New Delhi: In developed countries like the US and the UK, people who get vaccinated against COVID-19 are given a hand-written paper certificate. India has a much more robust system in place. Here, people get digital vaccination certificates instantly through CoWIN. It is needless to stress that digital records are far more secure and reliable than hand-written ones. But the UK has refused to recognize India’s vaccine certificates. What is this if not discrimination!
Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary on Thursday (September 23) called out the UK’s discriminatory policy on recognition of vaccine certificates and travel guidelines when it comes to India. He compared the vaccination certification process of India to that of the US and the UK.
India is presently running the largest digital vaccination drive through CoWIN platform. It is also vaccinating its citizens fastest in the world. Despite such a mammoth population, India has been conducting the drive in a very efficient manner, thanks to its digital prowess.
CoWIN is a licensed product of the Government of India. As many as 76 countries of the world want to use this technology.
India has vaccinated more than 7 crore people in just the last 6 days, while the entire population of Britain is only 6 crore.
India is not only rapidly vaccinating its citizens, but people also get a digital certificate of vaccination in India. Within a few minutes after getting jabbed, a digital certificate is sent to the mobile phone of the beneficiary which can be easily downloaded.
On the other hand, in the UK, people get the digital certificate after two weeks of getting the vaccine and that too only after applying for it.
The same is the case with the US. There also, the vaccination information is given in a hand-written note. There is no provision for digital certificates.
In India, one can see the real-time data of vaccination on the CoWIN portal. But countries like the US and the UK do not have this facility.
In fact, there are only seven states in the US where there are mobile apps to track records of COVID-19 vaccination. As many as 22 states of the country have banned such apps.
Yet, the UK recognises the vaccination certificate of people coming from the US but forces the people of India to quarantine on arrival.
Moreover, The UK has now recognised vaccine certificates of smaller countries in terms of population such as Barbados, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Dominica, and Malaysia. But it doubts the massive vaccination programme of India.
India has lodged a strong protest against the UK’s discriminatory policy. Yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in the Global COVID Summit that the countries of the world should think about making international travel easier and give recognition to one another’s vaccine certificates.
The UK must heed to this. It should come out of its colonial mindset and give the respect that is due to India by recognising the digital vaccine certificates.
