No, not when it comes to spending money will Modi be able to outboast: Trump has signed the largest-ever US financial stimulus package, worth $2tn (£1.7tn), as the country grapples with the coronavirus pandemic.
But in being able to boast to Xi and Trump about beating the Chinese virus. When the US had more confirmed cases of thecoronavirus than any other country, with more than 97,000 positive tests, Trump called Xi, “Beat that you commies. America is Great Again.”
Seriously, as the Economist wrote last week:
Fears are rising that the world’s second-most populous country might be on the brink of a big covid-19 outbreak. Until now India has been lucky with this coronavirus. It has relatively few visitors from the early centres of the pandemic—China, Italy and Iran. And Indian governments, at both federal and state levels, have been strikingly forceful in their response to the virus, with public-information campaigns saturating the television airwaves, and recorded messages pushed to mobile phones. So the number of Indian cases so far can be counted in the scores. But India has so far tested only a few thousand people, and some experts think it already has thousands or tens of thousands of cases. If so, decades of under-investment in public health have left India ill-prepared, with not enough doctors, beds or equipment for its 1.3bn people even in ordinary times.
Economist
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Is the world’s second-most populous country testing enough?: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-51922204
But India, while “not very good at routine stuff”, is “very good in mission mode.” As the BBC reports
A state that largely fails to deliver quality public health and education to its people excels in “mission mode” with deadline-driven, specific targets.
It went door-to-door, and vaccinated more than 170 million children and eradicated polio. It regularly holds trouble-free votes involving hundreds of millions of people – 67% of the 910 million eligible voters cast their ballots in the 2019 general election. An under-developed and crime-ridden state like Uttar Pradesh, with a population of the size of Brazil, regularly hosts the Kumbh Mela, the world’s biggest open air religious gathering of people. It prepared for more then 100 million pilgrims last year, without a single stampede or health scare. It is all very counter-intuitive.
“The Indian state,” says Prof Mehta, “is not very good at routine stuff, but very good in mission mode.” It also helps that Indians, especially faced with a crisis, show unusually high levels of social cohesion and adaptability.
Over the years an increasing number of states have beefed up capacity for delivering welfare schemes and services more efficiently. Kerala has been a shining example for years. But now, even states like Orissa in the east are catching up: it has given 500,000 rupees ($6,626; £5,582) to every village council to build a quarantine centre, in what is seen as exemplary strategic disaster planning.
India’s mission-mode capacities will be now put to the test in more ways than one.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52043465
Let’s hope Modi will not need to call Xi or Trump to boast about having more victims of the Chinese virus than China or the US of A.
Instead Indian patriots should pray and hope that he’ll be able to call Trump and Xi and say “Pandemic? What pandemic? We handled the Chinese virus better than you guys. India is rising and don’t you forget it.”
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 