Murdoch’s ‘Malicious, Slanderous’ Rants Against India
People like Murdoch were very unhappy and seething with anger against actions taken by Govt of India to come to the aid of friendly countries which were desperately fighting the pandemic, created and spread by rich countries of the World. India had in a very short time developed not one but two vaccines to fight the dreaded Covid Virus. The most developed countries of the World were shocked. Also the plans of their Pharmaceutical Companies to earn billions of dollar from Asia, Africa and South America had gone down the drain.
So when the second wave has hit India and India suddenly faltering initially in the battle, people like Murdoch have swung into action through their malicious rants against India in general and Prime Minister Modi in particular.
“Even as death and despair stalked the nation, Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party rejected lockdown and forged ahead with mass gatherings. …The election rallies and Kumbh Mela festival turned out to be super-spreader events — as public health experts had warned,” the article said.
Murdoch, people like you can never understand India and always underestimate it. You suddenly get surprised by India’s progress and then try to vent your anger and try to malign India with your resources.
The Indian government on Monday has thus issued a sharp rejoinder to Rupert Murdoch-owned ‘The Australian’ for an article headlined “Modi leads India into viral apocalypse”, calling it “baseless, malicious and slanderous… written only with the sole objective of undermining the universally acclaimed approach taken by the government of India…at this decisive moment.”
The article originally appeared in The Times of London, also a Murdoch paper, and was reproduced in The Australian. They are among the global media magnate’s three main newspapers, along with The Wall Street Journal.
The letter, sent by the deputy high commissioner of India in Canberra, accused the paper of not “bothering to check the facts of the case with any of the authorities in the government”. P S Karthigeyan, after detailing the measures taken by the Modi government “starting with the longest and strictest lockdown in the world to the largest and fastest vaccination drive”, went on to describe India’s “much acclaimed Vaccine Maitri initiative to send 66 million vaccines to 80 countries and also to supply medicines and PPEs to 150 countries” which “probably saved hundred (sic) of millions more around the world.”
“While our scientific community is still looking at possible reasons for the sudden surge in infections, including the role of infectious new strains that came from outside India, the article has strangely rushed to blame the surge on the restricted election campaign by the Hon’ble Prime Minister and one religious gathering,” the letter said.
The Times-Australian article said the warnings of “public health experts… fell on deaf ears as Modi and his acolytes preached a message of triumphalism and exceptionalism. India had ‘defeated’ the virus, Modi told the World Economic Forum…Just last month, even as infections surged, Harsh Vardhan, the health minister, assured Indians that the country was ‘in the endgame’ of the pandemic. He lauded Modi as a ‘vaccine guru’ and ‘example to the world’.”
