Y'day, Rahul Gandhi had asked a question in Lok Sabha regarding the Modi govt's vaccine distribution strategy for Covid-19.
In the govt's long rambling response, two things stand out:
a) no strategy has been developed as of yet
b) no advance procurement agreements signed
(1/4)
According to the New York Times, a large bulk of vaccines have already been pre-ordered by wealthy countries including the US, EU countries, Australia, & Israel.
This means that middle-income countries will need to wait at least until 2021 for the 1st batch of vaccines.
(2/4)
For India, we'll be much further down the waterfall. Combine that with an absence of a distribution chain or strategy in a (mainly poor) population of 1.3bn+.
An average Indian won't have a vaccine till 2024 by these estimates even if one is developed by next year.
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The Modi govt's lack of a coherent & ready vaccine-distribution strategy is shocking. Our supply and cold storage chains need improvement. Our logistics aren't efficient.
To have to wait till 2024 for 2 vaccine doses per person is a risk India CANNOT afford.
(4/4)
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How BJP is using proxy pages to run political ads worth CRORES targeting the Opposition & Facebook & ECI are openly allowing them.
Political advertising on social media has strict rules. However, this is how BJP is bypassing these rules using proxies 👇
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ECI rules require political parties to disclose expenditure on political ads. Also FB has rules around political ads & requires "transparency" on the sponsor.
But BJP is funding several proxy pages to run ads targeting the Opposition & spending CRORES
Here's examples...
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1. Meme Xpress
This is an FB page with ONLY 1700 followers
But, in JUST last 7 days, this page has spent 18 lacs on running pro-BJP filthy ads targeting the Opposition
The ads target TMC, INC, AAP, DMK, Shiv Sena & others & have been published with regional targeting
Why is Modi Govt compromising national security by favoring banned Chinese-govt-owned company?
Despite an alleged "ban", Modi Govt continues to give out tenders for equipment from Hikvision - a Chinese govt-owned firm.
And some of these tenders are for SENSITIVE PROJECTS
👇
First a background:
Hikvision is a company owned by the Chinese Govt that has been under the scanner & banned by several countries globally out of concerns of Chinese surveillance.
US, UK, Australia - all have banned CCTV equipment from Hikvision.
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Hikvision is also accused of being used for several human-rights-violating purposes such as by the Chinese govt for surveillance of Uyghur students and by the Israeli Govt for monitoring Palestinians.
Interestingly, India allegedly BANNED Hikvision in 2020
In response to my RTI, National Informatics Centre told me that PM CARES Fund has been allotted a govt website under "Guidelines for allocating website under the 3rd level"
NIC also said that the govt website domain was allotted on request of PMO