A newly released Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) investigation by the White Coat Waste Project (WCW) has revealed that U.S. government agencies provided significant funding to Ben Hu, a Wuhan-based scientist now identified as COVID-19’s “Patient Zero.” Leaked U.S. intelligence confirms Hu was the first person to fall ill at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) before the pandemic officially began.

U.S. Taxpayer Funds Tied To Wuhan Lab Experiments

Documents obtained by WCW through a FOIA lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) confirm that Hu was conducting gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses using U.S. taxpayer funds. These grants were issued through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), formerly led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

According to federal accounting records, over $41 million was allocated to projects involving Hu and his team. Due to reporting loopholes and conflicting data from EcoHealth Alliance, the exact portion of these funds directed specifically to Hu remains unclear. However, the funding was scheduled to continue until 2024, had it not been terminated in early 2020 following WCW’s revelations.

Let me get this straight. Fauci’s NIAID and @USAID sent over $40M in U.S. taxpayer “support” to a scientist in Wuhan who was working on “bat coronavirus emergence” research, who also became “patient zero” for COVID-19?

And the completion date for that funding was … in 2019???… pic.twitter.com/FJF92pcmp1

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) February 3, 2025

Newly Leaked Intelligence Identifies Sick Wuhan Lab Scientists

The identity of Wuhan Institute staff members who reportedly fell ill with COVID-like symptoms in November 2019 had been withheld by both the U.S. and Chinese governments—until now. A U.S. intelligence source has confirmed with “100% certainty” that three WIV researchers, Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu, were hospitalized with severe illness in late 2019.

This aligns with earlier reports from January 2021, in which the U.S. State Department disclosed that Wuhan lab staffers involved in coronavirus experiments developed COVID-like symptoms before the virus was officially recognized. Additional accounts indicated that one of the researchers’ wives died in December 2019 from a similar illness.

Dangerous Research Conducted Without Adequate Protection

A 2017 video from Chinese state-run media shows Hu and fellow virologist Shi Zhengli—known as “Bat Woman” for her work on bat viruses—handling bats and lab specimens without sufficient protective gear. Intelligence findings suggest that Hu led Wuhan’s gain-of-function research on SARS-like coronaviruses using humanized mice to enhance the viruses’ transmissibility.

Federal Funding for Wuhan Lab Experiments Exposed

The WCW investigation highlights how U.S. taxpayer dollars funded risky virus research at WIV, including:

• The collection of wild coronaviruses from bats in remote Chinese caves.
• The transportation of these viruses to a laboratory in Wuhan.
• Gain-of-function experiments designed to make these viruses more infectious to humans.
• The subsequent infection of Wuhan lab staffers, followed by a cover-up of their medical records and identities.

The newly uncovered federal grants reveal that NIAID and USAID funded Hu’s work at WIV despite long-standing concerns over biosafety and transparency. The grants were ultimately revoked after WCW intervened in 2020.

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A clipping of a video of Chinese-funded NewsClick’s founder Prabir Purkayastha has made it to social media channels. Prabir and NewsClick were in the news recently after New York Times brought out the link between China, and the Chinese Communist Party and how various organisations across the world were getting paid for pushing Chinese propaganda.

We did some digging into his past videos on COVID-19 and found the below:

This first video which was shared in March 2020, from the early days of the pandemic, discusses China’s approach to handling the COVID-19 outbreak, in order to “dispel misconceptions about its methods”. In this “report”, Prabir quotes the report presented by Bruce Aylward where he claims that China’s aggressive measures had slowed down the spread of the coronavirus there. Aylward was also notably a part of the WHO-China Joint Commission. 

Prabir also claims that China underwent various stages to control the epidemic, adapting policies to the evolving situation. He also claimed that China’s response included rapid identification of the virus, genome sequencing, development and distribution of test kits, a lockdown of Wuhan, centralized quarantine, and community support to control the outbreak effectively.

Titled “How did #China Handle the #COVID-19 Outbreak?”, he keeps repeating that by 31 December 2019, China had notified the WHO of the disease, and they identified it as SARS-CO-V2 in January 2020. “If you look at the period in January, you will see how quickly they moved in after that. One is they were able to identify the genome sequence in about two weeks. Now that’s a very very fast genotyping of the sequence and they were able to upload it on the international database around January 12th or 13th so you have this first genomic sequence of the Wuhan virus as Mr. Trump would like to call it, what the world calls the SARS CoV2 virus was identified within two weeks and within another week, they had already developed test kits because, please remember, without test kits, you can’t test you only have clinical symptoms. Clinical symptoms that are not very dissimilar from the standard flu that you see around you. So the first test kits were available only around June January 21st 22nd or so by which they are able to dispatch these kits into Wuhan. Now this again in three weeks, developing both the genome sequence and the test kits is a major achievement which we must credit the Chinese scientific community.”

He also goes on to explain how centralised quarantine done by Chinese authorities helped to reduce the cases in China and how the protective gear provided by China to its medical staff ensured not one of the 42000 staff got infected. He also talks that these measures brought down the effective reproductive rates of the virus below 1 and that was how the pandemic was controlled in Wuhan. He also praised the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for providing food and other delivery services to the people who were going to be housebound. He also says “It was all in society all in government effort that really stopped the coronavirus epidemic in China”. He also claimed that “instead of a coercive lock down what you need is a lockdown which is cooperative which allows the people to organize and allows the people also access to basic needs food water supplies of different kinds and unless we are organized as society as government to provide that this kind of lockdowns alone is not going to help” He ends the video by saying “China has shown the way but does the rest of the world understand what has happened and does it have the will to follow it”.

The second video we looked at, was titled “COVID-19 in India” was also shared in June 2020 where he discusses the COVID-19 situation in India with a fellow “journalist”.

In this video, he claims that at that point in time, India had the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Asia and that daily new cases were steadily rising. He said that despite the rising cases, lockdown measures were being eased. At that point, India ranked 7th globally in total cases, with a doubling rate of 14 days. He also shared concerns about the healthcare system’s capacity to handle the increasing cases.

He claimed that the lockdown strategy had not effectively curbed the epidemic’s growth and there was a lack of focus on contact tracing, testing, and isolating positive cases. He criticised the government’s ad hoc and ineffective approach.

He goes on to compare India to other countries like Malaysia where cases were supposedly better handled than India although there was an upsurge. He also claimed that several other countries had started to flatten their curves. He then goes on to praise Kerala which we must remember is a communist-ruled state.

Here’s what he said in the video:

“The three countries whose curves are still rising are Brazil, India, and at the moment Mexico too – but Russia has more or less starting to flatten its curves the US has also started to flatten its curves and the countries which have flattened their curves are Italy, France, Germany, Iran. Now one may say, well you know, India is a relatively poor country but if you look at Malaysia, these figures we have been showing from day one is Malaysia started a little ahead of India and had higher figures for some time. But after that, you can see how well it has been able to flatten the curve and that’s something which is really striking. If we come to the states in India, the only state which has done reasonably well in this period and even now it’s facing an upsurge is Kerala. This recent upsurge in Kerala is, of course, because of a large number of migrants who have come from other states already infected and Kerala is dealing with that at the moment. But even otherwise, if you look at the figures, you will see Kerala is the only state which controls its numbers earlier and is still able to provide that degree of isolation support that we need. ICMR and the Government of India were talking about avoided deaths, I think that’s a bogus concept because you don’t avoid deaths in the long term, you only postpone.”

He said India was not able to cut down infections due to low testing and poor isolation. Apart from Kerala, he said that India as a country was not successful in terms of contact tracing. He said “The Government of India looked upon this as if it’s a law and order problem, not a public health emergency. the government of India’s response to this has been what would be called the police response which is what the colonial administration engaged to put people in camps isolate them lock them down and hope that the epidemic will die by itself”.

It was reported later that Kerala had underreported deaths.

He continues to find fault with the relaxing of the lockdown and allowing people to visit places of worship, saying, 

“If you remove the lockdown relaxing lockdowns as we are doing which we are bound to, but we are also allowing, for instance, places of worship and other places malls to open. So those are the kind of further risk issues that are coming up”.

The video that was shared on Twitter is from a longer video where Prabir is seen discussing the COVID-19 pandemic with a NewsClick “journalist”.

In this video clip, we can see Prabir defending China over the pandemic. Here is a transcript of the entire clipping.

“Right now both Pompeo and the state department and various intelligence agencies in the US are basically saying China did not cooperate, china did not give us ABC, did not give us information, and that is why all of this happened. Now China, if you see had diagnosed that it was a novel coronavirus by around the end of Dec 2019. they informed the who, I think on 31 Dec. On the 1st to the 3rd of Jan, the Chinese equivalent of CDC, the head talked to the director of CDC, Redford, and told him what was happening. In fact, the record says that at that point in time, he was in tears, he knew what was happening. So that was one. The second part of it which they now say is that, well they didn’t really cooperate. Now ok information you claimed you had was insufficient, China locked down Wuhan, it was a complete lockdown of an 11-million city. They locked down 15 suburban areas, other cities near Wuhan, and locked down the entire province of Hubei, they locked down entire industries in China, colleges, malls, cinema halls, and all visible gatherings, all of it was locked down in all of China. So the argument that they did not tell us, doesn’t hold good because actions speak louder than words. here they were taking action, showing how dangerous it was, in their view. So if the rest of the world did not listen, it wasn’t something you can fault them on. 

Watch Prabir Purkayastha, Editor in Chief of Newsclick in 2020

He says China did not hide anything about pandemic

China reported everything timely and faithfully

It is not China's fault that others did not listen

Independent media? pic.twitter.com/iL3BYHpQr7

— Abhishek (@AbhishBanerj) August 17, 2023

This video is part of a longer video from May 2020 which is titled “COVID-19: US Blames China to Cover Up Its Own Failures”.

He claims that China with a much larger population than the US controlled the infections much better than the Americans. China has a similar climatic zone as the US and they did much better than the US. The US was trying to make China look guilty and had also said that they should pay for reparations. 

He continued to say that the experience from the SARS epidemic, avian flu, and swine flu gave China the upper hand and introduced mask culture over the last 15-20 years. He claimed that they were better prepared in terms of social practice and medical systems geared to face the pandemic. 

He also claims that even though Pompeo claimed that China didn’t give them the virus, the CDC nowhere claimed that they couldn’t develop test kits because there was no sample. He goes on to speak about the genomic sequence publication dates. He says, “When the genomic sequence was published, it was sent to Nature on the 5th or 7th, NCBI says this was submitted to Nature on the 5th Jan. The entire genome sequence was uploaded to GenBank (a public repository of genome sequences) on 11th or 12th Jan, to Virology, another such public database, and also the Influenza database maintained globally. all of these had the genome sequence. if you take the genome sequence why would you need something else? Because with the genome sequence both the Germans, charite, a very able team, developed a test kit as early as 16 Jan and WHO adopted it. A South Korean company also created a test kit in 3 weeks. CDC never complained about the lack of virus samples.”

These videos serve as evidence of the channel’s establishment with the intent to disseminate Chinese propaganda, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prabir’s actions closely aligned with the directives of his Chinese handlers, demonstrating his unwavering allegiance and compliance.

At the time of the New York Times expose, some emails exchanged between Neville Roy Singham and Prabir and the Indian counterparts were also made public. Those emails were more concerning the Galwan clash as reported here. 

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Insulting a religion using brazen cultural insinuations, insulting the memory of pandemic deaths under the guise of comedy. How far is too far, even for comedy?

This is the question being asked of a stand-up comedian called Daniel Fernandes, by enraged netizens. His pictures and profile information give him away as a converted Christian. Daniel Fernandes came under scathing attack recently for two Twitter posts, exposing his dark, highly prejudiced, anti-Hindu sentiments.

In one of the tweeted videos, Danny who calls himself a comedian, with a considerable following on social media, crosses all lines of decency when he makes repeated inappropriate comments directly insulting Hinduism and Hindus. In another tweeted video recording of a live comedy show, he crosses the line, yet again, by making shocking comments on which section of Covid victims should have received treatment at hospitals based on their political patronage and whether or not they had voted for Prime Minister Modi!

Comedy of the stand-up variety or another is fine as long as:

1) one doesn’t cross a fine, often invisible line of basic decency and decorum,

2) one takes care to make humorous comments without letting their deep, personal bias or destructive personal hatred for something/someone taint the quality of their comedic remarks.

It was based on a lack of both these criteria that netizens took offence to when Danny cracked his crude, unacceptable jokes displaying and peddling his personal biases under the guise of what he calls “comedy”.

He refers to “rice bags”, a colloquial term used in certain Indian states to refer to converted Christians, alluding to Christian missionary tactics of using financial and economic incentives and allurements to attract financially vulnerable Hindus to their religion. He starts the piece with, “they say they’re in danger and they were the only religion in India, a long time ago but I will not mention which religion it is…” clearly referring to Hindus and Hinduism in India.

Broaching the subject is fine and, “rice bag” isn’t a derogatory word but, Danny crosses the line when he deliberately chooses a cultural and gender-based analogy with male-female sexual overtones to refer to Christian conversions, in which he “hypothetically” talks of a Hindu couple, where the wife chooses to leave the husband over his supposed flaws, inadequacies, and his religion’s/culture’s customs… “Suppose your mom left your dad? Why did the wife/your mom leave? What could the husband not provide her with, why was she unfulfilled, her perception of equal rights and local, cultural traditions, She left for the tasty Biryani! …. etc”.

Comedy, jokes, and humour apart, Danny boy refuses to acknowledge the facts surrounding a vast majority of Christian conversions in India. Christian missionaries convert most Hindus based on:

1) lies and misinformation on the basic philosophy of the Hindu religion, its deities, customs, traditions, and rituals while deliberately covering up the flaws embedded in Christian philosophy, its beliefs and customs, its structure, and violent history, its ultimate goal of world domination and

2) Financial, educational, health, and employment-based incentives and allurements for the economically and emotionally vulnerable sections of society.

In another video of shocking and brazen display of personal hatred towards the BJP and Prime Minister Modi, Danny – the supposed comedian, remarks on the recent Covid-19 crisis and makes highly inappropriate comments on how he had personally not entertained requests for help from netizens who had voted for “Chai” (Mr.Modi and the BJP party). This purported “joke” gets darker and more shocking as he goes on to smugly tell his complacent audience (with peals of laughter) that if it were up to him, he would have advised all hospitals to extend help and care ONLY to those Indian citizens that had not voted for “Chai”. He goes on to gleefully explain that he would have advised all Health Care centres to first ask the already suffering patients whether they had voted for “Chai” or “Not Chai” (BJP or non-BJP), based on which they would receive further assistance only if they were anti-BJP/anti-Modi!

Imagine the insensitivity and audacity of a statement of this nature, insulting the millions of lives lost in the Covid pandemic while simultaneously spreading political hatred towards one party and its elected leader! Imagine if the duly elected Indian government led by the BJP during the critical Covid crisis had indeed done just that? What if they had offered medical help and life-saving treatments only to BJP supporters?

Would it be construed as a joke and laughed away by the nation the way Danny considers his joke to be? Would that be ethical? Wouldn’t it be considered cruel and unacceptable? Yet, a third-rate comedian suggests this solution as an alternative during the Covid crisis and his insensitive audience laughs at it instead of questioning his severe bias and lack of ethics! Make no mistake about it – this type of “comedy” would not be considered funny and humorous in any part of the world! It would be severely reprimanded and branded unacceptable.

Self-proclaimed comedians including converted Christians like Daniel Fernandes, should learn to appreciate the various freedoms they enjoy in a country like India and all the liberties they take for granted in this nation instead of shamelessly crossing all lines of decency by insulting Hinduism, the majority religion of this country, that has since ancient times, sheltered, protected and allowed free reign of all religions.

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World’s first intra-nasal vaccine for COVID developed by India has got approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) for restricted use in emergency situations in the age group of 18 and above.

This was stated here today by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh while chairing the meeting of the Societies of Autonomous Institutions of Department of Biotechnology where he also informed about the historic decision to merge the 14 societies of Biotechnology Institutes into a single society in the interest of convenient functioning, cost-effectiveness and integrated working.

The Minister lauded the role of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and its PSU, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance (BIRAC) for supporting the development of world’s first Intranasal vaccine for COVID by Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL).

Dr Jitendra Singh informed that the Product development and Clinical trials were funded by the Department of biotechnology, Government of India and BIRAC under the Mission COVID Suraksha Program. This vaccine received approval under restricted Use in emergency situations for ages 18 and above for primary 2 dose schedule, homologous booster doses.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, India’s efforts through Mission COVID Suraksha under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not only strengthened AtmaNirbhar Bharat but also bolstered India’s status as a worldwide vaccine development and manufacturing center showcasing the strength of Science and Technology. It is a matter of great pride for the country, the Minister added.

Phase-III trials were conducted for safety, and immunogenicity in ~3100 subjects, in 14 trial sites across India (supported by BIRAC). Heterologous booster dose studies were conducted for safety and immunogenicity in ~875 subjects, where a booster dose (3rd dose) of BBV154 intranasal vaccine was administered to study participants who were previously vaccinated with licensed COVID vaccines. The clinical trials were conducted in 9 trial sites across India. National Institute of Immunology (NII), an autonomous institute of DBT in New Delhi utilized their “Human Immune Monitoring and T-cell Immunoassay Platform” to examine the vaccine-induced SARS-CoV-2-specific systemic and mucosal cellular immune responses the trial participants. Interactive Research School for Health Affairs (IRSHA), Pune (supported by BIRAC) completed the “Plaque Reduction Neutralization Assay” (PRNT) to quantify the titer of neutralizing antibody for the virus from three trial sites.

This vaccine has the double benefit of enabling faster development of variant-specific vaccines and easy nasal delivery that enables mass immunization to protect from emerging variants of concern. It promises to become an important tool in mass vaccinations during pandemics and endemics.

Vaccine is a recombinant replication deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion stabilized spike protein. This vaccine candidate was evaluated in Phases I, II and III clinical trials with successful results. It has been specifically formulated to allow intranasal delivery through nasal drops. The nasal delivery system has been designed and developed to be cost-effective in low- and middle-income countries. This vaccine is stable at 2-8°C for easy storage and distribution. Large manufacturing capabilities have been established by Bharat Biotech at multiple sites across India, including Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Telangana, with operations pan India.

(Published from PIB)

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Himachal Pradesh becomes the first state in the country to administer two doses of COVID-19 vaccine to eligible adult population of the state.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh for securing first place in the country by administering the second dose of Covid vaccine to the targeted eligible citizens in Himachal Pradesh.

बहुत-बहुत बधाई @jairamthakurbjp जी। कोविड के खिलाफ लड़ाई में हिमाचलवासियों ने पूरे देश के सामने एक अनुकरणीय उदाहरण पेश किया है। लोगों का यही जज्बा इस लड़ाई में न्यू इंडिया को नई ताकत देगा। https://t.co/5MCfoZ5gBE

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 6, 2021

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Recently, a video of DMK Health Minister Ma Subramanian boarding a bus in Villupuram, and talking the public about the COVID-19 disease was shared across social media.

In this video, we can see the Minister in his workout outfit, boarding the bus and enquiring the public  whether they took both COVID jabs or just one.

However, the minister can be seen talking to the public without wearing a mask.

Check out the video here:

@Subramanian_ma asking people on a bus to #vaccinate
TN will hold mega vaccination camp #stopcovid #MaskUp pic.twitter.com/AES4J9QYOx

— Pushpa Narayan (@Toi_pushpa_n) December 4, 2021

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Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan  has written a letter to Chief Secretaries of all states and union teritories with reference to the letter of The Union Ministry Of Health And Family Welfare  dated 25th November regarding the mutation of SARS-CoV-2 variant (B.1.1.529; named Omicron), reported from South Africa on 24th November 2021. WHO has designated this variant as a new Variant of Concern (VOC). As a proactive step, Government has already placed countries where this VOC has been found in the category of ‘At-Risk’ countries for additional follow up measures of international travellers coming into India from these countries.

In view of the possible threat that this VoC can pose to the nation, it is imperative that the intensive containment, active surveillance, increased coverage of vaccination and Covid Appropriate Behaviour must be enforced in the field in a very proactive manner to effectively manage this It is essential that the disease surveillance network in the country is geared up for rigorous follow up of all international travellers from all countries especially countries designated as “At Risk”. There is already a reporting mechanism for obtaining past travel details of passengers coming through international flights this should be reviewed at your level and the protocol provided by this Ministry should be strictly ensured including testing on disembarkation of international travelers coming from “At Risk” Countries and sending all positive samples for genome sequencing to INSACOG Labs in a prompt manner.

Ample testing infrastructure need to be operationalized to tackle any surge due to this mutated virus. It has been observed that the overall testing as well as the proportion of RT-PCR tests have declined in some States.  States must strengthen the testing infrastructure and strictly implement the testing guideline Continued monitoring of “Hotspots” (areas where recent cluster of positive cases have emerged).  States should keep a close check on the emerging trend of cases and the positivity in an area and quickly delineate hotspots for effective containment of Covid 19 Having adequate availability of health facilities across the state is essential to ensure that there are no delays in providing care. Trained human resources, infrastructure, logistics and procurement should be planned & strengthened considering the geographical spread of the pandemic and there shall be no compromise in providing prompt quality treatment to the patients.

We have seen in the last surges in the country that discourse on COVID is often influenced by misinformation leading to anxiety in the masses. To address this, all States should proactively & regularly address the concerns of community through press briefings & State bulletins providing evidence based information. States may also ensure that community is well informed regarding the measures undertaken and advised to follow measures like Covid Appropriate Behaviour & getting vaccinated.

It is critical for the State/UTs to adhere to the overarching Test-Track-Treat Vaccinate and Covid Appropriate Behaviour’ principle to ensure stringent implementation of containment measures as per MOHFW guidelines.

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India on Thursday (October 21) crossed a milestone administering over 1 billion COVID-19 vaccinations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to social media to congratulate the health workers on achieving the feat.

India scripts history.

We are witnessing the triumph of Indian science, enterprise and collective spirit of 130 crore Indians.

Congrats India on crossing 100 crore vaccinations. Gratitude to our doctors, nurses and all those who worked to achieve this feat. #VaccineCentury

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 21, 2021

India’s COVID-19 Vaccination drive, the world’s largest vaccination drive so far, was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 16^th January 2021.

In Phase I of the vaccination drive, started 130 days ago on 16^th January, the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 (NEGVAC) prioritized Health Care Workers, and Front Line Workers (both government & private sector). Phase II of the vaccination drive started from 1^st March 202, focused on protecting the most vulnerable age groups. These prioritized age-groups included persons above 60 years of age and persons above 45 years with associated specified co-morbidities. This was further relaxed to all people above 45 years of age on 1^st April 2021. In Phase III, ‘Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy’ was adopted on 1^st May 2021. Under this strategy, everyone above 18 years of age are eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.

Recently, Subject Expert Committee on Covid-19 has granted emergency use approval to Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for children in the 2-18 years age group.

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India has consistently been portrayed in a negative light in the western media. Be it the time when ISRO launched Mangalyaan to the Mars or India’s rising stature on global stage after 2014, it is because of the prejudice and the racism that is deeply rooted in the west for many years now, that their media tries to paint a bad image of the country.

With the rise and rise of India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the western liberal media has been going all out with their anti-Modi stance.

The Indian Institute of Mass Communication recently conducted a survey on the nature of western media coverage of the spread of the corona virus in India and the handling of the situation.

According to this survey conducted by the IIMC,

• 82% media persons believe that the coverage of COVID19 pandemic in India by a section of the Western Media is ‘biased’.
• 69% media persons said India’s image took a beating by such negative coverage, while 56% said such coverage must have negatively influenced the opinion of the Indians living abroad. 
• 60% media persons believe that the Western media had an agenda of tarnishing the image of India when they covered Covid-19 pandemic in India, while 71% said the stories lacked a balanced narrative.
• 71% believe that neutral news is not published.
• 52% blamed international politics and 47% blamed domestic politics in India
• 34% said it was a conspiracy by pharma companies internationally
• 21% said regional politics in Asia is to blame.
• 63% of the respondents said that they did not share on social media the news of the Western media which had defamed India internationally
• When asked how they accessed these Western publications/media, they said they used multiple platforms but indicated their preferences as Google News suggestions (59%), YouTube and Twitter (both 40%), Facebook (34%) and Instagram (27%).

IIMC is a premier Institute in the field of Journalism and Mass Communication under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.

Director General of IIMC, Prof. Sanjay Dwivedi said that this survey was conducted by the outreach department of the institute in June 2021. 

The survey received 529 responses from Indian media persons who included journalists, media scholars and media educators.

The survey included 64% males and 36% female respondents. The respondents were mainly from print, digital and broadcast media. 

The journalists who participated in the survey stated that there has been a serious lack of sensitivity and responsibility in the coverage of the COVID19 pandemic in India by the western media. They added that while the western media exercised restraint while covering COVID details in their home countries, they presented the situation in India with undue sensation.

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Government of India has been supporting the efforts of States and UTs for an effective Vaccination drive under the ‘Whole of Government” approach since 16th January this year. Based on the various representations received by the Union Government, the vaccination for all adults above 18 years of age was opened with the onset of Liberalized Phase III of India’s vaccination strategy on 1st May, 2021. Now with the aim to further universalize the countrywide vaccination drive, all citizens above 18 years of age can receive the COVID19 vaccine doses free of cost at Government health facilities.

In immediate follow-up of the Hon. Prime Minister’s announcement of these changes in the Guidelines of National COVID Vaccination program yesterday, the Union Health Ministry has placed an order with Serum Institute of India for 25 crore doses of Covishield and with Bharat Biotech for 19crore doses of Covaxin.

These 44 crore (25+19 cr) doses of COVID-19 vaccines will be available till December 2021, starting now.

Additionally, 30% of the advance for procurement of both the Covid Vaccines has been released to Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech.

(Published from PIB)

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