ISSUE DATE: May 17, 2021 UPDATED: May 7, 2021 23:36 IST Staff at the Ghazipur crematorium in Delhi cart in fresh logs as funeral pyres burn all around them (Rajk Raj/ Getty Images) The second wave of Covid-19 is still cresting but by now we have all been touched by its terrors, and all too many of us by its sorrows—and the dismal realisation that we are in the midst of a recurring nightmare, a tragedy foretold. Here, we expose the sorry tale of neglect, apathy and failure of our political leadership. The institutional collapse and bureaucratic cowardice that facilitated super-spreader religious festivals and the political carnival of an eight-phase election campaign even as the second wave of a pandemic was breaking. The narcissism that enabled our leadership to ignore the warnings of expert groups. Their inability to form bipartisan alliances between the Centre and the states in the middle of a national calamity. Now that some of the loudest voices in the land have gone quiet, the government’s silence over the anguished and angry questions being raised over its management of Covid’s second wave can be deafening. Our reports offer some answers to these questions and suggestions from experts on how to find a way out of this continuing tragedy of errors. Most of all, we need action from the government—and fast.