The media in Britain has now started raising doubts over the COVID-19 negative reports of the four-member Indian delegation led by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to London to attend the G-7 meeting being held there.
According to reports the doubts are being raised after two out of the four members of the delegation led by External Affairs Minister were reported corona positive on Tuesday. Further tests of the delegation members have been sought.
Actually, the news was broken by the British newspaper, The Sun, on Tuesday after Jaishankar had a day earlier met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Home Secretary Priti Patel in person on Monday.
Now that all of them are in quarantine, the Indian External Affairs Minister would be taking part in the G-7 meet through video-conferencing.
“As a measure of abundant caution and also out of consideration for others, I decided to conduct my engagements in the virtual mode. That will be the case with the G7 Meeting today as well,” Jaishankar posted on social media.
Jaishankar had arrived in London on Monday for a four-day visit at the invitation of British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to join the G7 Foreign and Development Ministers Meeting as one of the guest ministers.
Among other things the issue of the corona virus pandemic and the vaccination drive are likely to come up in the meeting.
Some reports even suggest that Jaishankar himself might have been exposed to corona virus. Anyway, all the four-members are hale and hearty and the return plan to India might be rescheduled.
Much depends on the decision of the British health authorities. Jaishankar has cancelled all in-person meetings and has decided to continue the rest of his engagements through the virtual mode.
