New Delhi, Sept 2, 2020: A UK-based online magazine has ranked K K Shailaja, the health minister of the southern Indian state of Kerala, the top among 50 world thinkers.
“So deft was her handling of a 2018 outbreak of the deadly Nipah disease that it was commemorated in a film, Virus. In 2020, she was the right woman in the right place. When Covid-19 was still “a China story” in January, she not only accurately foresaw its inevitable arrival, but also fully grasped the implications,” says the Prospect in its September 2 report on top thinkers of the world.
Some 20,000-odd people around the world took part the public ballot.
“The top spot was overwhelmingly secured by a figure who—on first blush—is as far from a caricature intellectual of the Jean-Paul Sartre variety as you can get. That’s not quite right since, like Sartre, KK Shailaja is a communist, albeit from a party created to keep its distance from Soviet Moscow. It helps run the state of Kerala in south India, where Shailaja or “Teacher,” as she is fondly nicknamed due to a previous occupation, is the indefatigable health minister, the report adds.
After she was alerted about the “China story, Shailaja immediately got the WHO’s full “test, trace and isolate” drill implemented in the state, and bought crucial time by getting a grip of the airports, and containing the first cases to arrive on Chinese flights.
She also launched rigorous surveillance and quarantine—sometimes in makeshift structures. “The public messages have been consistent, and Shailaja follows them to the letter, with social distancing in all official meetings (which can go on until 10 pm) and restricting herself to a Zoom-only relationship with her grandchildren,” the report points out.
Cases and deaths were kept remarkably low into the summer, although as it drew to a close they began to grow fast—just as Shailaja had warned they would.
“Shailaja’s masterclass in public administration will boost the odds in the next and more difficult phase,” the magazine says.
Other winners are Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister, whose governing “ethos of kindness” kept the lid on the crisis. Just behind her is the Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum for applying her mind to climate change. She designs houses on stilts to keep families safe from rising waters.
To know the rest of winners please read the Prospect report.