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20-04-2021
Bureau Report
LONDON/ NEW DELHI: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday cancelled a planned trip to India, scheduled to take place next week, due to the current coronavirus situation in India, Johnson’s office said.
Johnson had already postponed the trip once from January, when COVID-19 infections were high in Britain. Infections in India are currently surging as the country endures a second wave of the virus.
“In the light of the current coronavirus situation, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not be able to travel to India next week,” a joint statement from the British and Indian government, released by Johnson’s office, said.
“Instead, Prime Ministers Modi and Johnson will speak later this month to agree and launch their ambitious plans for the future partnership between the UK and India.”
Relations with India are seen as a key component of both Britain’s post-Brexit ambitions to reinvigorate trade with countries outside the European Union, and a diplomatic push to gain more influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Britain has invited India to attend the G7 summit it is hosting in June.
British health officials said on Sunday they were investigating a COVID-19 variant originating in India, but as yet they did not have enough evidence to classify it is as a variant of concern.
Earlier, India has reported a record rise in coronavirus infections of 273,810, with 15 million total cases across the country on Monday.
The country reported 1619 new fatalities, taking the country-wide death toll to 178,769.
The Indian capital New Delhi will be under a strict lockdown for six days starting on Monday night, the city’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, adding the healthcare system was at a breaking point because of the worsening COVID-19 outbreak.
The city was also facing acute shortages of hospital beds, medical oxygen supplies, and key medicines such as the anti-viral Remdesivir, Kejriwal said.
In recent weeks, criticism has mounted over how the federal government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has handled the health crisis, as religious festivals and election rallies continue despite reports of shortages of hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, and vaccination doses.
After imposing one of the world’s strictest lockdowns for nearly three months last year, India’s government relaxed almost all curbs by the beginning of 2021, although many regions like New Delhi and state of Maharashtra have introduced localized restrictions.
Meanwhile, India has been added to a “red list” of countries from which most travel to the UK is banned, over fears of a new COVID variant, the health secretary has said.
From 04:00 BST on Friday 23 April, most people who have travelled from India in the last 10 days will be refused entry.
British or Irish passport holders, or people with UK residence rights, will be allowed in but must quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.
Matt Hancock said there had been 103 UK cases of the India variant.
In a statement to the House of Commons on Monday, the health secretary said the vast majority of the cases of the new variant – officially known as B.1.617 – had been linked to international travel.
He said test samples had been analyzed to see if the new variant had any “concerning characteristics” such as greater transmissibility or resistance to treatments and vaccines.
He told MPs: “After studying the data, and on a precautionary basis, we’ve made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the red list.”
