ThePrint report about 98 per cent of oximeters sold in India being Made-in-China and recent heavy imports of Covid medical equipment is a lesson for ‘swadeshi’ and boycott-China proponents. ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ is catchy, but a fake call to political nationalism. Forget fragile egos, self-reliance can’t work outside global supply chains.
India’s pedestrian vaccination programme a national embarrassment, slow pace is big failure
That most of India is unlikely to start vaccinating all adults from 1 May is a shame. But a bigger failure is the slow pace of vaccination for the existing categories, averaging less than 25 lakh for the last 10 days. India’s pedestrian vaccination programme has been a national embarrassment.
Soli Sorabjee was a guardian of Indian liberalism and civil rights
In legal and constitutional giant Soli Sorabjee’s death, India lost a guardian of liberalism and civil rights. Besides having been attorney general, he was an inspiration for the many defining moments of Indian constitutional history. Yet, Jazz remained Sorabjee’s “first love,” an art that helped him “improvise situations in courts.”
Atmanribhar Bharat is why we have Covaxin – which required no imports.
The fact that there is a Oxygen shortage in Delhi due to lack of adequate cryogenic tankers and storage facilities is because no where in the world is the case load so high and the demands so great. Claiming that no efforts were made since last year is a total lie considering that in 2021 we are self sufficient in PPE, self sufficient in Remdesevir, self sufficient in Vaccine development and self sufficient in anti-virals, making ventilators domestically besides other medical equipment.
No other country has as much access to vaccines barring the US. Also, the number of vaccines being given so far also outstrips any developing nation and most developed nations.
Atmanirbhar Bharat is supposed to be every left-wingers wet dream come true. However, they will still criticize it simply because it came from Modi.
The true essence of the program is(at least one hopes it is) to cut down our over reliance on imports from China. Classic example being that of pharma APIs, no reason why we cannot end our reliance on the Chinese, which was the case till a few years ago.
Using the pulse occimeter example or any other similar comparison in the short run will be flawed.
Seher ka waqt hai, aur jaam mein sharaab nahin. There are simply not enough doses of vaccine. Either to support the initial programme, which should have been one crore jabs a day by now. Or the tossed away to the states 18 – 44 years programme, which CM Jagan Reddy of AP has said cannot start before September. A ToI edit says ramping up of domestic manufacture will take three months. 2. The cost of not vaccinating swiftly enough will be the economic recovery destroying lockdowns. The maddening funeral pyres that never stop burning. 3. The media should continue to report diligently. The post Bobde judiciary is playing its assigned constitutional role. Lekin yeh kaam toh executive ka hai. Karna chahiye. India is beyond PR and spin.
Brilliant OTC with BMC Commissioner Shri I S Chahal. The only issue on which he turned diplomatic is the availability of vaccine doses. A two to three month enterprise to vaccinate the city. Imagine an India in which everyone has had her second dose, hardly anyone getting infected thereafter. We can wave aside the third wave if and when it comes. There should now be a laser like focus on producing the required two billion doses of vaccines.
Like five wise men doing an MRI scan of small parts of an elephant’s body, no one really has the full measure of what Aatma Nirbharta means. By all accounts, import substitution, a historically invalidated concept. Reflected in exports wallowing in a trough of $ 300 billion, exclusion from global manufacturing chains, not joining RCEP. 2. China is the world’s factory. The composition of its exports is steadily moving to more advanced products. We need to accept the facts of life while dealing with China, in both the economic and the strategic spheres. 3. As an Indian, must say, foreign aid hurts. That is the negation of Aatma Nirbharta which we should be more concerned with.
Soli Sorabjee, Fali Nariman, Nani Palkhivala, we grew up hearing these great names. Rest in peace.
Outsized role of the Parsi community in India that even the Jews, with all their achievements, cannot match in the US