India dismisses Australian paper's criticism of Modi's handling of Covid-19 as 'malicious report'

The Australian report was titled 'Modi leads India into a viral apocalypse'

India on Monday dismissed an Australian newspaper's criticism of PM Narendra Modi-led government's handling of the Covid-19 crisis as a 'malicious report' and asked it to issue a rejoinder.

"Urge The Australian to publish the rejoinder to set the record straight on the covid management in India and also refrain from publishing such baseless articles in future," the Indian High Commission in Australia wrote on Twitter, with a photo of a letter sent to the newspaper.

Countering the criticism in The Australian's report, the letter hailed India's vaccination drive as the biggest in the world, and stated that the country has upgraded its diagnostics infrastructure.

The report, titled "Modi leads India into a viral apocalypse", was originally published in The Times under the headline "Modi leads India out of lockdown and into a Covid apocalypse".

On April 25, The Australian tweeted, "arrogance, hyper-nationalism and bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a crisis of epic proportions in India, with its crowd-loving PM basking while citizens suffocate. This is the story of how it all went so terribly wrong".

The article begins by referring to one of Modi's rallies in West Bengal, where he said "I’ve never seen such huge crowds", as the country reported increasingly high number of daily cases and deaths.

On Tuesday, India reported 3.23 lakh Covid-19 cases, a marginal dip from Monday's record of 3.52 lakh cases, as hospitals across the country struggled to acquire oxygen for patients who desperately needed it to survive.

Reacting to the report, many Twitter users, unamused by the apparent obsession with optics over the situation, shared images of mass cremations and slammed PM Modi's rallies in West Bengal.