'If you don't have a strong political leadership, however much expertise a country may have, in pandemic preparedness or infectious disease, will not matter.' 'It's really about having strong political leadership, that is proactive, that prioritises taking the right action.' 'And if you don't have that, then you will have a much worse pandemic experience.'
'He always avoided eating non-vegetarian food in presence of his deputies if they were fasting for the month of Shravan.' 'There were no Hindu, Jain, Parsi and Swaminarayan festivals he would forget.' 'He was a conservative Muslim and therefore could get along well with conservative Hindus.'
Until we have these (kinds of) patients come down in numbers, the fear, the mortality is always going to be there
'The government had a vaccine from January.' 'The government should have given the vaccine to all population above the age of 45, right from the start.' 'Each state has its own problems, but as far as vaccine coverage in India is concerned, there have been mistakes.'
'When you are on these drugs, there is a possibility that you come to the hospital late, just by virtue of the fact that you believe that things are going to turn around, because you are on all these medicines.'
More than 90 police cars, fire brigade engines and other city government vehicles saluted Dr Uma Rani Madhusudana for her non-stop, tirelessly devoted work in the care of COVID-19 patients at a hospital over 8 difficult and dangerous days.
Madhu Kinnar, newly-elected mayor of Raigarh in Chhattisgarh, speaks to Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com.
'Try to get in 30 to 60 minutes of a brisk walk every day, like my grandparents would do in the village -- twice a day they would go for morning walks and they would go after dinner.'
'Vigilance is the enemy of the virus.' 'We need to be alert all the time, about this, until we fully understand it.' 'And that's going to take years, actually.'
'There is no remorse over the Dadri lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq or of Pehlu Khan by cow vigilante groups.' 'But should you not have remorse for those who came to kill them?' 'They were Hindus. Do you accept that?' 'That to kill one Pehlu, 20 Hindus have become murderers.' Rajdeep Sardesai in conversation with Ravish Kumar.
'I try to say to myself, 'Don't cry in front of people'. But sometimes I can't help it.'
'From the beginning (I have told her) "Whatever it may be -- you are losing or winning -- on the ground you're not going to cry!" She never cried.' '"I don't want you to project that you are a loser. You are a winner".' Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com speaks to Leela Raj about her famous daughter, now in the West Indies for the women's T20 World Cup.
'I give Modi full credit, for brilliantly using his personal diplomacy, his personal stature, to accomplish his goals...'
'Whether he will apologise or not is not a problem.' 'I want him to make an effort to create a new world, by learning from history.'
'COVID-19 comes in, we have our immune response, the immune response overtakes COVID-19 in no time, usually within a day.' 'Fortunately, the majority who get infected will also be in that first category , where there is no damage and the virus is completely overcome.'
'Mumbai is testing a lot compared to a lot of other places in the country.' 'Now that we exactly know where the hotspots are, and they've been converted into containment zones, there is a lot of testing, going on, from door to door and symptom screening.' 'In the last 10 to 15 days we have definitely done a good job.'
'We are already exhausted, but we can't give up.' 'The battle is still on.' 'We will see some respite by December 2021.'
Dr Gupta handled Shivade's blows with quite some equanimity... So it was often only Shivade down in the mud pit, egging and enticing the doctor to join the fight, while Dr Gupta cautiously kept to the sidelines, barely stepping a toe into the mud.
'It is a bigger challenge for Mumbai because we have a dense population and people are staying in very, very small rooms.' 'So even if there is one case, then it can spread to you know, four or five people are staying together.'
'Not only will Peter, Indrani, Sanjeev be making twice monthly trips to the sessions court for many years, so will their family, their lawyers and the journalists covering the case, becoming almost like bittersweet friends, as large portions of their lives play out there.'
About 9 million people in Mumbai live in areas where homes are hardly two metres apart. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com reports on the lurking dangers in the city's slums in the times of the coronavirus.
'The COVID-19 virus has the power to quietly enter your body, without causing pain via symptoms, because it craftily manipulates your pain response.'
'Today, everybody is on the computer, everybody on the mobile.' 'There is very less physical activity.' 'The treatment most effective in reducing heart disease is exercise.' 'It is very, very, important.'
'It will only get worse, definitely, for the next month and one-and-a-half months.'
'But to see the effects of that, it will take a week or two more.'
'This is a tragedy that must be stopped.'
'The worst affected is the electricity supply. A huge number of poles, some 6,000 to 8,000 poles have been damaged completely. That will take a lot of time for restoration.'
'Today if you look at the way India is growing many people are saying the sleeping elephant has finally woken up, is dancing!' 'I have travelled extensively, in about 60 countries. In all these the moment you say India, the first thing they mention is either an actor's name. Or they start humming a song.' 'I wanted to be in Bollywood. It is the most powerful medium we have in this country. That's soft power.' Listening in on Shobhaa De, Kabir Khan, Vikas Swarop and Saffron Art CEO Hugo Weihe speak on India's Soft Power, Hard Influence.
Judge Jagdale, with a severe expression shadowing his face, looked sharply at Manoj Patil, Airtel's nodal officer, and told him plainly: "It is difficult to digest what you are saying (about) giving call data, but not giving call timings and durations."
Advice for a healthy heart from one of India's top heart surgeons.
'... to Imran Khan, that there's not going to be any mediation of any meaningful sort given his (Modi's) special relationship with Trump.'
'It is absolutely important for us to continue to message to people that they must wear masks, keep physical distancing, as much as is practically possible, at work or at home.'
'Some of the longer-term implications of COVID-19 are not related to the virus itself.' 'They are actually related to immune responses from the virus.'
'Obviously, there is always an argument that a weaker rupee could push up, to some, extent exports.' 'The fact that the rupee has appreciated against the Chinese currency is pushing a lot of Chinese imports into the Indian market.'
'The government and the RBI have been playing a very good part in terms of inflation management.'
'Kerala is probably the only state, where (with regard to) the clinical management and the overall protocols, we have an infectious disease team heading the whole containment plan.'
'The only idea -- the only idea -- of the shutdown was to buy time.'
'Foreign aid to Pakistan. Forget it, bye bye...' 'F-16s to Pakistan. Forget it.' Shalabh Kumar, the desi who knows Donald Trump best, speaks to Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
'When the forensics have collapsed, approver is clearly proved to be a liar from the beginning to the end... Does the prosecution genuinely believe that we ought to remain in judicial custody despite showing that their own story is not being corroborated by evidence, for another 192 witnesses?'
'The social distancing vaccine.' 'And the mask vaccine.' 'If you adhere to these two vaccines and go and meet people in a well-ventilated room -- not in an enclosed, non-ventilated, room -- you are probably going to be okay.'
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