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‘Tell Indians to stay put, not’ panic: Jaishankar to envoys
The purpose of the interaction with the heads of mission was to brief them about the steps taken by the government and ask diplomats on the front-line to remain vigilant, the people added. Many diplomats posed the same question: how to deal with Indians panicking and itching to return to India.
External affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Thursday started back-to-back interactions with Indian envoys on the challenges posed by the rapid spread of the Sars-Cov-2 virus. Jaishankar, who was speaking via video conference with the heads of missions in groups, also delivered a clear message to Indians stranded abroad.
They should stay put and not panic.
The interactions began at about 4.45 pm (IST) and continued till late evening, people familiar with the development said.
The purpose of the interaction with the heads of mission was to brief them about the steps taken by the government and ask diplomats on the front-line to remain vigilant, the people added.
Also read: Covid-19: What you need to know today
Many diplomats posed the same question: how to deal with Indians panicking and itching to return to India.
Jaishankar’s answer was that the diplomats continue their outreach to the Indian community and reassure them that there was no need to panic but that they must stay put.
The foreign minister’s decision to hold the interactions with Indian envoys in groups comes a day after India barred scheduled international flights from landing in the country for the next one week, an effort at containment.
A large number of the 230-plus Covid-19 patients in the country are individuals who recently returned from abroad. The others are people who came in contact with such patients, mostly when they were asymptomatic.
Jaishankar is part of the group of ministers set up to handle the Indian response to the virus.
In his interactions, the foreign minister acknowledged the pivotal role played by diplomats in handling the situation so far and asked them to up their game.
Also read: Is Tamil Nadu man India’s 1st community spread case?
“It has been a tough time for diplomats in many countries”, one of the people cited above said. This is particularly true of those posted in countries such as China, Iran, Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom that have had a large number of Covid-19, cases, this person added.
The Sars-Cov-2 virus originated in China’s Wuhan .
Nearly 80,000 people have been infected in China alone; over 3,248 died. In countries that didn’t act in the initial stages, it has spread rapidly. Italy, which has the second highest number of cases (47,021), has reported more deaths (4,032) than China.
In his televised address to the nation on Thursday, PM Narendra Modi asked people to guard against complacency when it came to dealing with the pandemic.
He also underscored that the disease, which had impacted the world more than the two world wars, would hurt countries and the global economy as well. Many other world leaders have also expressed similar concerns about the risk posed by the disease.
It is in the context of this assessment that questions are also being raised about the silence of the United Nations Security Council on formulating a global response to the containing spread of Sars-Cov-2. China is the president of the UN Security Council this month.
But other global groupings have also been working on the issue. Efforts are on to call for a G-20 meeting via video conference to put a global response in place
