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The controversy over speedy approval for Covaxin developedby Indian Council for Medical Research, National Institute of Virology and Bharat Biotech exemplifies the risk of damage to the nation’s vital interests that single-minded criticism of the government entails. India aspires to be the world’s pharmacy. Bharat Biotech is an established, credible producer of sophisticated vaccines and drugs supplied to the world. Criticism of the government and its processes, carried out in a manner that shakes global confidence in India’s regulatory capability and the integrity of Indian pharma companies, is totally unacceptable.
Opposition parties must give up their knee-jerk response of spreading doubt to delegitimise every effort made by the Modi administration. The central government too must improve its approach to public communication; avoiding situations that give purchase to the efforts by political opponents to cast doubt. Take the Covaxin controversy; the DGCI should have made public the data it considered to give emergency authorisation for use of the vaccines. Experts could have reviewed the information and provided the government with the necessary support. It would, more importantly, have deprived support to the critics’ efforts to delegitimise the achievement. Mixing politics with business hurts the economy and its ability to produce jobs, incomes and taxes. Attacks on government policy has deflected to companies deemed to benefit from it, witness the destruction of Jio’s mobile towers or the push to boycott whole companies.
Politicisation of every issue on party lines quashes innovation and excellence. The fear of being at the centre of political mud-slinging deters experts and companies from doing their best work. If it becomes a trend, it could scare off not just foreign investors but domestic ones, too, curbing Indian companies from forging ahead and competing globally. It will hinder economic growth. Politics, ultimately, is about a whole lot more than grabbing and wielding power: it is about advancing the common good.
Courtesy - The Economic Times.
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