What really is essential?

To make iron-fisted distinctions between essential and non-essential products is poor policy making

Nivedita Mookerji 

Nivedita Mookerji

A colleague is managing without bathroom slippers as these are not part of the essential list allowed during the nationwide lockdown. A relative is working from home with broken spectacles as no replacement is possible at this point.

A neighbour has borrowed her mother’s mobile phone as her’s cannot be repaired. Back home the car refuses to start due to a problem in the battery copper connector and that tiny part is not available anywhere. That of course is not any one person’s story but captures the daily struggle that one has to go through if the things that you require ...

First Published: Wed, April 29 2020. 22:31 IST