understandably, been skittish about taking them on in this way. but there really isn t any doubt that these are extremely serious issues for india, and for a country like the us, which believes in religious freedom and is supposed to be founded on it, there is going to be a point where it becomes a public issue from the biden administration, too. we may not of gotten it yet, but i think we are heading in that direction. damian, narendra modi is involved with the pope visiting india has invited the pope. with this kind of backdrop, that could make for a quite an interesting visit, assuming he accepts the invitation. but there will be some christians who will say, hang on a minute, the vatican has not covered itself in glory when one thinks of china, where christianity was suppressed for so long and a deal was done, a deal that not everybody thinks was a terribly good one.
everyone, then no one is really truthfully protected. the serum institute in india was one of those places where vaccine production took off and vaccine numbers have been good in india, notwithstanding its enormous population. do you see any hope of that for the developing world? i think the situation is really desperate in africa. - in india, given its vast population, i think it s a major challenge. - so, india is still in the process of completing its second - dose of the vaccine. it still has, ithink, about 50% of its population to be given the second vaccine, l so that, i think, does pose a challenge, the sheerj size of the population, but i think the problem is greater in the lower income countries. i and that s where i think some kind of equality needs to be achieved . because the first world having it and the third world not having .
by the churches in india. so it could happen in the odd case, i but it is certainly not widespread i and certainly not systematic. and therefore, this - is an allegation, i know, on the part of the hindu rightj in india, but it s an allegation which i believe is baseless. thank you very much. now, from extremism of faith to the polarisation of politics, if you thought the last us election was rough, you ain t seen nothing yet. on thursday, the anniversary of the capitol riot in washington dc, presidentjoe biden accused his predecessor, donald trump, of creating a web of lies about the november 2020 election and onjanuary 6th last year, a president, he said, who rallied the mob to attack. this sort of language may be
to hospital in time and died and there is now criticism circulating of, what is the cost of this lockdown when there are very few deaths? the pressures is starting to mount there and, i think, can china continue this? particularly with the omicron variant now. this was worked with the less transmissible variant, the difficulty for china is, if the more transmissible one gets in and starts to spread, because the chinese vaccines, the testing at the minute seems to show that the chinese vaccines that they ve used on the chinese population may not be very effective against the omicron variant, it s not the new type of vaccine and that could be a real difficulty. thank you very much. on christmas day, the bbc reported the reopening of a church in india administered kashmir shut since violence in the muslim majority state more than 30 years ago. as worshippers said their prayers in haryana, a state controlled by the bjp, the hindu nationalist party, which also provides india s government, a
damian, narendra modi is involved with the pope visiting india with this kind of backdrop, that could make for a quite an interesting visit, assuming he accepts the invitation. but there will be some christians who will say, hang on a minute, the vatican has not covered itself in glory when one thinks of china, where christianity was suppressed for so long and a deal was done, a deal that not everybody thinks was a terribly good one. yes, so this is four years ago now. so you have the chinese communist party, xijinping, who tolerate religion. religious freedoms are still violated in china, and if you try and practise outside state control, there is serious control and repression there. but tolerated. . .the state wants to try and co opt and tolerate some religions. and is quite keen to control the choice of bishops and things like that. exactly, and the pope