shaEAM Jaishankar calls out critics of Covid-19 vaccine export

On Monday, Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar blasted critics of India's Covid-19 vaccine exports on Monday, calling them "short-sighted" as well as "irresponsible and non-serious" individuals.

He explained that there were global obligations for a number of purposes, such as the sourcing of raw materials for the jabs' manufacture. He also "pushed" the big nations to maintain a steady supply of raw materials for the Covid-19 vaccine's manufacturing in India.

Jaishankar emphasised on the concept of global supply chains, claiming that economies are not self-contained institutions but ones that depend on one another to function. He said, “The fact is that there are global supply chains, very few things are made exclusively in one geography, very few societies can say we are autonomous of our reliance on others.”

He defended India’s decision to halt vaccine export as domestic demand rose higher, he said, “It's not that we aren't prioritising our people. As things got tough, we spoke to the world and said - we tried our best to live up to commitments but please understand that we have a very serious situation at home and most countries understand that.”

In recent days, India has seen a huge increase in coronavirus cases. In just the last 24 hours, the country has registered over 2.7 lakh positive cases.

While commenting on the surge in cases in India and the possible reasons, Jaishankar said, "In all of this it is also a reality that there was a lot of societal complacency for any of us to point fingers at anybody else."

While giving his address at the All India Management Association's (AIMA) national leadership conclave, Jaishankar said that as the situation in India got more difficult, the government informed different countries about it, and most of them understood the issue.