Club Online Zoom Event: Confronting India’s COVID-19 Catastrophe

ONLINE ZOOM EVENT Confronting India’s COVID-19 Catastrophe

PANEL Tuesday, May 11, 2021 8:00pm HKT on Zoom

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced intense criticism for failing to prepare for the latest wave of the coronavirus in India. At the same time, his administration has tried to suppress the true scale of the disaster, including its failures over oxygen supplies and vaccines, and has been aided and abetted by large sections of the national media. In this FCC Zoom event, journalists Rana Ayyub and Barkha Dutt will discuss the enormous professional and personal challenges in covering India’s coronavirus crisis. They will describe how they have continued to cover the country’s catastrophic health situation while coping with the deaths of immediate members of their families from the virus, and share what it has been like to live through the crisis while trying to uncover the truth about the situation. Moderated by FCC First Vice President Eric Wishart.

Panelists include:

Barkha Dutt is an Indian television journalist, author and owner of YouTube news channel MoJo Story. She is an opinion columnist with The Hindustan Times and The Washington Post. Dutt was part of NDTV’s team for 21 years, was the host of the weekly, award-winning talk-show We The People as well as the daily prime-time show The Buck Stops Here. Dutt has won many national and international awards, including the Padma Shri, India’s fourth highest civilian honour.

Rana Ayyub is an Indian investigative journalist and a global opinions Editor at The Washington Post. She has worked as a reporter, editor and columnist with some of the leading publications in India and internationally. Her pieces appear in Time, The New York Times, The Guardian and Foreign Policy among other publications. In 2020, she was announced as the recipient of the McGill Medal for journalistic courage. She is presently working on a memoir and an adaptation of her book Gujarat Files.

This online event is free of charge and open to FCC members, their guests and the media, and advance registration is required. Registered guests will receive the Zoom link, meeting ID and password the day before the event. Members can test this link immediately. A waiting room will be opened two hours before the start of the event.