Mumbai struggles with Covid-19

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

India's commercial capital, Mumbai, is now the city worst-hit by the coronavirus. Hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of patients in need. Even money can't buy you treatment. As a result, many are dying before they can receive medical care, as Yogita Limaye has found. It's a time of re-examining slavery and colonial history. Andrew Harding's grandfather was a young entomologist who moved from England to what was then Tanganyika to study termites to prevent them destroying crops. Have stories like his helped Britain to maintain a nostalgic, unquestioning attitude towards its former Empire? In the former coastal resort of Kep in Cambodia, local people are wary of a tourism development project with a marina and the hope of renovating old villas. The authorities claim the project will bring business and jobs, but many fear their way of life is under threat, as Michelle Jana Chan reports. In southwestern France, rugby is more popular than football, and fans have been feeling bereft since matches were stopped due to Covid-19. Rugby means so much, there's even a chapel called Notre Dame du Rugby, with stained-glass windows featuring Jesus holding a rugby ball. So how have locals been coping without their favourite sport? Chris Bockman has been finding out. The Whanganui River in New Zealand gained the rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person three years ago. This was for environmental protection, but to the Maori people it meant much more. They consider the river sacred, an embodiment of their ancestors, and young Maori travel it from source-to-sea to reconnect with their culture. Ash Bhardwaj paddled along. Presenter: Kate Adie Producer: Arlene Gregorius

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:05.0	Good morning.
0:06.2	Today, the tale of a young scientist from County Durham
0:09.6	who set sail for Africa in the years of empire, heading for what was then Tanganyika.
0:15.8	Vast numbers of enticing locations are at the moment bereft of their tourists, but we hear
0:21.2	from Cambodia about worries that more tourism will disturb the slow pace of life in an old coastal resort.
0:28.0	We head for the rugby pitch and somewhere where the sport is almost a religion in southwest France, yes, with a chapel called Notre Dame de Rogby featuring Jesus holding the oval ball.
0:42.0	And then, does a river look feminine? In New Zealand
0:46.2	there's one significant to Maury culture which is now legally a shee. First to India which appears to be approaching a major increase in coronavirus infections
0:58.1	centered on the big cities. The commercial capital Mumbai is worst affected and Yogita Limai says that the health care system is
1:07.3	struggling to cope.
1:09.5	It's my favorite season in the city and what Mumbai is often best known for, the monsoon.
1:17.0	Thick dark clouds show up on the horizon, the usually calm waters of the Arabian Sea
1:22.8	begin to look aggressive
1:24.4	as waves lash the concrete edges of the city's promenades,
1:28.1	sometimes sending a shower of droplets onto the streets.
1:37.1	The rain comes down hard, cool clean air blows through the city, and everywhere green shoots start sprouting even from the cracks in brick walls. This year the arrival of
1:46.2	the monsoon has coincided with the easing of lockdown restrictions in Mumbai.
1:51.1	After months indoors people are nervously emerging from their homes.
1:56.0	It's hard to celebrate this bit of freedom though.
2:00.0	The joy of drinking a steaming cup of tea from a roadside shop amidst the fragrance of wet earth
2:06.0	has been replaced by fear and distress, as Mumbai's hospitals struggle with the coronavirus outbreak.
	...

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