There's a lot of fractions. It's very fragmented. And therefore, it's very difficult to say that there is a very clear political demand that is unifying and that folks are all at once kind of coming with this list of demands. I think it's a good start. And I think what we need to learn from previous rebellions, from previous revolts, is how do we precision ourselves in relationship, in support, in uplifting, in strengthening the cry of our people in a way that makes sense and advances the political agenda that says we're here to defend life, we're here to defend community, we're here from an anti-capitalist perspective, from an anti-imperialist perspective, that's work that folks that have some sort of level of organization that are part of organizations from the left and folks that have much more class consciousness. That's the work that we need to be invested in. And unfortunately, I say that, but I also say that there's a lot of fragmentation and there's a lot of differences in terms of how do we conceive moving forward. We're in a different place than we were in Ferguson and Baltimore in 2014. People have gone through Obama, we survived Obama, we've survived Ferguson, we've survived Baltimore, we've gone through four years of Trump, the increased aggression of the United States internationally and the extractivism, the increasing militarization of police, the assault on the immigrant populations, we've gone through all of that and now we're in the midst of a global pandemic. So we're in a different space. The people of the United States in a different space, so much so that there were over 15 cities that were burning last night and people have taken on to push back on the narrative of riots and saying that these are revolts and these are revolts from the very historical point of view and understanding that the revolt is the voice and language of those who are oppressed and that they have the right to do that and that their righteous anger is what will move this country. And so I think it's a great opportunity in many ways for us to be able to advance our struggles if we have the courage to walk side by side and be in that struggle and take this opportunity to build the working class organizations that will ultimately move us to another political and social reality. That's all we have in this episode of Let's Talk. We'll be back tomorrow with the latest news developments in the deep. Until then, keep watching Newsweek.