India Counters International Media on Covid-19, Jaishankar Bats for Global Medical Supply Chain and India, Japan and Australia form Supply Chain Resilience Programme

Dear Reader,

Today is the first Saturday of the month and so I will be discussing current events related to nationalism in India.

1)

The first I would like to discuss is the Indian External Affairs Minister Subramaniam Jaishankar's instructions to Indian diplomats and ambassadors in India to counter the reporting in the international media about the situation regarding Covid-19 in India.

S. Jaishankar External Affairs Minister

These instructions were given in a virtual meeting on 29th April in which the majority of the discussions were on procuring medical supplies from other countries. The minister also told the attendees, not to get overpowered by the “negative” media reports but to take charge and project the government’s side of the story.

The participants were told that the ferocity of the second surge was something no public health expert in the world had predicted, and that health infrastructure even in the most advanced countries had crumbled in the first wave last year, so this was not a disaster that was uniquely Indian.

The envoys were told that oxygen shortage was not due to a shortfall in production but due to restricted geographies of production, entailing transport across vast distances. The participants were also told to disseminate that there could be no connection between the elections, campaign rallies and the spike in numbers.

I believe that this is necessary. Amidst this surging Coronavirus wave, India has become the centre of attention for media all around the world. 

The British-American media company Getty Images now hosts multiple images depicting multiple Indian funeral pyres lit ablaze on their website. From here, any potential media group around the world can buy these images, in three different sizes, with the largest size priced at about Rs. 23,000. In fact, most of the large versions of the images are priced at Rs. 23,000.

The western media, such as the Washington Post, The New York Times, Al Jazeera and others are very biased against the Modi government and India in general. They have been looking to get him out of office and have a globalist puppet like Rahul Gandhi or any of the other opposition party politicians into power.

They are using this pandemic as an excuse to bash Modi excessively in order to create panic in the country and to make the opposition parties look better in comparison. 

The fact that they are buying the same images of funeral pyres and posting them on their pages shows that all of these images are not of new deaths, but old deaths. 

They are ignoring the fact that India has done many things well during this pandemic. In the first wave the number of cases and deaths (each of which is tragic) were relatively lower compared to other countries of similar size and population. 

India started its vaccination program in January of this year and has so far vaccinated 150 million people which is 11.5 % of the population https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56345591, which is a larger number than the number of Americans who have been vaccinated (100 million). The fact that this has been reported in the BBC means it must be true. They would never otherwise report positive news about the Modi government.

 India has also expanded the number of hospital beds and hospitals themselves.

The western media has failed to mention that the states which have the worst outbreaks like Maharashtra, and the Union Territory of Delhi are ruled by the opposition. They are not criticising the CMs of these states, but are only criticizing the PM. This shows that they are politically motivated.

The government is right in countering this propoganda against itself and against the country at large. If they don't the media will cause panic to spread, which may lead to riots and anarchy which would destabilize the government.

From a nationalist perspective I believe that this is an excellent instruction given by the EAM.

2) 

The second news I would like to discuss is the visit of the Indian External Affairs Minister,  to London for the G-7 plus 3 Ministerial meeting that will happen on Monday. But the proposal for which has already been announced to the Indian media https://www.wionews.com/india-news/jaishankar-to-visit-london-to-discuss-global-medical-supply-chain-in-g7-ministerial-381800.

The focus of this meeting is on the need to strengthen global supply chains in fighting the pandemic. India will focus on providing a solution to the delicensing of the Covid-19 vaccine in order to make the vaccines available for people all over the world.

I partly agree and disagree with this proposal. 

I agree with it because I think that this will help people all over the world get easier access to vaccines. This will prevent multinational companies from hoarding them and engaging in price-gouging. This is a nationalist cause that will help India.

I disagree with it because I think this will hurt the medical industries of those countries which have produced the vaccines which includes India, which has produced two Covid-19 vaccines, AstraZeneca and Covaxin. This will cause countries to lose control of the supply of these vaccines and other medical resources and will not allow them to keep at least some of the stock for their own people

So from a nationalist perspective I believe that this proposal is average.

3)

The Supply Chain Resilience Initiative was formally launched on Tuesday by the Trade ministers of India, Japan and Australia. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/china-wary-as-india-australia-japan-push-supply-chain-resilience/article34431964.ece

Piyush Goyal, Commerce and Industry Minister of India

This initiative will strengthen supply chains between all three countries to prevent them from being over-dependent on any one country. This is done to reduce the excessive power that China has over the global supply chains.

There are several measures in this initiative. Such as supporting the enhanced utilisation of digital technology and trade and investment diversification.

I wholeheartedly agree with this initiative between the three countries. In this pandemic the whole world was found to be dependent on China for the supply of drugs and medical equipment. China took advantage of this by delaying the delivery of these, and by increasing their prices forcing the importing countries to endure losses. They also took advantage of the economic distress of these countries and bought up companies that were financially weak. 

This initiative will prevent these countries from ever being in such a situation again.

It will give a boost to the industries of each of these three nations and any others that join in. This will have an even greater impact for India which is already undertaking the Make in India initiative to increase manufacturing in the country.

For the aforementioned reasons, I can safely say that this initiative greatly supports nationalism in India.

Thank you for Reading.