The Indian High Commission in Australia has strongly rebutted a report published in The Australian, a leading newspaper, on Sunday as "baseless, malicious and slanderous"  and slammed the newspaper's "rush to blame the surge on the restricted election campaign by the Prime Minister of India and one religious gathering".

 The High Commission in Canberra wrote to Christopher Dore, The Australian's editor-in-chief, on Monday and accused him of publishing a report "written with the sole objective of undermining the universally acclaimed approach taken by the Government of India to fight the pandemic".

The letter referred to "a number of measures" taken by the government to combat the pandemic, starting from the lockdown in March last year to the vaccination drive. The one-page letter with five points of rebuttal was signed by PS Karthigeyan, Deputy High Commissioner of India in Australia. The letter demanded that the newspaper immediately publish a rejoinder to its earlier story.
 
The story - titled "Modi leads India into a viral apocalypse" was widely shared in India on social media - attributed the rise in cases to factors like allowing thousands to attend election rallies, permitting the mega Kumbh Mela, ignoring experts' advice on more infectious strains, and a critical shortage of medical oxygen and vaccines.

Acknowledging the potential impact of mutated Covid viruses, The Australian article also referred to "hubris... nationalist politics... slow vaccine roll-out, an ill-equipped health system... and promotion of the economy over containment" for India sliding to such a state which it attributed to "arrogance, hyper-nationalism and bureaucratic incompetence (which) have combined to create a crisis of epic proportions in India, with crowd-loving PM basking while citizens suffocate".