India’s Saturday night has brought surprising news forits public at the time when the nation is battling against the deadly secondwave of coronavirus. Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonwalla, the world’sbiggest vaccine manufacturer has escaped to the United Kingdom as the situationgrows gruesome here.
According to the media reports, CEO Poonwalla has claimedthat he has received threat calls from powerful men of the country includingchief ministers of the Indian states and corporate biggies to deliver theCovid-vaccine at the earliest to them.
He terms these calls as “incessant and very menacing,”
Threats’ is anunderstatement,” Poonawalla says. “The level of expectation and aggression isreally unprecedented. It’s overwhelming. Everyone feels they should get thevaccine. They can’t understand why anyone else should get it before them.”
The calls begin cordially,but when Poonawalla explains that he cannot possibly meet the callers’ demands“the conversations go in a very different direction”, he says. “They are sayingif you don’t give us the vaccine it’s not going to be good . . . It’s not foullanguage. It’s the tone. It’s the implication of what they might do if I don’tcomply. It’s taking control. It’s coming over and basically surrounding theplace and not letting us do anything unless we give in to their demands.”
However, his escape at the time when flights to the UK are suspended, Poonawalla lands in Britain in his private-jetclaiming a business tour. His safe escape hasn’t been accepted warmly by theTwitteratis as people say that Poonawalla does not trust his own vaccine i.e.Covishield, which is being inoculated to the population till now.
It may be noted here, the Poonawalla's are now the sixth richest family in India with a jet-setting lifestyle to match. Poonawalla and his glamorous wife, Natasha, have luxurious homes in Pune, Mumbai, and London, paintings by Picasso, Dali, Rembrandt, and Rubens, private planes, a helicopter, and a collection of 35 classic cars.
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