India has become an ‘electoral autocracy.’ Its covid-19 catastrophe is no surprise
On Thursday, the White House announced that it is deploying response teams, composed of officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies, to combat the “hypertransmissible” delta variant of the coronavirus spreading across the United States and the world. This variant first emerged in India, where a devastating second wave of virus infections have been accompanied by a parallel epidemic of mucormycosis, or “black fungus”, that is maiming and killing patients.
India’s humanitarian tragedy is linked to a deeper political crisis — that of democratic erosion. At independence from colonial rule, India had relatively low economic development and industrialization, widespread poverty and illiteracy, and immense ethnic diversity across linguistic, religious and caste lines.… Seguir leyendo »
