There's a need to hold up a mirror to Modi govt on Covid management, and this is the picture

There’s a need to hold up a mirror to Modi govt on Covid management, and this is the picture
Shekhar Gupta
© Provided by The Print
Our friendly little Israel just marked its exit from the pandemic with cases down 97 per cent. The not-so-friendly and bigger China announced its full recovery from Covid with a quarter of 18.3 per cent growth. Now, move your gaze to India on the same day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a top-level meeting to respond to the growing crisis over the shortage of medical oxygen as Covid cases, deaths and positivity rates rise.
He didn’t waste any time in ceremonials or election campaigning on the day we are writing this. Already, Modi had cancelled a scheduled meeting with the visiting French foreign minister, not something you’d expect him to do casually. Especially given the centrality of France to India’s strategic interests and the PM’s likely summit with French President Emmanuel Macron later this year. In fairness, you could argue that the PM is so sensitive to his people’s distress that he is willing to leave everything else and focus personally on the day’s gravest crisis. But, should the crisis have become so grave that the prime minister of a nation of 1.38 billion with nuclear weapons and pretensions to be a global power is reviewing the supply status of medical oxygen?

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