Encouragement for being self-reliant is no doubt worthy of praise. But we should not mix self-reliance (or shunning over-reliance on China) with going local. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his lockdown 4.0 curtain-raiser address, celebrated all things local during the Covid-19 crisis, while urging citizens to go vocal about local. That brings us to these questions: Has India actually been self-reliant during the pandemic? And, is local the best way forward?
As mentioned by the PM himself, we had a very short supply of N95 masks initially and no personal protection (PPE) kit was manufactured at all. According to government estimates,
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