CNS: September 2021

Recent decision of the United Kingdom (UK) to consider fully vaccinated Indians along with some other nationalities as 'unvaccinated' lacks scientific merit and instead stinks of white supremacy and apartheid era. It is important to mention that 90% of the vaccines rolled out in India are Covishield. Covishield vaccine, is Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, whose research was done by UK based agencies but this vaccine under the name of 'Covishield' is being made in India and exported globally by Serum Institute of India. Serum Institute of India is also the world's largest vaccine manufacturer. Will UK also consider those vaccinated with Oxford AstraZeneca in its own nation as 'unvaccinated'?

[हिंदी] The Covid pandemic has hard drilled the lesson why health and social security of each one of us is inter-dependent on health and social security of one another. But do we see more equity (or inequity) in the Covid response, such as the rollout of the vaccination worldwide? Inequitable distribution of vaccine, diagnostics, oxygen, personnel protective equipment, and other necessary essential tools have been plaguing the Covid response due to which we are unable to fully break the chain of infection transmission by prevention measures, and reduce severity of the disease for those who get infected.

Undoubtedly, the Generation Equality Forum which took place earlier this year, was a milestone to galvanize US$ 40 billion financial commitments for gender equality and human rights worldwide. This is the largest amount of investment to advance gender equality and women’s rights ever. It also launched a 5-year action journey (till 2026) "to achieve irreversible progress towards gender equality, founded on a series of concrete, ambitious and transformative actions, as well as ambitious policy and programme commitments from governments, philanthropy, civil society, youth organizations and the private sector."