Covid19

The United States government last night moved to support a waiver of intellectual property protections of the Covid-19 vaccine. The People’s Vaccine Alliance has been campaigning to suspend Covid-19 intellectual property protections. This is the decision the world needed: by backing a waiver of intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines the Biden Administration can increase the global supply of vaccines[Read More...]

Without doubt, Johnson has stolen a march over PM Modi just  when the Indian foreign policy establishment is daydreaming about the possible induction of the UK into the Quad to contain China. Clearly, Johnson’s priorities are different — transfuse lifeblood from the former colony, the jewel in the Crown, into his “Global Britain” project.   *** Three cheers for the[Read More...]

Statement by the Vikalp Sangam Core Group India is in the midst of a COVID emergency. The pandemic’s 2nd wave has exposed the abysmal state of its public health system and the poor quality and pace of response of central and state governments. While we recognise the herculean task that the public health system personnel have been performing for over[Read More...]

While triumphantly launching the roll out of India-made vaccines on January 16, 2019, with a view to drive home his point of helping others selflessly, the Prime Minister quoted the following words of Gurajada Apparao, the eminent Telugu writer. “Sontha labham kontha manuko, porugu vadiki thodu padavoy. Desamante matti kadoyi, desamante manushuloy” The above verse, which was written more than[Read More...]

Now that we all have seen someone close in a friend or family succumbing to fatalities of COVID-19. The chilling sight of the mass pyres burning in the crematorium, relatives waiting for hours outside the crematorium to give the last rite to their loved ones, the unattended dead bodies dumped like a pile of garbage in a truck and hospitals,[Read More...]

Doctors for Covid Ethics This paper was originally hosted on the Doctors for Covid Ethics Medium account, but the platform censored the expert group and removed the paper, claiming the post was “under investigation”: An archived version is still available here. * Abstract: COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers have been exempted from legal liability for vaccine-induced harm. …

As the death toll and positivity rate in the wake of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic stays alarmingly high, lockdowns and other restrictions have been instituted in many parts of the country. Even though an announcement of a nationwide lockdown has not been made, work has been severely disrupted with calls for further curtailment of non-essential economic activity.[Read More...]

On April 23, 2021 the Economic Times published a short interview with K Vijay Raghavan, the Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to the Government of India. It is my understanding that the Office of the PSA is tasked with advising the government on scientific matters. This interview, however, would lead one to think otherwise: when the PSA’s responses are not factually[Read More...]

In the past several weeks, the world has looked on in horror as the coronavirus rages across India. With hospitals running out of beds, oxygen, and medicines, the official daily death toll has averaged around 3,000. Many claim that number could be an undercount; crematoriums and cemeteries have run out of space. The majority of India’s population are Hindu, who[Read More...]

It has been a relationship of characterised by bitterness and misunderstanding.  It began with a poorly negotiated agreement – poor, that is, from the European Union perspective – between Brussels and AstraZeneca for the supply of COVID-19 vaccine doses.  Less rigorous in terms of penalties and consequences than the UK-AstraZeneca deal, the EU version was very much the poor cousin,[Read More...]