Modi Govt Has Withheld Covid Data
Rukmini S25 Sep 2020, 5:08 PM IST
The ‘NDA’ incidents also place a spotlight on this issue of accountability. Just before the session of Parliament was to begin, the government announced that there would be no Question Hour, and only ‘unstarred questions’ – to which answers are submitted in writing only, and no follow-up questions are possible – would be permitted. Even in this curtailed form, ‘unstarred questions’ were able to elicit responses from the government on migrant deaths – even if it was to admit that they did not have the data.
Another unstarred question got the government to admit to the decline in immunisations that earlier reporting on the National Health Mission’s administrative data had exposed, but that the government had not responded to until then. The first admission by the government that NCRB data was delayed came in response to comments in the Rajya Sabha in 2019 by Leader of the Opposition, Ghulam Nabi Azad.
Rukmini S25 Sep 2020, 5:08 PM IST
The ‘NDA’ incidents also place a spotlight on this issue of accountability. Just before the session of Parliament was to begin, the government announced that there would be no Question Hour, and only ‘unstarred questions’ – to which answers are submitted in writing only, and no follow-up questions are possible – would be permitted. Even in this curtailed form, ‘unstarred questions’ were able to elicit responses from the government on migrant deaths – even if it was to admit that they did not have the data.
Another unstarred question got the government to admit to the decline in immunisations that earlier reporting on the National Health Mission’s administrative data had exposed, but that the government had not responded to until then. The first admission by the government that NCRB data was delayed came in response to comments in the Rajya Sabha in 2019 by Leader of the Opposition, Ghulam Nabi Azad.
