India: do not call the “Indian variant” “Indian”, it is racist
The Indian government has asked social media platforms to delete all posts referring to the "Indian variant" of the coronavirus , after the country's health ministry argued that the term is misleading and "baseless".
The New Delhi ministry of information technology wrote to social media companies on Friday urging them to remove any content that uses the phrase, insisting that there is no scientific reason to link the viral mutation to India, according to a letter obtained. by Reuters and local media.
“We have learned that a false claim is circulating online which implies that an 'Indian variant' of the coronavirus is spreading to all countries. This is completely FALSE, ”the communication states, referring to a variant identified by the World Health Organization as B.1.617, which was first reported in India.
WHO has not associated the term "Indian variant" with the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus in any of its reports.
A government source told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the letter was sent to make it "loud and clear" that the term is detrimental to India's image and gives the false impression that the mutation is country-specific.
Earlier this month, the Indian health ministry released a statement criticizing media reports referring to B.1.617 as the "Indian variant". The ministry noted that WHO's May 10 report on the mutation did not use the phrase, although the document states that "viruses of the B.1.617 lineage were first reported in India".
Singapore made a similar request to social media platforms, ordering Facebook and Twitter to put corrections on posts claiming that a new variant has been detected in that country. The request came after Delhi Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged banning flights to Singapore in a Twitter post, claiming that a "new form of Crown" was discovered there that is "very dangerous for children. ". in short, the definition of the variant becomes an element of conflict.
While the WHO has been reluctant to tie Covid-19 or any of its variants to geographic locations for stigma reasons, the media has often done so during the health crisis, with numerous reports citing the "United Kingdom," "Brazil "Or" Southern Variants of Africa "of the coronavirus, some all at once.
During the early stages of the pandemic, controversy also erupted over the term "Chinese virus", referring to the fact that the pathogen was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Former US President Donald Trump, who used the phrase loosely, was slapped in the face with a lawsuit on Friday by a Chinese-American group, who said his words fueled violence against Asians and caused widespread "Emotional distress".
In an apparent attempt to cancel the India – B.1.617 link, Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon said he would no longer speak of an "Indian variant" and will now refer to it as "April 02 variant" during a press conference on Friday, only to continue speaking, in the speech, of "Indian variant". After all, Sturgeon herself defined the English variant as the "Kent variant", so India cannot be "offended", but Kent can be offended …
Err, anyone else find it strange Nicola Sturgeon saying she will now refer to the Indian variant as the "April variant" but then mentions the Kent variant in her next sentence?
– Ross Newton (@RossNewton_) May 21, 2021
Probably the Indian government will succeed in its mission to erase the "Indian variant" from social media, being unable to do anything for its cure and its actual erasure. After all, we know that the Indian government has managed to obtain from Twitter a limitation of the possibility of communication of opposition leaders, in spite of democracy. What times it is to cancel the "Indian variant"
Thanks to our Telegram channel you can stay updated on the publication of new articles of Economic Scenarios.
The article India: do not call the "Indian variant" "Indian", it is racist comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/lindia-non-chiamate-la-variante-indiana-indiana-e-razzista/ on Sat, 22 May 2021 13:14:15 +0000.