Hello and welcome to The Moving Curve. I’m Rukmini, a data journalist based in Chennai. Every night on this mini-cast, I consider one question around the novel coronavirus epidemic in India. Tonight I’m considering this question: is there a way to avoid the usual left/ right binaries in this pandemic and is there anything we can all agree on?
The New York Times piece on Trump and hydrochloroquine: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/politics/coronavirus-trump-malaria-drug.html?mod=article_inline
Supriya Sharma and Vijayta Lalwani of Scroll meeting and speaking to the migrants: https://scroll.in/article/959195/hell-on-the-yamuna-as-hundreds-starved-for-days-after-delhi-shelters-went-up-in-flames
In normal times, these tired left/ right binaries are annoying. Right now, they are actively harmful. We are going to miss valuable information if we’ve already decided that the right answer is anything but what the person or party we don’t like is saying. We are doing a disservice to people who need unbiased information right now. The last thing we should be doing is asking fewer questions of the government right now — this isn’t a call for less adversarial or investigative journalism. But let’s ask actual questions rather than try to score points over issues we’ve already made up our minds over. The best minds in the world will admit that there is much we have yet to learn about COVID-19. Let’s try to actually learn this time.
Thank you for listening. This episode was edited by Anand Krishnamoorthi. Tomorrow — a new question.
