International cooperation to counter global challenges like the current pandemic is advantageous to both India and the rest of the world, said External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar highlighting India's recent initiatives to provide vaccines to a large number of developing countries to help them fight the COVID-19.
“Our ability to make vaccines,... is itself a result of international cooperation. So international cooperation is not a one-way street where we are giving things to other people and somewhere short changing ourselves, I think people need to understand that,” said Mr Jaishankar in an interaction at the annual Raisina Dialogue. He argued, as a result of international partnership and research India was able to increase manufacturing of vaccines “developed elsewhere” while also developing indigenous vaccines in the countr.
Mr Jaishankar credited the Government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on being the first responder on a number of crisis situations in the neighbourhood and beyond and the response to the pandemic, he said is part of that same chain of initiatives.
“If you look in terms of humanitarian assistance, whether it was an earthquake in Nepal, or a civil war in Yemen, or a cyclone in Mozambique, or a typhoon in Fiji, or a mudslide in Sri Lanka, or whether it is taking the Paris agenda forward through initiatives like the international Solar Alliance, or how to respond collectively towards disaster resilience. So there are very practical ways by which we have demonstrated our belief in the world as a family,” said the senior minister.
He argued that the success of India's domestic battle with the COVID-19 has not received sufficient global attention. He highlighted that during the lockdown and the aftermath, the Government of India transferred cash to 400 million citizens and at the same time 800 million people received food from the government. “Now, if you go anywhere in the world and say, listen guys, I just paid out 400 million people, and I've fed 800 million people, you should make waves,” said Mr Jaishankar asking for global attention on the work of the Indian government to counter the pandemic and its economic effects.