Adani defends India's Covid handling

September 21, 2021 14:11

Amid talk of his infrastructure conglomerate venturing into the media space, billionaire Gautam Adani on Tuesday said media coverage cannot be biased under the garb of press freedom and criticism should not be at the cost of national dignity.

Addressing the JP Morgan India Investor Summit, the head of the port-to-energy Adani Group defended India's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying in a rush to lay blame and find fault, it was ignored how well a nation with people more than Europe, North America and Oceania handled the crisis.

"Perhaps we could have done some things better and, of course, every life lost is a tragedy. But the sheer size of our population arguably makes the challenge posed by COVID in India greater than in any other major nation," he said.

Stating he wasn't implying that there cannot be any criticism, he said in democracy accountability has to be fixed.

"But in the rush to lay blame and find fault, it is possible that we failed to acknowledge another, more positive side to the story of how we handled and continue to handle the COVID crisis," he said, adding "criticism cannot be at the cost of national dignity. It cannot be at the cost of degrading a nation."

Adani, who a couple of days back hired a senior journalist to head his group's media venture, said media coverage cannot be biased under the garb of press freedom.

"There is always another side of the story which unfortunately was not told," he said.

Adani Group appointed Sanjay Pugalia, who previously worked with BBC radio, Navbharat Times, Zee News, Star News, CNBC and Quint, as the chief executive officer and Editor in Chief. The appointment has triggered speculations of the Adani group's possible launch of a TV and digital media venture. The Group has so far not commented on the speculations.

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