Social distancing is a privilege of the middle class. For India's slum dwellers, it will be impossib

[beijingwalker]

Social distancing is a privilege of the middle class. For India's slum dwellers, it will be impossible
By Priyali Sur and Esha Mitra, CNN

Updated 0950 GMT (1750 HKT) March 30, 2020

New Delhi (CNN)For two days, Jeetender Mahender, a 36-year-old Dalit sanitation worker, has not dared to leave his family's shanty in the Valmiki slum of northern Mumbai, India, except to go to the toilet.

His situation is desperate. The tiny home has no running water or toilet, his family is low on food -- and when he doesn't go to work, he doesn't get paid.

Mahender is trying to comply with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 21-day nationwide lockdown, intended to help stop coronavirus spreading further among the country's 1.3 billion people. India has recorded 1,024 cases and 27 deaths.

"Social distancing is not just for the sick, but for each and every person, including you and even your family," Modi said in a nationwide address last week.

That might work for India's middle and upper classes, who can hunker down in their condos and houses, preen their terrace gardens, eat from their well-stocked pantries and even work from home, using modern technology.

But the chaos unfolding across India in recent days has spelled out that for the 74 million people -- one sixth of the population -- who live cheek by jowl in the country's slums, social distancing is going to be physically and economically impossible.

Indian migrant workers wait to board buses to return to their home villages as a nationwide lockdown continues on March 28, 2020, on the outskirts of New Delhi, India.

"The lanes are so narrow that when we cross each other, we cannot do it without our shoulders rubbing against the other person," said Mahender. "We all go outdoors to a common toilet and there are 20 families that live just near my small house.

"We practically all live together. If one of us falls sick, we all will."

At least one person in a Mumbai slum has already tested positive for the novel coronavirus. As panic grows among India's most vulnerable, thousands of migrant workers are trying to flee the slums for their rural homes, by bus and even by foot, sparking fears they will import the virus to the countryside.

In a radio address Sunday, acknowledging the chaos the lockdown had brought India's poor, Modi asked the nation for forgiveness. But he also urged listeners to understand there was no other option.

1 toilet for 1,440 people
Water is one of the biggest reasons India's poor need to leave home every day.

Sia, a slum dweller and migrant construction worker in Gurugram, near New Delhi, wakes up at 5 a.m. and defies Modi's call to stay indoors. The reason? She needs to walk 100 meters (328 feet) to a water tank that serves her slum of 70 migrant construction workers.

She is not the only one. Most women from the construction site slum wash together there every morning and collect water for the day. With no showers or bathrooms in their homes, this communal tap is their only water source.

The government's Clean India Mission, launched in 2014 to improve infrastructure and eliminate open defecation, claims that 100% of Indian households now have access to toilets.

But Puneet Srivastava, manager of policy at NGO WaterAid India, said the focus of the Clean India Mission has largely been on building household toilets, and a considerable number of slum-like regions have not been included.

In Dharavi in Mumbai, for example, there is only one toilet per 1,440 residents, according to a recent CFS study -- and 78% of community toilets in Mumbai's slums lack a water supply, according to 2019 Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation survey.

On Sunday, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra said: "There is 100% toilet coverage in India, whether people have access to personal toilets in slums or not doesn't matter. They can use communal toilets."

Indian migrant workers stuck in the national capital try to board buses to return to their home villages.

Sania Ashraf, an epidemiologist who works on water, sanitation, hygiene and respiratory illness, said the Clean India Mission had increased private toilets as well as community or pay-per-use public toilet coverage -- but during a pandemic, having access to a shared toilet means little if it is not clean.

Furthermore, poor ventilation can trap contaminated aerosols and "facilitate transmission of the virus," said Ashraf.

That is especially worrying in light of evidence that patients shed the virus through feces, raising the possibility of transmission in communal toilets and places where there is still open defecation.

Workers at risk
The next reason slum-dwellers cannot isolate is simple: they need to work.

Daily wage migrant workers generally live hand-to-mouth, earning between 138-449 Indian rupees ($1.84-$5.97) per day, according to the International Labour Organization.

"They belong to the unorganized sector, they don't get paid the day they don't go to work," says economist Arun Kumar. "It's not just the past few days since the lockdown started, but the momentum towards it has been building up for the past 20 days.

"Supply chains have shut down. Employment is lost. They have no money to purchase essentials. And unlike the rich, they cannot afford to stock up. They buy on a daily basis but now the shelves are empty."

Sonia Manikraj, a 21-year-old teacher who lives in the Dharavi slum, said: "I have to step out to buy food and since grocery shops here are open only from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the roads are quite narrow, there is always a crowd."

Consequently, workers are faced with an agonizing dilemma: go out to work and risk infection, or stay home and face extreme hunger.

Some workers have no choice. Cleaners, for example, are considered to provide an essential service, and are therefore exempted from the lockdown.

"They are required to go to work every day," said Milind Ranade, the founder of Kachra Vahatuk Shramik Sangh, a Mumbai-based organization focused on labor issues. "Some even collect hospital waste and then come back and live in these crowded chawls (slums)."

They are not given any protective gear, such as masks or gloves, said Ranade, and there has not been an awareness campaign to educate them of the dangers of coronavirus transmission.

"What will happen when they fall sick?" Ranade added.

The government's $22.5 billion economic stimulus package includes medical insurance cover of 5 million rupees ($66,451) per person for front-line workers such as nurses, doctors, paramedics and cleaners in government hospitals.

"It may cover the sanitation worker but what about all the others who live around him in the slum and who are equally at risk of contracting the disease from him?" said Raju Kagada, a union leader of sanitation workers in Mumbai.

Slum dwellers, mostly without face masks, say hunger will kill them not coronavirus as they cannot go out to work during the nationwide lockdown.

Kumar said more vigorous coronavirus testing would help. As of March 29, India had conducted 34,931 tests, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research -- or 19 tests per million people. Kumar said testing at a private hospital or lab in India costs 4,500 rupees ($60), while free tests in government hospitals are very limited.

Mahender is a cleaner for a residential community in Mumbai, earning 5,000 rupees ($66) a month, which he uses to support his wife, three children and his 78-year-old father. If he needs medical care, it will not be covered by the stimulus package provisions.

"My phone has been ringing nonstop and the residents of the building where I clean have been calling me back to work," he said. "But I have to go into the building, outside each person's house and collect their trash.

"I have not been given a mask or gloves, not even a soap to wash my hands before my meals. I know if I don't go today, they will hire someone else?"

Migrants who want to go home
Over the weekend, tens of thousands of India's 45 million economic migrant workers began long, arduous journeys back to their rural villages. With India's rail network temporarily shut, many had no choice but to try walking hundreds of miles home.

There was little reason to stay. Most had lost their jobs in the cities due to the lockdown, and the slums have the potential to feed the spread of the virus.

Researchers from the Center For Sustainability said last week that while the reproductive ratio (R naught) for Covid-19 -- the disease caused by the coronavirus -- globally is between two and three, in India's slums it could be 20% higher due to the dense living conditions.

As the slum exodus began, on Saturday the state governments of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Haryana arranged for hundreds of buses to ferry migrants home, causing chaotic scenes as thousands descended upon stations trying to claw their way onto buses.

On Sunday, however, Modi urged all states to seal their borders to stop the virus being imported into rural areas. Officials are now scrambling to find millions of migrant workers who had already returned to small towns and villages across the country, in order to quarantine them for 14 days.

Sia, who lives on the construction site in Gurugram, wasn't able to catch a bus. Her options of escaping the slum during the coronavirus outbreak are looking bleak.

"Since our work has stopped, I haven't been paid for 20 days. I get paid $5 a day, the little money I earn helps my family survive," she said.

"As everything is shutting down, I believe we have no option but to live in this poverty and filth in the city."
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/india/india-coronavirus-social-distancing-intl-hnk/index.html

 

[Jackdaws]

The advantages of a free media bringing the news of the downtrodden should be an eye opener for the Chinese folk here. That's what they also need.

 

[Enigma SIG]

The advantages of a free media bringing the news of the downtrodden should be an eye opener for the Chinese folk here. That's what they also need.

They're communists, plus their Poverty % is less than 0.5%. They don't need a free media; which in most cases as i've experienced in my country is equal to a pack of hyenas.

 

[Andhadhun]

Meanwhile in China,

https://twitter.com/x/status/1244519862703177733

HOw many of you will go inside a restaurant with your child and eat there while your wife is not allowed in ? Experience 'social distancing" chinese style.

Or maybe we can just call it plain old racism.

http://www.sixthtone.com/news/10053...ral-damage-as-china-curbs-imported-infections

Foreigners Collateral Damage as China Curbs Imported Infections

Despite Chinese nationals accounting for the vast majority of COVID-19 cases arriving from abroad, foreigners are being singled out as infection risks.

Late Thursday, China’s foreign ministry announced that the country would temporarily bar most foreign nationals from entry. The policy — which affects nonlocals with valid visas or residence permits but not diplomats or emergency humanitarian personnel — was taken “in light of the outbreak situation and the practices of other countries,” according to the official notice.

With COVID-19 spreading rapidly abroad and the U.S. now reporting the most infections of any country worldwide, China has taken increasingly stringent measures to limit imported infections. As these measures have taken effect, however, foreigners in the country have reported being barred from entering hotels, banks, office buildings, gyms, spas, restaurants, and shops, regardless of their travel history. One widely shared photo of a printed sign in a Beijing shop window reads: “We do not accept foreign friends and people whose temperature is above 37.3 (degrees Celsius) temporarily.”




J Boyce@beijingboyce

"We do not accept foreign friends..."

Just learned this sign is posted in a shop in our Beijing apartment complex. Pass that place every day but have never gone inside. Guess I never will!


45
7:07 PM - Mar 23, 2020
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29 people are talking about this

A South African teacher who has lived in China for three years told Sixth Tone that when she tried to book a sugar wax at a hotel over the weekend, she was told the business wasn’t accepting foreigners. “I was mad! I’ve been in Shanghai this whole time — I have the green QR code!” she said, referring to a government health-monitoring system accessible within Alipay and WeChat, China’s two dominant all-purpose apps.

Like most of the foreigners Sixth Tone interviewed for this story, the teacher would only speak on condition of anonymity.

A French national who works in the food and beverage industry and has lived in China for over 16 years told Sixth Tone by phone that he had recently hoped to return to his house in the island province of Hainan, where he likes to surf. But when he contacted property management over WeChat, they told him he shouldn’t come because he is a foreigner, without inquiring about his recent travel history.

“To me, that’s pretty racist. I was obviously shocked, because it’s my place – it’s not like I rent it,” said the man, who holds permanent residence in China. “I was pretty upset about it because my family’s Chinese, my wife is Chinese. I’ve got two kids, they’re mixed. I’ve been here a long time. I’m one of the old crew when it comes to foreigners.”

He said he believes such incidents during the coronavirus pandemic are rooted in fear, and that this can manifest as irrational decision-making. Although China’s foreign ministry says foreigners have accounted for just 11% of all imported COVID-19 cases, some countries’ belated, ineffective, and even head-scratching responses to the virus, along with spikes in infections abroad, have contributed to rising xenophobia in China.

“People don’t think straight when things are like this,” said the food and beverage professional.

Zinta, a Latvian national, recounted a recent meal she had to eat on the street outside a restaurant in the southwestern city of Chengdu while her Chinese husband and daughter dined inside because a scannable QR code granting entry at the door required that users input a Chinese ID number. Zinta told Sixth Tone the restaurant staff gave her a stool and chair: one to sit on, one to use as a table. “My husband was passing the food through the window to me,” she said.

Zinta, a Latvian national, eats a meal outside a restaurant while her Chinese husband and daughter dine indoors, Chengdu, Sichuan province, 2020. Courtesy of Zinta

Sixth Tone also received several reports of foreigners being barred from their reopening gyms. A teacher from Manchester in the U.K. showed Sixth Tone a text message from his Shanghai gym where he’s been a member for three years.

“Right now, the government has expressly requested that we don’t allow foreigners to enter,” the message said. “We need to follow regulations; otherwise, they won’t allow us to operate. As compensation, foreigners are being given an extra month of membership.”

After some negotiating — sending staff his green health code over WeChat and explaining that another gym nearby was allowing foreigners — the teacher was told he could come back. A personal trainer at Will’s, a popular gym chain in China, told Sixth Tone she had not heard of such exclusionary policies.

Sixth Tone called 10 hotels in central Shanghai and asked whether a British national who hasn’t been abroad this year would be allowed to make a booking. Six said yes — provided the guest’s passport corroborated their travel history, or lack thereof — while three said not at this time. The last hotel said it was only accepting foreigners for two-week bookings — the standard quarantine period — with no leaving the room allowed during that time. One hotel staff member said police were only permitting foreigners to stay in around 20 designated hotels.

When Sixth Tone called Shanghai’s immigration authorities and a local police office, people who answered the phone said they weren’t clear on the current policies regarding foreigners. The Shanghai Call Center, a hotline providing assistance to residents in a dozen languages, told Sixth Tone that there is no citywide policy for where foreigners are and aren’t allowed, and that each residential community sets its own regulations. The receptionist added that foreigners should not encounter problems booking accommodation at hotels that are licensed to accept foreigners, provided they can show green health-tracker codes.

A foreigner living in China describes how passengers get up and move away from him on the subway. From Facebook

Nevertheless, some foreigners feel they’re being treated like disease-carriers. A British head of technical at a clothing company in Shanghai told Sixth Tone that she was initially not allowed into a branch of one of China’s largest banks on Saturday because of confusion over the entry and exit stamps in her and her husband’s passports. After the branch manager finally allowed them in, she said staff tried to direct them to a separate space because they were Westerners, and therefore might alarm the other customers. When she refused, they were served alongside everyone else.

“I felt like a leper, actually,” said the woman. “It was all a bit ridiculous.”

Several foreigners told Sixth Tone they had witnessed locals immediately exit an elevator after they walked in. The British woman said she was refused by three drivers she booked using the popular ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, and had noticed many people moving far away from her on the subway. Her company advised her not to mingle with other foreigners, the woman said, and is considering requiring all staff to disclose, on a weekly basis, the names and nationalities of the people they interact with outside of the office.

“I’ve been here 10 years and never had a single issue,” she said. “I’ve never felt uncomfortable until recently.”

Since the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, xenophobia and discrimination have been on the rise globally, with ethnic Chinese and Asian people more broadly bearing the brunt. Cases of racism, verbal abuse, passive-aggressive behaviors, and physical violence and intimidation against groups such as Chinese students have shot up. Last week, police in the English city of Southampton arrested three boys aged 11 to 13 in connection with a racially motivated attack on a group of young Chinese people who had been wearing face masks.

By comparison, incidents of malicious discrimination against foreigners in China are far less common. In researching this article, Sixth Tone was proactively contacted by several foreigners living in China who said they have not experienced discrimination during the pandemic. Some told anecdotes of acts of kindness by their Chinese neighbors, such as being brought food and medicine during their home quarantines.

“This is a time when everyone should be working together. Foreigners, Chinese — it doesn’t matter. If there are rules, we follow them,” said Zinta, the woman from Latvia. “I hope people will not be afraid of each other, because we all are humans. We need to be kind to one another.”

 

[Enigma SIG]

Actually poverty alleviation has always been China's top priority, we report and focus on poverty issue way more than you Indian media do, but your poverty issue is at a completely different level.

I'm Pakistani lol.

 

[beijingwalker]

The advantages of a free media bringing the news of the downtrodden should be an eye opener for the Chinese folk here. That's what they also need.

Actually poverty alleviation has always been China's top priority, we report and focus on poverty issue way more than you Indian media do, but your poverty issue is at a completely different level.

I'm Pakistani lol.

Sorry, quoted the wrong person.

 

[Balbir]

Actually poverty alleviation has always been China's top priority, we report and focus on poverty issue way more than you Indian media do, but your poverty issue is at a completely different level.

For last two days , i see you keep posting news article about what's happening in India. As a Chinese and someone who knows English, shouldn't you be posting more about what's happening in China as Media in China is censored and outside world can't access uncensored stories ? IF you can post some translated news articles or uncensored Wechat that would be lovely.

These Guardian or CNN articles you post are freely available around the world and anyone can read them. I don't see any reason why you are starting news threads based on similar stories on India as if they are breaking news.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Social distancing is a privilege of the middle class

That is true everywhere, not just in India. You're going to see 'slum/shanty/projects dwellers' struggle in every country.

 

[Jackdaws]

Meanwhile in China,

https://twitter.com/x/status/1244519862703177733

Very sad.

HOw many of you will go inside a restaurant with your child and eat there while your wife is not allowed in ? Experience 'social distancing" chinese style.

Or maybe we can just call it plain old racism.

http://www.sixthtone.com/news/10053...ral-damage-as-china-curbs-imported-infections

Foreigners Collateral Damage as China Curbs Imported Infections

Despite Chinese nationals accounting for the vast majority of COVID-19 cases arriving from abroad, foreigners are being singled out as infection risks.

Late Thursday, China’s foreign ministry announced that the country would temporarily bar most foreign nationals from entry. The policy — which affects nonlocals with valid visas or residence permits but not diplomats or emergency humanitarian personnel — was taken “in light of the outbreak situation and the practices of other countries,” according to the official notice.

With COVID-19 spreading rapidly abroad and the U.S. now reporting the most infections of any country worldwide, China has taken increasingly stringent measures to limit imported infections. As these measures have taken effect, however, foreigners in the country have reported being barred from entering hotels, banks, office buildings, gyms, spas, restaurants, and shops, regardless of their travel history. One widely shared photo of a printed sign in a Beijing shop window reads: “We do not accept foreign friends and people whose temperature is above 37.3 (degrees Celsius) temporarily.”




J Boyce@beijingboyce

"We do not accept foreign friends..."

Just learned this sign is posted in a shop in our Beijing apartment complex. Pass that place every day but have never gone inside. Guess I never will!


45
7:07 PM - Mar 23, 2020
Twitter Ads info and privacy
29 people are talking about this

A South African teacher who has lived in China for three years told Sixth Tone that when she tried to book a sugar wax at a hotel over the weekend, she was told the business wasn’t accepting foreigners. “I was mad! I’ve been in Shanghai this whole time — I have the green QR code!” she said, referring to a government health-monitoring system accessible within Alipay and WeChat, China’s two dominant all-purpose apps.

Like most of the foreigners Sixth Tone interviewed for this story, the teacher would only speak on condition of anonymity.

A French national who works in the food and beverage industry and has lived in China for over 16 years told Sixth Tone by phone that he had recently hoped to return to his house in the island province of Hainan, where he likes to surf. But when he contacted property management over WeChat, they told him he shouldn’t come because he is a foreigner, without inquiring about his recent travel history.

“To me, that’s pretty racist. I was obviously shocked, because it’s my place – it’s not like I rent it,” said the man, who holds permanent residence in China. “I was pretty upset about it because my family’s Chinese, my wife is Chinese. I’ve got two kids, they’re mixed. I’ve been here a long time. I’m one of the old crew when it comes to foreigners.”

He said he believes such incidents during the coronavirus pandemic are rooted in fear, and that this can manifest as irrational decision-making. Although China’s foreign ministry says foreigners have accounted for just 11% of all imported COVID-19 cases, some countries’ belated, ineffective, and even head-scratching responses to the virus, along with spikes in infections abroad, have contributed to rising xenophobia in China.

“People don’t think straight when things are like this,” said the food and beverage professional.

Zinta, a Latvian national, recounted a recent meal she had to eat on the street outside a restaurant in the southwestern city of Chengdu while her Chinese husband and daughter dined inside because a scannable QR code granting entry at the door required that users input a Chinese ID number. Zinta told Sixth Tone the restaurant staff gave her a stool and chair: one to sit on, one to use as a table. “My husband was passing the food through the window to me,” she said.

Zinta, a Latvian national, eats a meal outside a restaurant while her Chinese husband and daughter dine indoors, Chengdu, Sichuan province, 2020. Courtesy of Zinta

Sixth Tone also received several reports of foreigners being barred from their reopening gyms. A teacher from Manchester in the U.K. showed Sixth Tone a text message from his Shanghai gym where he’s been a member for three years.

“Right now, the government has expressly requested that we don’t allow foreigners to enter,” the message said. “We need to follow regulations; otherwise, they won’t allow us to operate. As compensation, foreigners are being given an extra month of membership.”

After some negotiating — sending staff his green health code over WeChat and explaining that another gym nearby was allowing foreigners — the teacher was told he could come back. A personal trainer at Will’s, a popular gym chain in China, told Sixth Tone she had not heard of such exclusionary policies.

Sixth Tone called 10 hotels in central Shanghai and asked whether a British national who hasn’t been abroad this year would be allowed to make a booking. Six said yes — provided the guest’s passport corroborated their travel history, or lack thereof — while three said not at this time. The last hotel said it was only accepting foreigners for two-week bookings — the standard quarantine period — with no leaving the room allowed during that time. One hotel staff member said police were only permitting foreigners to stay in around 20 designated hotels.

When Sixth Tone called Shanghai’s immigration authorities and a local police office, people who answered the phone said they weren’t clear on the current policies regarding foreigners. The Shanghai Call Center, a hotline providing assistance to residents in a dozen languages, told Sixth Tone that there is no citywide policy for where foreigners are and aren’t allowed, and that each residential community sets its own regulations. The receptionist added that foreigners should not encounter problems booking accommodation at hotels that are licensed to accept foreigners, provided they can show green health-tracker codes.

A foreigner living in China describes how passengers get up and move away from him on the subway. From Facebook

Nevertheless, some foreigners feel they’re being treated like disease-carriers. A British head of technical at a clothing company in Shanghai told Sixth Tone that she was initially not allowed into a branch of one of China’s largest banks on Saturday because of confusion over the entry and exit stamps in her and her husband’s passports. After the branch manager finally allowed them in, she said staff tried to direct them to a separate space because they were Westerners, and therefore might alarm the other customers. When she refused, they were served alongside everyone else.

“I felt like a leper, actually,” said the woman. “It was all a bit ridiculous.”

Several foreigners told Sixth Tone they had witnessed locals immediately exit an elevator after they walked in. The British woman said she was refused by three drivers she booked using the popular ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, and had noticed many people moving far away from her on the subway. Her company advised her not to mingle with other foreigners, the woman said, and is considering requiring all staff to disclose, on a weekly basis, the names and nationalities of the people they interact with outside of the office.

“I’ve been here 10 years and never had a single issue,” she said. “I’ve never felt uncomfortable until recently.”

Since the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, xenophobia and discrimination have been on the rise globally, with ethnic Chinese and Asian people more broadly bearing the brunt. Cases of racism, verbal abuse, passive-aggressive behaviors, and physical violence and intimidation against groups such as Chinese students have shot up. Last week, police in the English city of Southampton arrested three boys aged 11 to 13 in connection with a racially motivated attack on a group of young Chinese people who had been wearing face masks.

By comparison, incidents of malicious discrimination against foreigners in China are far less common. In researching this article, Sixth Tone was proactively contacted by several foreigners living in China who said they have not experienced discrimination during the pandemic. Some told anecdotes of acts of kindness by their Chinese neighbors, such as being brought food and medicine during their home quarantines.

“This is a time when everyone should be working together. Foreigners, Chinese — it doesn’t matter. If there are rules, we follow them,” said Zinta, the woman from Latvia. “I hope people will not be afraid of each other, because we all are humans. We need to be kind to one another.”

They're communists, plus their Poverty % is less than 0.5%. They don't need a free media; which in most cases as i've experienced in my country is equal to a pack of hyenas.

Everyone needs a free media. Just ask the families who first died in Wuhan when the news was suppressed.

Actually poverty alleviation has always been China's top priority, we report and focus on poverty issue way more than you Indian media do, but your poverty issue is at a completely different level.


Sorry, quoted the wrong person.

Maybe that's the line the communist media in China feeds their population.

 

[beijingwalker]

Maybe that's the line the communist media in China feeds their population.

Many foreigner travelers traveled to the remotest corners and poorest regions in China, watch their vlogs and se how they are amazed.

 

[Jackdaws]

Many foreigner travelers traveled to the remotest corners and poorest regions in China, watch their vlogs and se how they are amazed.

Am sure they are. Lots of natural beauty there. But that's irrelevant. News outlets and travel vlogs are different. A man traveling to DC showing the museums in his vlog is not going to unearth the Watergate scandal

 

[beijingwalker]

Am sure they are. Lots of natural beauty there. But that's irrelevant. News outlets and travel vlogs are different. A man traveling to DC showing the museums in his vlog is not going to unearth the Watergate scandal

I mean cities, towns and villages in remote regions, China always puts poverty alleviation top priority task over all other issues.

 

[Jackdaws]

I mean cities, towns and villages in remote regions, China always puts poverty alleviation top priority task over all other issues.

Yes it does. And it has done a great job of alleviating poverty and India can learn from that. But that has absolutely nothing to do with a free media.

 

[krash]

The advantages of a free media bringing the news of the downtrodden should be an eye opener for the Chinese folk here. That's what they also need.

Wow, look at that. In one fell swoop you fixed the problem for all those thousands of Indians. Should be proud of yourself.


Also, that is CNN. They operate the exact same way from China as well. "Free media".

 

[Jackdaws]

Wow, look at that. In one fell swoop you fixed the problem for all those thousands of Indians. Should be proud of yourself.


Also, that is CNN. They operate the exact same way from China as well. "Free media".

Exact same way? Limited to a few compounds? And passing through a Chinese sat feed.
Bravo.