Pavan K Varma | If only BJP were as good at vaccination as it’s at election
Published : Apr 4, 2021, 4:52 am IST
Updated : Apr 4, 2021, 4:52 am IST
The government I am sure is doing its best, but its best falls short, I am sorry to say, of the optimum
If the BJP, now in power at the Centre, could run the vaccination programme as efficiently as it seeks to run elections, we could perhaps see light at the end of this dark tunnel. (Photo: AFP)
The writing is writ large on the wall: vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. We know now that the Covid virus is likely to attack in several waves. This has been seen in many countries, and is in evidence in ours too. To contain successive surges, we should, of course, retain our vigil on all health and social distancing protocols, but the real solution is to universalise vaccination and ensure its delivery in the shortest possible time.
Indias public digital infrastructure — in many ways, an immense online bureaucracy — is an outlier to this principle. The effort was written-off in the short run, but, less than a decade after it was introduced, it has mobilized technology at the grass-roots, tapping into the countrys huge domestic potential. India is now ready to share its experience with the developing world.
While it began with Manmohan Singh's govt, Aadhaar became the backbone of India’s public digital infrastructure in 2014 when PM Modi combined it with his govt’s Jan Dhan initiative
How Aadhaar has mobilized technology at the grass-roots level in India business-standard.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from business-standard.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lessons from India s jab rollout
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published : 29 Jan 2021 at 04:00
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In just 12 days after India launched its Covid-19 vaccination programme on Jan 16 touted as the world s largest coronavirus jab rollout more than 2.3 million healthcare workers have been inoculated against the virus. In Phase I of the drive, India plans to vaccinate some 30 million healthcare and frontline workers.
For India, such large-scale vaccinations are not new. Every year, 27 million infants are immunised against 12 diseases. The government s polio immunisation drive, which successfully eradicated the disease from India, has even set the global standard for such programmes.
Worth noting is the fact that the two Covid-19 vaccines authorised for emergency use in the country are domestically manufactured the AstraZeneca/Oxford-developed Covishield, which is produced by the Serum Institute of India; and Covaxin, developed indigenously by Bharat Biotech and the Indian C