Jaishankar to take forward vaccine cooperation, discuss wider relations

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s five-day visit to the US has the burden of unclogging the vaccine supply chain as the most important goal as India fights the second Covid wave amid severe shortages.

External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s five-day visit to the United States has many goals but the burden of unclogging the vaccine supply chain is the heaviest as India fights the second Covid wave amid severe shortages. He is the first senior Indian official to come “in person” since President Joe Biden came into office and made the India-US partnership an important part of his bilateral and multilateral agenda. During this first in-depth engagement between the two sides, Jaishankar will meet key senior officials and cover the full range of bilateral, regional and multilateral issues. But the Covid challenge will be front and centre. Health security is national security since the China-origin pandemic shut the world down. To reopen economies, the India-US partnership has to deliver globally and make an impact, most importantly on vaccine delivery as China undermines, ridicules and sows doubts from the sidelines.