Modi presses ahead with $1.8 billion parliament renovation even as Covid-19 ravages India

[alphapak]

Agent Modi is doing a fantastic job.

 

[GumNaam]

I have said it hundreds of time and I am saying it again, no one has died of covid so far. It's a scam being run by the government and hospitals.

 

[Anubis]

I don't Understand the central Vista project has been approved for years and the money has been financed from banks. It has no link to covid India. By this logic India should stop all construction projects in the country and put all money in Fight against Covid. Thats not how the world works. The Vista project should go through.

Welcome to Democracy. Chinese politicians have no one to fight against. Its a one party system. There is no comparison.

Its called optics...optics have always been very important in politics...when a democratically elected government's failure in strategy and planning leads to the death of thousands of voters celebrating democracy by redesigning a building/area that has not direct benefit to the lives of the voters is called bad optics.

 

[suyog chavan]

How much of India is evolution ? Was it evolution when those 350,000+ Indian farmers committed suicide between 1995 and 2015 because of socio-economic reasons ? Was it evolution when students and business people commit suicide ? Was it evolution when Indians remain blind and die of cancers not because there is no cure but because they have no money ?

Modi wants to live like an emperor while the country around him is in shambles. Ridiculous !

His former party colleague Yashwant Sinha said this :

Can you grant any fine reason or link between, constructing a parliament of a nation and covid transmission,
OR
Does cease of parliament construction would make covid end?? what a feign logic you have mate , lol

 

[lonelyman]

Modi presses ahead with $1.8 billion parliament renovation even as Covid-19 ravages India
https://www.cnn.com/profiles/julia-hollingsworth
By Julia Hollingsworth and Swati Gupta, CNN

Updated 11:40 PM ET, Thu May 6, 2021


New Delhi (CNN)While hospitals plead for life-saving oxygen and Covid-19 patients die in their thousands, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing ahead with a $1.8 billion parliamentary revamp -- including a new home for the country's leader.

The decision to continue with the project in the capital, New Delhi, has infuriated the public and opposition politicians, who have pointed to the apparent disconnect in pouring millions into a construction project when the country is struggling with its worst-ever public health crisis.

The pricey renovation, known as the Central Vista Redevelopment Project, has been categorized as an "essential service," meaning construction is allowed to continue even when most other building projects have been halted.

Construction work underway on the Central Vista redevelopment project at Rajpath on April 17, 2021 in New Delhi, India.

Two citizens -- including one with Covid-19 whose mother also has the virus -- lodged a case with the Delhi High Court on Wednesday to try to halt construction, which has continued even while the capital is in lockdown.

The petitioners argue the parliament buildings don't constitute an essential service and construction work could even become a Covid super-spreader event, according to special leave petition filed by lawyer Nitin Saluja. Workers are continuing to be ferried from their labor camp to the construction site, according to the document.

The High Court offered to hear the case later this month, but petitioners took the matter to the Supreme Court, arguing the lower court had "failed to appreciate the gravity" of the situation.

"Since there is a public health emergency in the matter, any delay could be detrimental to the larger public interest," Saluja wrote to the Supreme Court. Saluja said the case will most likely be heard Friday.

India has reported more than 3,000 Covid-19 deaths in each of the past few days. The country accounted for a quarter of global coronavirus fatalities over the past week, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) weekly Covid-19 report.

Vanity project?
Even before the second wave, Central Vista had attracted controversy, with critics saying the redevelopment would come at the cost of history and heritage. But opposition has become more heated recently, with politicians slamming the plan as a vanity project.

Proponents of the 86-acre (35-hectare) revamp say it is necessary as the current 100-year-old buildings are not fit for purpose.
"The launch of the construction of the Parliament House of India, with the idea of Indianness by Indians, is one of the most important milestones of our democratic traditions," Modi said in December at the laying of the building's foundation stone. "We the people of India will construct this new Parliament building together."

An estimated 46,700 people are expected to be temporarily employed during construction, according to minutes released last week of an April expert appraisal committee meeting.

That meeting estimated the expansion of the parliament building and construction of a new parliament building will be completed in November 2022, while the Prime Minister's residence is set to be finished in December 2022. The entire project is set to be completed by the end of 2026.

The $1.8 billion project was given environmental approval from an expert panel of the Environment Ministry earlier this year, essentially giving the project the green light.

But as coronavirus cases have soared, so too has the backlash to Modi's project.

"People are dying of Covid but (Prime Minister Modi's) priority is the Central Vista project," tweeted Yashwant Sinha, the former minister of finance and external affairs. "Should we not be building hospitals instead? How much more price the nation must pay for electing a meglomaniac?"

Earlier this week, opposition MP Rahul Gandhi said: "The (Prime Minister's) ego is bigger than people's lives."

In a previous tweet, Gandhi said: "Central Vista - not essential. Central (Government) with a vision - essential." Community Party of India's Sitaram Yechury called the move "grotesque."

The criticism has gone beyond politicians. On Twitter, some people have even drawn comparisons between Modi and Nero, the Roman emperor who, according to legend, fiddled while Rome burned.

The project is just the latest mark against Modi, who has been criticized for his handling of the second wave. Even as cases skyrocketed, critics say he underplayed the risk and continued to hold mass political rallies ahead of state elections.

Modi presses ahead with $1.8 billion parliament renovation even as Covid-19 ravages India | CNN

While hospitals plead for life-saving oxygen and Covid-19 patients die in their thousands, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing ahead with a $1.8 billion parliamentary revamp -- including a new home for the country's leader.

www.cnn.com

Modi wants a new home so bad

 

[Rizwan Alam]

1.8 billion $

 

[Vikki]

I have said it hundreds of time and I am saying it again, no one has died of covid so far. It's a scam being run by the government and hospitals.

Then how are people falling like flies in india? What is all this chaos that is there in india Do you believe people are also part of this drama?why are crematoriums running out of space?

 

[ApparentRaceTraitor]

I have said it hundreds of time and I am saying it again, no one has died of covid so far. It's a scam being run by the government and hospitals.

Coooool, so by extension of your claim, you should be more than happy to give up your hospital bed/ventilator if God forbid you do get it.

 

[Capt. Karnage]

Coooool, so by extension of your claim, you should be more than happy to give up your hospital bed/ventilator if God forbid you do get it.

I never needed it and never will.

Then how are people falling like flies in india? What is all this chaos that is there in india Do you believe people are also part of this drama?why are crematoriums running out of space?

They are those with co morbid conditions. Also wrong treatment in hospitals is to be blamed.

 

[ApparentRaceTraitor]

I never needed it and never will.

What an absolute relief Karen.

 

[Leishangthem]

So as per cnn stopping parliament work will India will kill corona, no wonders Americans need Indians to work in NASA

Do you think the massive labour force is safe and wouldn't exacerbate the spread in current situation?
All these things tells a lot .
And no Americans don't need Indians to work in nasa ,only 8 % of nasa workforce is Asian american which include the higher IQ East Asian nation's ethnicities(chinese,japanese,koreans) and many more from asia.There are no "Indian" in NASA,they are all Americans;NASA requires US citizenship among its workforce.

 

[Varunastra]

Do you think the massive labour force is safe and wouldn't exacerbate the spread in current situation?
All these things tells a lot .
And no Americans don't need Indians to work in nasa ,only 8 % of nasa workforce is Asian american which include the higher IQ East Asian nation's ethnicities(chinese,japanese,koreans) and many more from asia.There are no "Indian" in NASA,they are all Americans;NASA requires US citizenship among its workforce.View attachment 741712

He definitely meant Indian by ethnicity not by citizenship which is represented in Asian American

It's a known fact that Indians make up one of the wealthiest ethnicities in the US, check median incomes here
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/asian-americans-indians-in-the-u-s/
All Asians - $85,000
Indians - $119,000
Point to note -
Us born Indian Americans - $104,000
Foreign born Indian American - $120,000

 

[N.Siddiqui]

He definitely meant Indian by ethnicity not by citizenship which is represented in Asian American

It's a known fact that Indians make up one of the wealthiest ethnicities in the US, check median incomes here
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/asian-americans-indians-in-the-u-s/
All Asians - $85,000
Indians - $119,000
Point to note -
Us born Indian Americans - $104,000
Foreign born Indian American - $120,000

The Indian diaspora in US consists of a higher percentage of wealthy Indians migrating to US with all their wealth that includes the property and other wealth. The economic migrants comes into a separate category.

And there is investment migration to US also, this is not good actually for the native country when educated and rich class leaves the country of origin.

‘Indian rich top world in looking to leave country’ - Times of India

India Business News: The Covid may have put international travel plans on the backburner but it has not stopped high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) from shopping for new co

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

 

[White and Green with M/S]

There problem is Modi.. Cnn is chinese news network..

LOL, CNN is suddenly Became CCP news channel for you if they posted anti Indian news, are you smoking weed??? lol

If Tomorrow ABC news posts another article against India than it will become Pakistani news channel lol

 

[jamahir]

Can you grant any fine reason or link between, constructing a parliament of a nation and covid transmission,
OR
Does cease of parliament construction would make covid end?? what a feign logic you have mate , lol

Across the country hospitals are charging a lot of money to treat COVID and ambulances are charging a lot to transport patients and the dead.

There is a thread from yesterday about upper middle class Indians fleeing to Maldives and Dubai because even they won't be able to afford the per-day charge of the COVID hospitals. So the government should have started building more hospitals and re-purposing constructions like stadiums for this. And provide treatment for free.

And yes, the ambulance crews need to make a living too so they government should pay them entirely.

Another thing. The government should called for international engineering teams to set up oxygen plants in every town. This is an emergency.

And there has cropped up hoarding and black market for oxygen cylinders and medicines. Was this necessary ? This should be removed.

All these things can be paid for by the 20,000 crore fund for the Central Vista project. Maybe even more would be required. The Central Vista project was not required before and it is not required especially now.