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From Our Own Correspondent

India’s pandemic politics

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News Commentary, News

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2021

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The pandemic’s impact on politics is being picked over in India after a disappointment for the BJP in West Bengal's state election. Mark Tully was born in India in 1935 and reported from across the subcontinent for the BBC for many years - working as the chief of its Delhi bureau for some of that time. He still lives in the city and has recently been shielding at home – and sent us this long view of how Narendra Modi’s government has dealt with this emergency.

After a sluggish start – and some concerns about public reluctance - Germany’s vaccination campaign is gathering pace. The government has agreed to lift some restrictions for vaccinated people. But the new social divide between the vaxxed and the un-vaxxed is sparking some awkward new emotions — and some new German words to describe them. Damien McGuinness reports from Berlin.

During the last twenty years, a new generation of Afghan girls have grown up aspiring to work outside the home – some even daring to start up their own businesses. But the past year has been tough for them, and there are fears of what increased Taliban influence may mean for their enterprises. Charlie Faulkner met one young woman wondering how long she can stay afloat.

The Galapagos Islands off Ecuador are a showcase of marine life in all its variety - but the country's fishing fleets are fuming over plans to extend the limits of environmental protection zones. Dan Collyns examines the delicate balance between saving the fishing industry and protecting the planet.

And in the week that France commemorated one of its greatest sons – Napoleon Bonaparte, who died 200 years ago - Julia Buckley gleans some personal insights into the man behind the myth in an unexpectedly intimate museum of his belongings in the Dordogne.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts

0:05.1

Today the compound noun, beloved of the Germans and now expanding their language to include

0:11.3

the word for having a socially distanced beer outside.

0:15.8

The future for business women in Afghanistan, they see many threats as well as opportunities.

0:22.4

Fishing in the news in Ecuador, as the country plans to strike the delicate balance between

0:28.3

seafarers and environmentalists, and time to remember Napoleon as we look at some of his

0:34.6

most intimate possessions.

0:37.8

First to India, where the stories are still streaming out of overwhelmed hospitals,

0:43.5

fields of funeral powers and a mounting death toll.

0:47.6

The impact on politics is being picked over after a major disappointment for the ruling

0:52.8

BJP in state elections in West Bengal.

0:57.1

Mark Tully has reported regularly for the BBC and for this programme for many years.

1:02.8

Born in India in 1935 he was chief of the Delhi Bureau and he still lives in the city.

1:09.0

Recently he's been shielding at home and he takes the long view of how Narendra Modi's

1:14.3

government has dealt with the pandemic.

1:17.6

With a rapid spread of the Covid virus, India is facing its first pan-Indian crisis since

1:24.2

independence.

1:25.8

Even the horrific violence of partition in 1947 was largely confined to Punjab, and

1:32.3

it's facing this crisis under Hindu nationalist government, which does not subscribe to the

1:38.3

religious pluralism and secularism enshrined in the Indian constitution.

1:44.6

That policy heals the wounds of partition and prevented India being declared a Hindu state

1:51.2

as right-wing nationalists wanted.

...

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