Marathon Monday at PMO as Modi reshapes Covid vaccine, Bengal strategy
The PM’s meeting was one among several that he took throughout the day, covering critical issues of health infrastructure and the assembly elections in West Bengal, as per the officials.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi held several crucial marathon meetings on Monday, including one with health officials on vaccination, after which he gave the green signal to open up India’s coronavirus vaccination drive to all adults – making it one of the most liberalised such drives anywhere in the world.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (PTI file photo)
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The PM’s meeting was one among several that he took throughout the day, covering critical issues of health infrastructure and the assembly elections in West Bengal, according to officials aware of the matter.
The PM called a number of chief ministers to discuss the vaccination programme in light of the Covid-19 situation, one of these persons said.
Following this, Modi, who is observing the Navratra fast, held a crucial meeting with the brass of the Bharatiya Janata Party to review the election campaign and chart the future course for the party in a keen contest against Trinamool Congress.
With parties being criticised for holding massive rallies in the eastern state despite rampaging virus, PM Modi decided that BJP rallies will have only 500 people with all Covid protocols being rigorously followed, including mandatory masking and social distancing.
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In the evening, PM Modi held a comprehensive meeting with top doctors from across the country to discuss the Covid-19 outbreak and later another with key pharmaceutical companies to discuss and review the status of health care infrastructure, oxygen supply and availability of critical medicines like Remdesivir through the country, the people quoted above said.
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In the evening, PM Modi held a comprehensive meeting with top doctors from across the country to discuss the Covid-19 outbreak and later another with key pharmaceutical companies to discuss and review the status of health care infrastructure, oxygen supply and availability of critical medicines like Remdesivir through the country, the people quoted above said.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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