India helping Malaysia despite the sour relationship between two countries shows the maturity of Indian government
A Malaysian minister recently told that India has agreed to sell hydroxychloroquine tablets to Malaysia for use in the treatment of coronavirus patients. This comes at a time, when the relationship between the two countries were not so warm.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi must have ignored the old conflict and came out to help the Malaysian government at an extra-ordinary time, showing a big heart and humane nature.
More than 20 lakhs of people are found positive with the deadly virus so far and more than 1,35,000 people have died. Malaysia has seen more than 5000 cases and 83 deaths so far from the global pandemic. India coming to help Malaysia shows the good gesture of diplomacy and further establishes the fact that all the countries are together in the battle with the COVID-19.
Why demand of hydroxychloroquine is soaring?
India is the largest producer of hydroxychloroquine tablets. The demand of this tablet soared after US President Donald Trump touted it as a potential weapon against the deadly virus.
Indian authorities had kept the export of hydroxychloroquine tablets on hold to secure supplies for itself. Once the country had enough stock and infrastructure to continually produce more tablets, we started supplying it to some of the neighbours and countries who are badly affected by the coronavirus.
India has given permission to export 89,100 tablets, however, Malaysian authorities said that they will try to get more hydroxychloroquine tablets from India. Malaysia is using hydroxychloroquine for mild to severe coronavirus cases along with other medicines.
Truth of Malaysia & India Relationship
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad alleged that Indian has invaded and occupied Jammu and Kashmir and asked India to work with Pakistan to resolve the issue at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2019. Mahathir Mohamad who has allegedly a tilt towards Pakistan, said that there may be reasons for India’s action in Jammu and Kashmir, but it was still wrong.
Read more: Who failed in the Bandra incident & how situation like this could be avoided in Future?
Another problem Malaysia has been creating for India is in the extradition of Muslim televangelist Zakir Naik. India authorities are looking for the 53-year-old Islamic preacher since 2016 for alleged money laundering and inciting extremism through hate speeches. Naik left India in 2016 and subsequently moved to Malaysia, where he got permanent residency by the government of former PM Najib Razak.
Mahathir also criticized India’s Citizenship Amendment Act in December 2019 saying that he was sorry to see India, which claims to be a secular state is taking action to deprive some Muslims of their citizenship.
All these incidents made the Indian government which had prioritized Malaysia once under the Act East Policy, place restrictions on the import of refined Palm oil from Malaysia. Malaysia is one of the biggest exporters of palm oil and accounts for 2.8 per cent of the GDP and 4.5 per cent of the total exports. India was one of the biggest importers of refined palm oil from Malaysia. The move definitely had an impact on the economy of Malaysia.
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