India invites Pakistan for SAARC meet on Covid

India will host a meet of regional countries on COVID crisis next week and has invited Pakistan to attend the meeting. Many of the invited countries have confirmed that they will take part in the meet.

New Delhi:India has invited Pakistan to attend a virtual meet of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC )countries on COVID 19 crisis. The virtual meet is expected to be held on Thursday.

Interestingly, the meeting at the health Secretary-level will primarily focus on the exchange of best practices to deal with the crisis. It is a workshop on management of Covid-19 which will be attended by many of the SAARC member countries and they have confirmed that they will take part in the meet.

It is pertinent to note that in March last year, Prime Minister Narendra called for a SAARC meeting on the COVID 19 pandemic. The meet saw the participation of SAARC heads of state/government except for Pakistan.

One of the essential outcomes of the meet was the establishment of the SAARC emergency fund which was primarily suggested by India. All member countries pitched in for contributions to the fund including India, baring Pakistan.

India has time and again lambasted Pakistan for raising Kashmir issue during SAARC leaders meet and preferred Pakistan to stay away from SAARC.

However, what came as a surprise, amid the souring of the relationship between India and Pakistan, India has invited Pakistan for a meeting of SAARC countries. It can be viewed as a positive development towards India making efforts to strengthen ties with its neighbours.

Now it remains to be seen how the international community would react to this or whether Pakistan will learn from its previous mistakes of defaming India at different global fora and adhere to international commitments.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, India has been playing a pivotal role in its fight against the pandemic. India has reached out to many countries in the region with medicines and other aid including vaccines.

Under the vaccine Maitri initiative India has supplied a total of 229.7 lakh doses to the global community. Of these, 64.7 lakh doses have been supplied as a grant while 165 lakh doses have been supplied on a commercial basis.

India has also supplied vaccines as a gift to many countries. The countries include Bangladesh (20 Lakhs), Myanmar (17 Lakhs), Nepal (10 Lakhs), Bhutan (1.5 Lakhs), Maldives (1 Lakh), Mauritius (1 Lakh), Seychelles (50000), Sri Lanka ( 5 Lakhs), Bahrain (1 Lakh), Oman (1 lakh), Afghanistan (5 Lakhs), Barbados (1 Lakh) and Dominica (70000).

Countries which have received vaccine supplies on a commercial basis are Brazil (20 Lakhs), Morocco (60 Lakhs), Bangladesh (50 lakhs), Myanmar (20 lakhs).