DMK’s Madurai Central MLA and the newly sworn in Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan, said on air that John Maynard Keynes is a Nobel Prize winner.
The Finance Minister was expressing his views during a debate show in a prominent Tamil news channel. Responding to a question about the DMK’s flip-flop position on lockdowns Palanivel Thiagarajan quoted famous economist John Maynard Keynes and said that “When the facts change, I change my mind. When the truth/data changes, I have no choice but to change my policy”.
“We are moving towards a complete lockdown from Monday onwards for 2 weeks. You have been very vocal about the issues and concerns related to people’s livelihood and the effect this has on industrial growth. Won’t the lockdown make things worse?”, the anchor asks.
“Everything has to be considered in context” starts Palanivel Thiagarajan and goes on to say that the previous lockdown was announced just 3-4 hours before. He also claimed that the relief materials reached people only 2-3 months later.
“This time, we planned it well after discussing with experts that even opposition parties like ADMK, PMK welcomed the move.” adding that the Chief Minister MK Stalin has called for a meeting of small traders, industrialist and ministers to discuss possible problems and solutions.
He also claimed that the number of cases and deaths were underreported in the AIADMK regime and that the present Chief Minister has called for ‘transparency’ to ascertain the intensity of the pandemic.
He said that this spike of the second wave is a never seen before event and is 3 times higher than the first wave and goes on to say that epidemiologists across the world suggest that it is critical to put a barrier. He further stated that the government is ensuring oxygen supplies and beds but that it cannot be done without a break. “Unless we take this break, this cycle of transmission will keep rising”.
DMK chief MK Stalin had earlier on April 24 said that Tamil Nadu cannot bear another lockdown and that officials need to work on a war footing to ensure oxygen, bed and drug availability.
Citing this, anchor Karthigaichelvan hesitantly asks whether the DMK government has failed in predicting the second wave. “Earlier, you said that Tamil Nadu cannot handle another lockdown after May 2. So, has something gone wrong in the prediction?”, asks Karthigaichelvan to which the DMK Finance Minister claims that the number of COVID positive cases given before May 2 was all wrong and that the situation has worsened today with cases rising exponentially.
He went on to state that the DMK never wished to impose lockdown and went on to take an indirect dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that only those who care less for people impose lockdown with just 3-4 hours notice.
“We care for people and we don’t do things like that. We want to be with people, make them understand the necessity of a lockdown and do this with their support. That is how our CM operates.”, he said.
He further goes on to say “There is a famous economist called John Maynard Keynes, a Nobel Prize winner. He said ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. When the truth/data changes, I have no choice but to change my policy’. Hence, in this current situation, we have no choice and we will discuss with experts to get the necessary organizational, executional and financial support in dealing with this”.
It is to be noted that John Maynard Keynes died in 1946 and the first Nobel Prize was given to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen in 1969.
Watch the full video here.
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