The government has slammed the New York Times for publishing a “provocative” and “attention-seeking” article on India’s Covid response. It castigated the media house, often accused of being brazenly anti-Hindu and anti-Modi in the content that is published on its website, for casting aspersions on India’s efforts to fight the pandemic especially at a time when cases in India are remarkably low and the country has been carrying out the COVID vaccination process at a breakneck pace.
The New York Times slammed by Govt and other agencies for ‘distorted and out of context reporting’
At a press conference on Thursday, ICMR director general Balram Bhargava said: “This is a provocative, attention-seeking article published at a time when India is doing good and our vaccination is excellent and it is diverting attention. All the issues raised are dead ones and probably do not merit any attention.”
Condemning the article, NITI Aayog Member (Health), VK Paul, said: “We condemn such distorted and out of context reporting. This is not desirable.”
Moreover, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan also accursed The New York Times’ prejudiced reportage stoking scepticism over India’s Covid response. He said: “We greatly value journalistic and editorial freedom and at the same time we must also realise that all of us – Union government as well as the state governments – are fully engaged in fighting a pandemic and all our energies and time is devoted to that”.
“We cannot afford to be diverted by things that can be addressed at a later day which are not a priority from the public health point of view,” he added.
The govt and the agencies were responding to an article published by the New York Times on September 14, 2021, titled: “As India’s Lethal Covid Wave Neared, Politics Overrode Science” which alleged that “India’s top science agency tailored its findings to fit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s optimistic narrative despite a looming crisis”. The archived version of the NYT article can be viewed here.
The New York Times article went far beyond the vilification of the central government led by PM Narendra Modi, with the author leaving no opportunity to pour scorn over India’s effort to tackle the Covid crisis. Karan Deep Singh, the author of the extremely skewed and biased article has claimed to have cited government researchers and documents to report that officials of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) were forced to downplay the coronavirus threat to ‘prioritise’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘political goals’.
In his article, Karan Deep Singh claimed that government-appointed scientists had played down the possibility of a new Covid-19 outbreak in a study to support the prime minister’s goal of reopening the economy and to kick off the Bharatiya Janata Party’s political campaign for Assembly elections in four states and one Union Territory in April-May this year.
Singh further wrote that physician Anup Agarwal, who worked at the Indian Council of Medical Research at the time and evaluated the government report that was released in September 2020. It said that he was concerned that it would offer Indians a false sense of security. According to the report, Agarwal raised his concerns with council authorities. However, he and another scientist were chastised for it, read the NYT report.
Agarwal is believed to have told the NYT then: “Science is being used as a political weapon to forward the government narrative rather than help people”.
How The New York Times indulges in building an anti-Modi narrative
The NYT, which has been many a time caught peddling misinformation and blatant lies targetting the Indian government is said to have reportedly interviewed other scientists then who said that they would not get promotions or other opportunities if they questioned their senior officials or the Govt’s efficacy in handling the pandemic.
The media outlet, in its effort to malign the Modi government, went on to peddle further lies by claiming that ICMR’s top bosses disentangled the agency from studies that contradicted the government’s optimism and forewarned of a second wave. It notoriously added that ICMR suppressed data showing the risks of a second wave.
This is, however, not surprising. The New York Times has so far published a series of articles expressing reservations about India’s COVID-19 immunisation campaign. In fact, the articles on its websites routinely belittled India’s progress on the COVID front and sowed doubts over the authenticity of data trickling out of the country. India had extended the emergency use approval (EuA) to two vaccines—Covishield and Covaxin. But, western media outlets ran a sinister campaign to derail India’s COVID-19 immunisation drive and cast doubt on the two vaccines’ efficacy.
In fact, not just The New York Times, another prominent western media outlet ‘The Washington Post’ has also in the past indulged in a smear campaign against India’s vaccination efforts.
Despite western media’s rumour mongering, India’s daily Covid-19 vaccination crosses the 1-crore mark for fourth time
However, in opposition to the predictions made by the western media outlets, the resurgent coronavirus outbreak did little to derail India’s vaccination programme. According to reports, today, September 17, India’s daily Covid-19 vaccinations crossed the one-crore mark for the fourth time in less than a month, taking the total number of doses administered in the country to over 78 crores.
Health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said this is the fastest pace at which one crore dose has been administered.
“On PM @Narendra Modi Ji”s birthday, till 1:30 pm, the country has crossed the mark of 1 crore vaccines, the fastest so far, and we are continuously moving forward. I believe that today we will all make a new record of vaccination and give it as a gift to the prime minister,” Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya tweeted with the hashtags “VaccineSeva” and “HappyBdayModiji”.
प्रधानमंत्री @NarendraModi जी के नेतृत्व में भारत अपने ही रिकॉर्ड तोड़ रहा है, भारत ने अपने पिछले टीकाकरण रिकॉर्ड 1 करोड़ 33 लाख को भी पार कर लिया है।
— Mansukh Mandaviya (@mansukhmandviya) September 17, 2021
अगर आपने अभी तक टीका नहीं लगवाया है तो ज़रूर लगवायें और #VaccineSeva अभियान में अपना योगदान दें।#HappyBdayPMModiji pic.twitter.com/EYpKwjcG2J
Health Ministry sources have, in fact, predicted 2.5 crore vaccinations by today evening.
