Need a crystal ball in politics of post-coronavirus world: Jaishankar

By Sahil Pandey/ Joymala Bagchi
New Delhi [India], July 11 : External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday said that a "crystal ball" would be needed to predict the politics in the post-coronavirus world.
"Need a crystal ball in the politics of a post-corona world. A lot of the trends that we saw before the coronavirus, they could well accelerate. We have seen a lot of countries behaving more nationalistically. People frankly looking out for themselves," Jaishankar said while addressing India Global Week 2020.
"I think there will be issues of trust which have been raised, there will be a question on resilience supply chains. It is going to be a more difficult world," he added.
Referring to COVID-19, he said India will have a role in making a vaccine or multiple vaccines accessible, affordable and available to the rest of the world.
"We still have our challenges ahead. We are very conscious of it. I think the next few weeks and month are going to be tough," he said.
The minister highlighted India's effort in supplying coronavirus treatment-related drugs to 120 small countries who wouldn't have normally had access to it because of the surge in demand.
Jaishankar also stated that India going for an early lockdown, travel restrictions and social distancing helped it in lowering the proportion of cases compared to the population.
"In the post-corona world, we have to step up more in matters of health policy," he said.
India has reached the third position with respect to the number of COVID-19 cases but recovery rate in the country is above 61 per cent.