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Covid-19 crisis akin to Mahabharata, must turn challenge into opportunity: Khattar
Asks students to boycott Chinese products, says people must change lifestyle in wake of the pandemic
Likening the coronavirus crisis to the Mahabharata, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar in his online address on Post Corona: Self Reliant India to faculty and staff of the Kurukshetra University on Saturday said people will have to implement changes in their daily lives to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Educational institutions were to open on March 15 after Holi but we suddenly had to declare a lockdown to control the pandemic, which was challenging, especially for students who were preparing for exams,” he said.
“Most exams were cancelled or postponed due to the pandemic . There is no clarity on how the situation will return normal but we have to turn this challenge into an opportunity,” he said.
MUST CHANGE LIFESTYLE: KHATTAR
“The year 2020, is new version of life and we have to adopt it,” he said.
He recounted the steps taken by the Centre and state governments to deal with the situation and provide relief to people. He said becoming self-dependent will take time as there was need to make changes in lifestyles.
The CM said the government had announced some changes to ensure studies continued during the lockdown and 52 lakh students were receiving online classes introduced by the NCERT and two lakh students were being provided classes through the Siksha Setu App.
COLLATERAL FREE LOANS
He said efforts were being made to provide collateral free loans to students.
He said the pandemic had affected the life of sportspersons as they were unable to practice and all sporting events had been called off.
The chief minister told students that the pandemic had made countrymen realise their strength as developed countries such as the USA had to beg for support from India:”The USA had to beg for support from us and we extended our helping hand. This is our strength,” he said.
The CM said that Haryana was ready to extend support to the country during the crises and will fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s expectations and become the growth engine of the country.
‘AVOID CHINESE PRODUCTS’
Khattar also stressed on the need to cut import and increase domestic production to make India self-reliant.
“We should avoid Chinese products and support local products. It is China versus the rest of the world as China is the birthplace of the coronavirus and there is need to isolate it financially,” he said.
“Self-reliance can only be achieved if we have self- confidence,” Khattar said, giving the example of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.
“India used to import wheat before the green revolution but now India has surplus wheat,” he said.
Khattar, however, blamed other states for the increasing number of infected persons in Haryana, but said that the government was fighting against the coronavirus and it will win.
During his speech, the chief minister did not say anything about the government’s plans to hold examinations of students studying in state universities and colleges.
