The Indian Weekender, 2 April 2021

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INDIA
Friday, April 2, 2021 The Indian Weekender
NEWS in BRIEF
Two Indian states vote in test for Modi
Voters in India’s Assam and West Bengal cast their ballots on Saturday
in elections that will indicate how Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi’s support is holding up after a year of the coronavirus pandemic and
months of protests against his farm reforms.
Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah campaigned energetically for their
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal, encouraging defections from
the Trinamool Congress (TMC) party, whose firebrand leader Mamata
Banerjee has been chief minister since 2011.
India’s fourth most populous state, with 90 million people, was for
decades a bastion of communism, and registered a voter turnout of nearly
80% in Saturday’s first phase of voting.
Politicians on the campaign trail often showed scant regard for social
distancing, but as voters queued patiently at polling centres, security
personnel and election workers handed out masks, hand sanitisers and
gloves. Modi was re-elected for a second five-year term in 2019, and his
BJP is pushing to extend its influence beyond the 12 out of 28 states where
it rules alone, and several others where it is part of a ruling alliance – not
least because this would help it to control the upper house of the federal
parliament.
India’s Modi gifts Bangladesh 1.2m doses of
AstraZeneca vaccine
India gave 1.2 million free
doses of the AstraZeneca
coronavirus vaccine to
Bangladesh, its foreign minister
said, as Dhaka urged New Delhi to
maintain a regular supply of shots
to battle the pandemic. Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the offering at the end of a two-day
tour of Bangladesh to celebrate its 50th independence anniversary. The trip
also marked Modi’s first foreign travel since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Bangladesh signed a deal in November with the Serum Institute of India,
the world’s biggest vaccine maker, for 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca
vaccine. The country of more than 160 million people has already received
9 million vaccine doses from Serum. India has also previously gifted
its neighbour 2 million doses of the shot that Serum is producing for
many countries. India has told its international partners that it will
prioritise domestic inoculations over exports of vaccines as it battles a rise
in new infections.
“Bangladesh has requested a regular supply of the remaining vaccines
purchased from the Serum Institute,” the country’s foreign minister A.K.
Abdul Momen said in a televised speech.
India will donate military equipment used
in 1971 for museums
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that New Delhi will
donate military equipment used the country's in the 1971 Liberation War
to be displayed in museums in Bangladesh.
Modi made the announcement on Saturday in Dhaka on the last day of
his two-day official visit to Bangladesh, which was his first trip abroad after
the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. On Saturday evening, Modi met his
Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina for one-on-one talks at the latter's
office in Dhaka after which the two sides signed five MoUs, inaugurated
and launched eight projects and made 10 announcements. During his visit,
he also laid the foundation stone for a memorial honouring martyrs from the
Indian Armed Forces who were killed during the Liberation War.
It will be built at Ashuganj, near Dhaka. This is the first memorial in
Bangldesh exclusively honoring the Indian martyrs. Modi arrived in Dhaka
and participated in a gala event commemorating the birth centenary of
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, as well as the celebrations marking
golden jubilee of Bangladesh independence.
Parts of India to see deadly heat waves in coming
decades: Study
Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will likely reduce the impact of
deadly heat waves by half, but the heat waves will become commonplace
across South Asia, including major crop-producing regions in India -- such
as West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, says a new study. The findings, published
in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, indicated that these deadly heat
waves will likely become more commonplace in the coming decades even if
global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"Even at 1.5 degrees, South Asia will have serious consequences in
terms of heat stress," said researcher Moetasim Ashfaq from the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory in the US. The future looks bad for South Asia, but the
worst can be avoided by containing warming to as low as possible," Ashfaq
added. The results differ from a similar study conducted in 2017, which
predicted that heat waves of lethal temperatures will occur in South Asia
toward the end of the 21st century, the researchers said.
The researchers suspect the earlier study is too conservative, as deadly
heat waves have already hit the region in the past.
In 2015, large parts of India and Pakistan experienced the fifth
deadliest heat wave in the recorded history, which caused about 3,500
heat-related deaths.
COVID VACCINE:
How many people
has India vaccinated?
More than 55 million doses of coronavirus
vaccines have been administered in India in
what is the world's biggest inoculation drive.
India's Covid caseload had dropped sharply by the time
it began vaccinating people early this year. It was adding
under 15,000 infections daily. But cases began to spike
again in March, largely driven by poor test and trace and
lax safety protocols.
On Thursday, the country reported 59,118 new cases -
the sharpest daily rise since October last year.
Since the pandemic began, India has confirmed more
than 11.7 million cases and over 160,000 deaths. It's the
third-highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world
after the United States.
How is the rollout going?
India launched its vaccination drive on 16 January, but
it was limited to healthcare workers and frontline staff - a
sanitation worker became the first Indian to receive the
vaccine.
From 1 March, the eligibility criteria was expanded
to include people over 60 and those who are between 45
and 59 but have other illnesses. The government has now
announced that from 1 April, the jab will be available to
anyone aged 45 years and above.
The country's drugs regulator has given the green light
to two vaccines - one developed by AstraZeneca with
Oxford University (Covishield) and one by
Indian firm Bharat Biotech (Covaxin).
Several others candidates are at
different stages of trials.
India also wants to scale
up the drive quickly to stem
the spike in cases in recent
weeks. So it has placed a
temporary hold on all exports
of the Oxford-AstraZeneca
coronavirus vaccine, which
is being made by India's largest
vaccine manufacturer, the Serum
Institute of India (SII). Foreign ministry
sources told the BBC that a spike in cases meant that
demand in the country for the vaccine was likely to pick
up in the coming weeks, and so more doses were needed
for India's own rollout.
Some 190 countries under the World Health
Organisation (WHO)-led Covax scheme will be affected.
India has exported more than 60 million vaccine doses
to 76 countries so far, with majority of these being the
Oxford-AstraZeneca jab.
How many have been vaccinated so far?
More than 55 million doses of coronavirus vaccines
have been administered so far.
On Friday, the government said it administered more
than 2.3 million doses in the last 24 hours.
Nearly 40 million people have received one dose, and
over eight million people have been fully vaccinated
after receiving two doses. For decades now, India has
been running one of the world's largest immunisation
programmes that vaccinates tens of millions and newborns
and pregnant women against various diseases.
So experts believed India was well-prepared for the
challenge. But the uptake has been slow because of
vaccine scepticism as well as lack of awareness among
the poor or in rural areas.
Many of the poor have little information on how to
register themselves and access the vaccine free of cost.
Online registration could be an impediment for those who
don't own phones or use the internet.
"There's very little public health communication for the
poor and the working class regarding the vaccines," says
Radha Khan, an independent consultant working in the
field of gender, governance and social inclusion.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who's 70 years old, got
his vaccine shot on 1 March. He was administered a jab of
the indigenously developed Covaxin.
After receiving the jab, he urged people to take the
vaccine when their turn came.
The government aims to use up to 500 million doses
to cover 250 million "priority people" by the end of July.
More than 56 million people have registered for the jab
mostly through two government apps. Interestingly, in
some states, more women than men have been vaccinated.
The reasons are not clear.
Who is paying for the vaccines?
Vaccination is voluntary. State-run clinics and hospitals
are offering free jabs but people can also pay 250 rupees
($3.4; £2.4) a dose at private facilities to get vaccinated.
The government is spending around $5bn for free doses
at state-run clinics, public health centres and hospitals.
It has also bought millions of doses of two approved
vaccines and provided funds to states for their vaccination
programmes.
Have there been 'adverse events' after
vaccination?
Vaccines come with side effects for some people.
India has a 34-year-old surveillance programme
for monitoring such "adverse events" following
immunisation. Experts say a failure to transparently
report adverse effects could easily lead to fearmongering
around vaccines.
Until early February, India reported 8,483
"adverse events" after vaccination. Most of these
events were "minor" - anxiety, vertigo, giddiness,
dizziness, fever, and pain, and all patients had
recovered, the government said.
The surveillance programme has examined 412 cases
of "severe adverse events", including 79 deaths after
vaccination until 13 March, according to a senior official.
It found the "deaths happened in cases where the person
had underlying conditions, including heart problems, high
blood pressure and diabetes".