Gautam Adani defends India's COVID handling, says criticism should not be at cost of national dignity

Adani Group recently appointed journalist Sanjay Pugalia as the CEO and Editor in Chief of its media ventures

Amid talk of his infrastructure conglomerate venturing into the media space, billionaire Gautam Adani on Tuesday said media coverage cannot be biased under the garb of press freedom and criticism should not be at the cost of national dignity.

Addressing the JP Morgan India Investor Summit, the head of the port-to-energy Adani Group defended India's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying in a rush to lay blame and find fault, it was ignored how well a nation with people more than Europe, North America and Oceania handled the crisis.

"Perhaps we could have done some things better and, of course, every life lost is a tragedy. But the sheer size of our population arguably makes the challenge posed by COVID in India greater than in any other major nation," he said.