Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation at 8 pm on Tuesday had eyes and ears of the whole country. The reason being, the expectation of resolution of their issues during the coronavirus lockdown. But the PM did not just leave the majority disappointed; it even got them confused. Contrary to citizen's expectations, the address sounded more like economics and a moral science lecture.
While the economy is going under a massive slowdown, concepts like ‘Make in India’ and self-reliance might be the plausible way, but, when the world is undergoing a global crisis, focusing only on one part, seems unjust and half-resolved.
According to Google, the second-highest search on Google was about what Modi-ji said in his 34-minute speech.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken lives of more than three lakh people worldwide. Cases in India are also surging at a very high speed. In such a scenario, people were expecting answers to the questions like what relaxations will be granted when the lockdown extends, how the various income groups are going to survive the dual crisis, what will happen to the poor migrants etc. On the previous day, PM Modi had a six-hour-long meeting with various Chief Ministers to get state-wise ground reality and subsequent solutions. But instead of solving the doubts, Modi-ji left the nation with more questions than he answered. Promising India’s 10 per cent GDP raised hopes and brought smiles but triggered confusions at the same time.
After the long build-up, the key takeaways were:
- Special economic relief package of 20 lakh crore, nearly 10 per cent of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), focusing on land, labour, liquidity and laws. Further details will be shared by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman.
- A Lockdown 4.0 with new rules and relaxations will be implemented from May 18. The details of the same will be shared on or before the aforementioned date.
-He insisted on local for vocal, i.e. supporting Indian products and consuming more of them.
While most of the population had no idea about how the economic package will help them cope up with the crisis and its technicalities, Google trends for that hour showed people dividing the equal amount of money among the population of India. Some people compared the economic package to Pakistan's overall GDP. This was all a representation of the ambiguous address by the PM.
This took a toll on the citizens and the internet was stormed by memes and trolls.
On May 3, the government took out the list of Red, orange and green zones which were to be followed for a week. It also stated that a fresh list would come out every week and has to be adhered to. But no updated list of all the three zones has come out yet.
This being said, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman addressed the nation thereafter and thankfully, the citizens got more clarity.
