Media Release
Dubai, Jul 15: International Journal of Academic Research in Social Sciences & Humanities (IJARSH) in association with a start-up, Lexprise jointly on July 12 organized a national webinar on the topic 'COVID-19 and the ambit of Disaster Management Act'.
Dr S Rajesh, director NITI Aayog director (attached)-COVID-19 core team, department of Health Research, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India was one of the keyspeakers in the webinar. Dr Rajesh explained COVID-19 as a pandemic of unprecedented nature. "We have been fighting hard across the country and districts to deal with this pandemic. And as of today, with our collective efforts, we reached over 2,80,000 tests per day that shows the scale of involvement currently going on in fighting this pandemic.”
He shared that a multi-pronged approach is needed to deal with such pandemic situations. He discussed in detail about the provisions, responsibilities and penalties included in the Disaster Management Act. He added that as per the constitution, health is a state subject but this pandemic has crossed the state borders and now it is the responsibility of both the central and state governments to act on it. He concluded hoping that this dynamic pandemic ends soon and that the good governance of provisions of the act and a great level of coordinated response at all levels is needed to fight against this pandemic.
Dr Kalpana Gopalan, IAS, additional chief secretary, department of Youth Empowerment & Sports, Government of Karnataka as eminent speaker also shared her views in the webinar. She highlighted that the governments require a legal provision to act in a situation as COVID-19 pandemic. Though the Disaster Management Act has provisions to fight against disasters such as natural calamities and drought, COVID-19 pandemic is the first of its kind and requires some additions and changes to the Act, she added. Both the speakers insisted on social responsibility of each person to use masks, maintain social distancing and reporting to the officials on violators of quarantine which will add to flattening of the COVID-19 pandemic curve in India. Other speakers who contributed to the Webinar include Advocate Sumitra Choudhary, Supreme Court of India who stressed upon the legal provisions involved in the Disaster Management Act and Dr Jacinta Dsilva, Assistant Professor, Modul University, Dubai who also shared on how the pandemic has effected the lives of common people particularly youth. She also highlighted how the youth/students can utilise their time proactively rather than spreading negative feelings.
Prof A V Narasimha Rao, Director, ICFAI Law School, Hyderabad and Prof V Shekar, Director, Centre for Socio-Economic and Business Studies also participated in the Webinar. Dr A Arun Kumar, Assistant Professor, ICFAI Law School, the founder and editor of IJARSH opined that the topic of the webinar is utmost essential in the current scenario. Dr T Sowmyya, Assistant Professor, Forensic Science, Osmania University, Hyderabad and also the editor of IJARSH; Dr Rubee Singh Rajput, managing editor, IJARSH and Ashwaq, founder, Lexprise were among the core team members who hosted this webinar successfully.