Offended by UK's quarantine rules for Indians, Tharoor pulls out of events
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who had once famously demanded UK to make reparation payments to India for its 200 year colonial rule, has taken offense to UK asking fully vaccinated Indians to quarantine after arriving in their country. In protest, he has in fact pulled out of the events he was meant to attend in the UK, which included a debate at the Cambridge Union and the launch programmes of his book, 'The Battle of Belonging'.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who had once famously demanded UK to make reparation payments to India for its 200 year colonial rule, has taken offense to UK asking fully vaccinated Indians to quarantine after arriving in their country. In protest, he has in fact pulled out of the events he was meant to attend in the UK, which included a debate at the Cambridge Union and the launch programmes of his book, ‘The Battle of Belonging’.
On Monday (September 20), Shashi Tharoor tweeted that he has withdrawn from events he was scheduled to attend in the UK. He has taken umbrage to the fact that UK wanted fully vaccinated Indians to quarantine, said an India Today report.
Because of this I have pulled out of a debate at the @cambridgeunion &out of launch events for the UK edition of my book #TheBattleOfBelonging (published there as #TheStruggleForIndiasSoul). It is offensive to ask fully vaccinated Indians to quarantine. The Brits are reviewing! https://t.co/YEVy3Ez5dj
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) September 20, 2021
in his tweet, he wrote, “I have pulled out of a debate at the @cambridgeunion & out of launch events for the UK edition of my book #TheBattleOfBelonging (published there as #TheStruggleForIndiasSoul). It is offensive to ask fully vaccinated Indians to quarantine. The Brits are reviewing!”
While relaxing their international travel rules for vaccinated people coming in and out of England, the UK government however has made it compulsory for ‘fully vaccinated Indians’, who have taken Covishield, the Serum Institute of India produced Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, to undergo a pre-departure PCR test and some more tests on landing in the UK.
Also read: Maker of Covaxin claims vaccine ‘effectively neutralises’ UK Covid variant
What’s more, the UK government has announced that if a person has been vaccinated in Africa, South America, UAE, India, Turkey, besides a few more other nations, they will be regarded as “unvaccinated” and must stay in a 10-day home quarantine.
The UK is getting rid of its earlier system of slotting countries under red, amber and green categories based on their COVID-19 risk levels from October 4, said the India Today report. The new system will have a single red list. Until now, India was in the amber list.
Also, according to the new rules, people coming into the UK from 17 additional countries with eligible vaccines, including Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, will no longer need to take pre-departure PCR tests. Meanwhile, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka from the red list have been removed from the travel ban list, while Turkey, the Maldives, Egypt, Oman, and Kenya are to be taken off the red list.
