7 deadly sins of India’s Coronavirus repsonse

India’s response to the Coronavirus epidemic can best be described as inadequate and confused at best, and ineffective and damaging at worst. To use the metaphor of the seven deadly sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride) would be a far stretch but it is easy enough to identify 7 clear failings of…

Enough said!

 

India has a major illiteracy problem. Some states are worse than others. The 2011 census data are illuminating. If you split India’s states into Hindi speaking states and the rest, the large Hindi speaking states are among the worst performers.

There is a similar large variation between states in the sex ratio ( No of girls per 1000 boys) at birth. And trhere appears to be a corrlation between the two indicators. States that do least well on women’s literacy also have the  lowest sex ratios

 

 

Women bear the brunt of the disadvantages of illiteracy. Of a total of about 320 million Indians who are illiterate, some 2/3rds are women.

 

These charts were prepared using data from the Indian Census of 2011, on R and with the ggplot2 package.