NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram Friday said he was grateful to the Supreme Court that it has raised the issues of vaccine prices and compulsory licensing to vaccine makers and wondered how the government responds to the top court.
"Grateful that Supreme Court has raised the two issues that the Congress had first raised 15 days ago: vaccine prices and compulsory licensing to manufacture vaccines."
"The government brushed aside the Congress. The PM did not even acknowledge the letter of the former PM. The Health Minister was rude in addition to being incompetent," he said on Twitter.
"Let us see how the government responds to the Supreme Court's concerns and questions," he said.
Another Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, "It is incomprehensible that the so-called Indian Super Model on COVID-19 dynamics commissioned by the Modi govt had only computer science professors, and no epidemiologists and public health experts! The nation is paying the price."
He also tagged a picture of a COVID patient being moved besides the site of the central vista project and said, "But is He moved? Does He care? Absolutely shocking!" Terming the second wave of COVID-19 as a national crisis, the Supreme Court on Friday warned authorities, from the Centre down to police chiefs, against silencing people and their pleas for help on the presumption that they are raising false grievances on the internet.
The top court made clear that any attempt to clampdown on free flow of information on social media including the call for help from people would be treated as the contempt of court.
It also posed a set of 10 questions to the government on the handling of the COVID situation.