We have to work together and move ahead together: PM Modi
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the CoWin Global Conclave on Monday as India offered the CoWIN platform as a digital public good to the world to combat COVID-19.
The Prime Minister conveyed his condolences for all the lives lost to the pandemic, in all the countries. He remarked that there is no parallel to such a pandemic in hundred years and no nation, however powerful, can solve a challenge like this in isolation. “The biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is that for humanity and the human cause, we all have to work together and move ahead together. We have to learn from each other and guide each other about our best practices,” said PM Modi.
The Prime Minister emphasised India’s commitment for sharing its experiences, skills, and resources with the global community, as well as India’s eagerness to learn from global trends. PM Modi also emphasised on the importance of technology in the fight against pandemic, saying that software is one area where there are no resource constraints.
PM Modi further said, ‘’That’s why India made its COVID tracking and tracing app an open source as soon as it was technically feasible. He pointed out that with nearly 200 million users, the Aarogya Setu app is a readily available package for developers.’’
The Prime Minister said that given the importance of vaccination, India decided to adopt a completely digital approach while planning the vaccination strategy. This helps people in proving that they have been vaccinated, expediting the normalcy in the post pandemic globalized world. ‘’A safe, secure and trustworthy proof helps people to establish when, where and by whom they have been vaccinated. Digital approach also helps in tracking the usage of vaccination and minimizes wastage,’’ he added.
In line with India’s philosophy of considering the whole world as one family, the Prime Minister stated that the Covid vaccination platform CoWin is being prepared to be made open source. Soon, it will be available all over the world. He stressed that today’s Conclave is the first step to introduce this platform to the global audience.
The Prime Minister further informed that through CoWin, India has administered 350 million doses of COVID vaccines, including 9 million people in one day, a few days ago. Furthermore, vaccinated people will have not need to carry around fragile pieces of paper to prove anything as it is all available in digital format. The Prime Minister concluded with the hope that guided by the approach of ‘One Earth, One Health’, humanity will certainly overcome this pandemic.
CoWIN App is a digital platform developed by the Ministry of Health of India to help agencies keep a track of the vaccination programme as it allows Indian citizens to apply for a Covid-19 vaccine shot. The Centre had developed the CoWIN digital platform, to streamline the process of vaccination for various categories of beneficiaries across the country. Currently, CoWIN is working as the technological backbone of India’s vaccination drive. The app provides an effective rollout for scaling up the mechanism of the COVID vaccine distribution system.
