Indians for Indians’ is how Indian-Americans are fighting Biden ban on vaccine raw materials
In light of the latest Covid-19 wave that has rocked India this week, NRIs and Indians abroad have expressed their desire to help. Some have shared details of donation drives on Twitter, while those based in the United States have called on the Joe Biden administration to immediately send its surplus stock of AstraZeneca vaccine to India.
In other words, Instagram and Twitter have become the primary platforms for Indians abroad to stay informed on the Covid-19 situation in India, resulting in an increased sense of helplessness within the community. Visuals of desperate people outside hospitals, mass graves, cremation sites, and endless tweets asking for leads on oxygen cylinders, plasma donors, or Covid beds are only exacerbating this despair. Google Docs and other online toolkits have been created, and people are relying on the all-powerful tool of sharing, retweeting, or forwarding the cries for help.
And then, others want the US to lift its export embargo on raw materials needed to mass-produce vaccines. Given the importance of Indian origin communities as political groups in countries like the US, how this Indian-American mission unfolds will be interesting to watch.
