Over 40 nations pledge support to India amid Covid crisis; India will do whatever it takes, says FS

At a media briefing, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said India is looking at getting around 550 oxygen-generating plants, 4,000 oxygen concentrators, over 10,000 oxygen cylinders and 17 cryogenic oxygen tanks with 40 countries committing to provide urgently required supplies to India.

India will be taking assistance from all quarters, even at a government-to-government level, in a marked move in the country’s stand on grants and assistance to India. It will be the first-ever since the Indian government refused aid after the country was hit by Tsunami in December 2004. During a press interaction on Thursday, Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said the government “will do whatever it takes” to meet the needs of the people in these “very unprecedented and very exceptional” times. “We are looking at it in terms of a situation that is very, very unusual, that is very unprecedented, that is very exceptional, and we will do whatever it takes to meet the requirements of our people at this point in time,” Shringla told reporters.