The World Health Organisation, which is currently facing a lot of heat over its failure to tackle the Chinese pandemic, has yet again stoked a massive controversy by distorting India’s map.
The WHO – the global public health watchdog, has published Indian maps after separating UT of Ladakh and UT of Jammu and Kashmir from the rest of the country. In the maps it has published, the WHO had used different colours to show Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh from the rest of India evoking strong reactions.
The two newly created Union Territories of India have been marked in grey colour, separate from India which appears in navy blue. On the other hand, the disputed border space of Aksai Chin is demarcated in grey with blue stripes, the identical shade as that of China.
Here is the distorted image published by WHO in its website:
The distorted map has been published on its COVID-19 scenario dashboard that depicts the most recent pandemic numbers by nation. Despite the outrage, the WHO has not changed the map that disregards India’s sovereignty. In its defence, the WHO has claimed that it follows the United Nation guidelines and practice regarding maps.
Map could be distorted because of China’s pressure
The WHO, which has been criticised for its role in absolving crimes of China, especially during the pandemic, has allegedly been pressurised by the Communist Party of China to put out such distorted maps to discredit India’s sovereignty on Jammu and Kashmir.
Coronavirus and the role of WHO
The United Nations body, World Health Organisation, has been under the scanner for its alleged coverup of the spread of coronavirus which originated in China. It has been criticised globally for its alleged collusion with China which led to the coronavirus turn into a pandemic claiming lives of over 2 million deaths and infecting almost 90 million globally till today. Earlier, too, Donald Trump had criticised World Health Organisation and accused it of being ‘too focused on China’.
In January 2020, WHO had endorsed the conclusion of Chinese authorities that the Novel Coronavirus does not spread from person to person, and had said that it does not recommend any specific health measures for travellers to and from Wuhan. This was two months after the first case of Chinese virus was detected in Wuhan province of China.
WHO also ignored Taiwan which had informed that it has evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus. Taiwan wrote to WHO on December 31 regarding this, but WHO was denying human-to-human transmission till mid-January. It may be noted that Taiwan has been denied membership of WHO due to objections of China, which considers the island nation as its territory.
