The Indian High Commission in Canberra has issued a rebuttal and condemned the article published in The Australian titled ‘Modi leads India out of lockdown and into a Covid apocalypse’.
The Deputy High Commissioner P.S. Karthigeyan wrote to Christopher Dore, editor-in-Chief of The Australian, urging the newspaper to publish the rejoinder to set the record straight on the covid management in India and also refrain from publishing such baseless articles in future.
The letter read, “It is astonishing to see that your respected publication has chosen to reproduce a completely baseless, malicious and defamatory article without bothering to check the facts of the case with any authorities in the Government of India. It appears that the report has been written only with the sole objective of undermining the universally acclaimed approach taken by the Government of India to fight against the deadly global pandemic, at this decisive moment”.
The letter further said about the measures undertaken by the Indian government to tackle the spread of the Coronavirus.
The letter further read, “Starting with the longest and strictest lockdown in the world to the ongoing Covid-18 vaccination drive, the Indian government has taken a number of measures to control the pandemic. Massive up-gradation in diagnostics (1.7 Million tests on April 25, 2021) and treatment facilities are undertaken in a record time have saved hundreds of millions of lives. They have been praised by the global community.”
The letter stated that the coverage of such motivated and malicious reports in the publication only help in spreading falsehoods and undermining humanity’s common fight against the pandemic.
Arrogance, hyper-nationalism and bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a crisis of epic proportions in India, with its crowd-loving PM basking while citizens suffocate. This is the story of how it all went so terribly wrong #coronavirus https://t.co/bL8VXkz5RD
— The Australian (@australian) April 25, 2021
The article was written by Philip Sherwell originally appeared in The Times on April 25, 2021and was later reproduced in The Australian.
Arrogance, hyper-nationalism, and bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a crisis of epic proportions in India, with its crowd-loving PM basking while citizens suffocate, read the article.
On Monday, India’s Covid count for the past 24 hours exceeded 3 lakh for the sixth day in a row, and for the seventh consecutive day, deaths crossed the 2,000 marks. The month of April has claimed 34,595 lives so far, of which 17,333 came in the last seven days.