Centre Asks Social Media to Remove all Contents Referring to “Indian Variant” of Coronavirus

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, May 22: Unable to stop criticism for the alleged failure of the central government to meet the crisis arising out of the dreaded second wave of Corona infection in the country, the members of the Narendra Modi cabinet are hanging on to every small opportunity to attack the opposition and the media to paint them as the villain in the fight against the disease.

Even as doctors and experts pointed out that it was a usual practice to refer to a virus variant from the name of the country where it was identified, as was the case about UK, South Africa or Brazilian variant of Coronavirus, the Modi government issued notices to all the social media to “take down” any media content that refers to “Indian variant.”

The information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar went to the extent of blaming the Congress for giving the virus “Indian variant” name and said the party was “insulting the nation” and demanded its interim president Sonia Gandhi to “explain why her party is engaging in negative politics and why she has not criticised her party colleague and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Kamal Nath’s statement on the variant being Indian.

“He called it the Indian Corona and said ‘Hamari Pechaan, Mera Bharat Covid.’ This is an insult to India. Many other Congress leaders have also done so. The WHO has already clarified that no country’s name has been attributed to any variant,” Javadekar said.

Without making the letter public, the information technology ministry wrote to all social media companies asking them to take down any content that refers to an “Indian Variant” pointing out that the World Health Orgnaisation had not identified the coronavirus variant B.1.617, first identified in India last year, as “Indian variant” and had only classified it as a variant of “global concern.”

The government a day later issued a statement saying media reports using the term “Indian Variant” were without any basis, saying the WHO had classified the variant as just B.1.617.

In a letter to social media companies on Friday, the IT ministry asked the companies to “remove all the content” that names or implies “Indian variant” of the coronavirus.

“This is completely FALSE. There is no such variant of Covid-19 scientifically cited as such by the WHO. WHO has not associated the term ‘Indian Variant’ with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in any of its reports,” stated the letter.

The government source said the notice was issued to send a message “loud and clear” that such mentions of “Indian variant” spread miscommunication and hurt the country’s image.

Around the world, coronavirus variants have generically been referred to by doctors and health experts on the basis of where these are identified. The experts also pointed out that so far there was no information if the governments of UK, South Africa or Brazil had taken similar objections to the Corona variants being identified by the names of their country for easy reference as the offence taken by the Modi government.

A social media executive said it would be difficult to take down all content using the word as there would be hundreds of thousands of such posts, adding that “such a move would lead to keyword based censorship going forward.”

Holding the Congress responsible for all the problems the country was facing on the Corona front, Javadekar on Saturday accused the party of “insulting the nation” by referring to the B.1.617 variant of the Coronavirus as the Indian variant and said the opposition party has not only been stoking fear and apprehension, but also weakening the fight against the pandemic.

On the letter Gandhi has written to Prime Minister on the procurement of drugs for patients of black fungus, the minister said the government has already taken proactive steps to procure the necessary medicines for the over 9000 patients across the country.

In her letter to the PM, the Congress chief said there was an acute shortage of vital drug Amphotericin-B that was required to treat Mucormycosis or black fungus. She also said since the black fungus infection was not covered under the Ayushmann Bharat that offered free health insurance to the poor, the government should provide relief to a large number of patients who cannot afford the treatment.

Javadekar, however, said the opposition has not played a constructive role and instead created doubts about the vaccines. “When Covaxin was developed after research in the country they called it the BJP vaccine; now when the vaccine has proved effective, they are spreading doubts and fears that there will be a travel ban because it is not on the list of vaccines that are globally recognised… As far as I know WHO has not taken any such decision, but the Congress’s statements show the party is insulting the country and weakening the fight against the pandemic,” the minister said.

He was equally critical of the Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi. On the Delhi government’s demand for more vaccines for the state, Javadekar said the Union government was making all efforts to undertake distribution of vaccines to all states. “The 50 lakh vaccines that have been provided to Delhi so far were provided by the Union government. It is the Union government that has provided the 20 crore plus vaccines in the country and in future also it will continue to do so,” he said.

Javadekar said Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has already explained how the government plans to meet the demand for vaccines to inoculate all by the end of December. Criticising Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, the minister said earlier he complained about oxygen shortage and then said there is sufficient supply. “He has to stop making excuses,” Javadekar said.