845 Satya Mohanty Former Secretary, Govt of India THE Indian State has not been the strongest and there are several reasons for feeble State capacity — paucity of funds and manpower, pork-barrel politics and multiple objectives without the wherewithal to achieve them. But during a crisis, every time the State has been pulled by the bootstraps, it has delivered when the promise was faint. The technical cadre, bureaucracy, the states and municipalities often rose to the occasion. What we have seen in New Delhi amid the second wave of Covid-19 is not just a collapse of a rickety system, but everyone running around like headless chicken. No longer do people look to the State, which has clearly betrayed the trust in failing to plan ahead during this pandemic. And perhaps more so because no plan was being made adequately, it left everyone to his own devices. Planning not only involves thinking in advance, but it also exponentially improves response. Right from the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, emergency response has been based on a triage. This should have been followed by a priority scheme by which only the most serious cases are taken into the ICU and the rest handled either with oxygen or general beds or home quarantine. When triage is established and serious cases are taken in and monitored, panic is booted out of the window.