‘I feel more optimistic about India… Modi believes Co-WIN is a model for the world: Bill Gates

New Delhi, Mar 4: Bill Gates and Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the "innovative work" in India in health sector, climate change, India's G20 presidency and other crucial issues when they met on Friday, the Microsoft co-founder said in his official blog.

Sharing the "highlight" on GatesNotes - Mr Gates's official blog, the billionaire philanthropist praised India for its "amazing ability to manufacture lots of safe, effective, and affordable vaccines, some of them supported by the Gates Foundation" and said these vaccines saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and prevented other diseases around the world.

Besides producing new lifesaving tools, India also excels at delivering them - its public health system has delivered more than 2.2 billion doses of COVID vaccines through an open-source platform in Co-WIN, which allowed people to schedule billions of vaccine appointments and delivered digital certifications for those who were vaccinated, Mr Gates said in the write-up.

"Prime Minister Modi believes that Co-WIN is a model for the world, and I agree," Mr Gates, who is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, added.

The Microsoft co-founder also praised India for embracing digital payments during the pandemic. At least 300 million people, including 200 million women, received emergency digital payments, he said.

"This was only possible because India has made financial inclusion a priority, investing in a digital ID system (called Aadhaar) and creating innovative platforms for digital banking. It's a reminder that financial inclusion is a fantastic investment," he said.

Mr Gates also praised the Gati Shakti programme as a "great example of how digital technology can help governments work better". "It digitally connects 16 ministries, including rail and roads, so they can integrate their plans for infrastructure projects and accelerate the work of Indian scientists and engineers," he noted.

Mr Gates said India's G20 presidency is an excellent opportunity to highlight how innovations developed in the country can benefit the world, and to help other countries adopt them.

Supporting these efforts -- especially spreading its digital ID and payments systems to other places -- is a high priority for the foundation, he said.

Concluding the blog, Mr Gates said that he felt "more optimistic than ever about the progress that India is making in health, development, and climate". The country is showing what's possible when we invest in innovation. I hope India will continue this progress and share its innovations with the world," he said.

Comments

Add new comment

Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.

Hamas vows to remain 'steadfast' as Israel continues to massacre children and women in Gaza

News Network

October 12,2024

The Palestinian Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip says at least 30 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the northern Gaza Strip city of Jabalia and its refugee camp Friday.

The agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the Israeli regime targeted Jabalia before 9:40 p.m. local time (1840 GMT) and left “12 dead, including women and children” in the city.

Bassal added that 14 people were still missing and likely trapped under the rubble.

Before that incident, Ahmad al-Kahlut, the director of the agency in northern Gaza, said 18 people had been killed by several Israeli strikes, including hits on “eight schools” in the camp that were serving as shelters for displaced Palestinian people.

The day’s aggression left at least 110 injured, according to figures provided by Bassal and Kahlut.

Human rights organizations have repeatedly warned against Israel’s fresh round of aggression on the Gaza Strip’s northern areas, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians having sought refuge from the regime’s year-long genocide in the south.

The Israeli regime announced earlier in the week that one of its largest forced displacement orders since October last year, calling for the expulsion of 37 neighborhoods across northern Gaza, which targets over 400,000 Palestinians in the entirety of the blockaded area.

In a statement, the medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF, said the Israeli regime’s forced expulsion orders in the northern Gaza Strip were turning the war-ravaged besieged area into a “lifeless desert.”

The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor also warned earlier that the Israeli regime was subjecting the northern part of the Gaza Strip to “one of the most violent campaigns of genocide.”

The aggression comes as part of the regime’s October 7, 2023-present war on the coastal sliver, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 42,000 people and wounded over 97,500 others, most of them women and children.

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have since been displaced and humanitarian conditions have deteriorated sharply.

Israel’s expulsion plan ‘could last several months’

An Israeli report based on conversations with military officials said the regime is enacting a plan that will effectively ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population in northern Gaza after a siege that could last months.

Conceived by retired Major-General Giora Eiland, the plan aims to empty northern Gaza of its 400,000 residents to make way for a “closed military zone.”

“The general’s plan,” which was launched in an Israeli TV campaign in September, called for the ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, warning that those that remain will face starvation.

“The right thing to do is to inform the approximately 300,000 residents who remained in the northern Gaza Strip… we are ordering you to leave,” Eiland said last month.

“In a week, the entire territory of the northern Gaza Strip will become military territory.”

According to a report published on Friday in the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, the occupation is now implementing a “scaled-down” version of the plan in the Jabalia refugee camp.

Even though the “general’s plan” aims to create conditions to force the population in Jabalia and nearby Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia to flee south, most people have refused to leave their homes so far, the report added.

Hamas ‘remains steadfast’ in face of Jabalia aggression

Hamas political bureau member Izzat al-Rishq said on Friday that the Gaza-based resistance movement “remains steadfast” in the face of the Israeli aggression on the Jabalia refugee camp, which has continued for the past six days.

“Our people’s choice will always remain … steadfastness on the ground, resilience, and resistance against the occupation’s aggression,” Rishq said in a statement.

He characterized the Israeli actions as akin to “Nazi terrorism,” highlighting that “since Oct. 7 of last year, the Israeli army has engaged in various forms of aggression against Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and [al-Quds] without achieving any of its violent objectives.”

“Those who hold firmly to their land and defend their rights will have the final word, while this fascist enemy will only reap further disappointment, failure, and defeat, despite international silence and complicity,” he added.

Comments