India-US Ties | Before Sending Aid, India Got to Hear Joe Biden’s Rendition Of America First

US President Joe Biden

India is seen as the pharmaceutical capital of the world. A few months back, in February, India was leveraging its scientific know-how in pharmaceutical manufacturing and distributing vaccines to close to 100 countries, many of them in the Global South. This initiative was dubbed ‘Vaccine Maitri’ (vaccine friendship), and was fulfilling its COVAX obligations, commercial sales and vaccine grants. For a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government often accused of being nationalist, this was very globalist.

India in May tells a different story. On May 1, there was a clarion call for help as its vaccine altruism soon manifested into other countries rushing in aid and essential supplies (oxygen cylinders and medications) as COVID-19 cases spiked and along with it the number of fatalities.

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India’s geopolitical adversaries in China and Pakistan were quick to promise essential supplies along with the rest of the global community, but one countries silence was…