HUMANITARIAN EFFORT TO PROVIDE OXYGEN GENERATING MEHUL CHOKSI REMAINS ELUSIVE PLANTS, CONCENTRATORS
Rotary India Humanity Foundation and United Way Bengaluru ink MOU in an online ceremony.
At a time when the country is grappling with scarce medical resources, a humanitarian initiative has been undertaken by Rotary India Humanity Foundation (RIHF) and United Way Bengaluru for providing oxygen concentrators and oxygen generating plants to help mankind at the time of this crisis.
To facilitate this, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the RIHF and United Way Bengaluru was signed on Friday in an online ceremony and attended by scores of eminent personalities.
This MOU is being termed as one of the biggest humanitarian initiatives to help hospitals with something as basic as oxygen concentrators and oxygen generating plants.
Through the signing of the MOU, both RIHF and United Way Bengaluru which is an NGO working on healthcare, livelihood, educations amongst others have agreed to donate 50,000 oxygen concentrators, PSA plants (oxygen generating plants), Bipaps and other medical equipment needed to fight the deadly Covid 19 virus to Indian public hospitals and relief institutions across 1213 states in India.
Remember in the second wave of the Covid-19, the whole country witnessed a massive shortage of oxygen, where many people is believed to have lost their lives due to the lack of oxygen.
Kartikeya Sharma, Promoter and Managing Director of ITV network, who was present at the online MOU signing ceremony, said “I am privileged to be present as the Guest of Honour in the signing of the MOU ceremony where the noble hearts have decided to donate such lifesaving medical equipment at this difficult time for the people of India. In these tough times, serving humanity is the biggest service humans can do.”
“Our motto is connecting dots and such positive people coming together with such an initiative is actually connecting the dots. Our team’s endeavour would be that we will try to take all these good deeds and acts of kindness being showcased to the people so that we can invoke the same feeling among other people as well so that this becomes a movement which inspires other people as well,” Kartikeya Sharma said.
Shekhar Mehta, President, Rotary, speaking on the occasion, said that the second wave of Covid-19 brought more misery to the people compared to the first wave and Rotarians, like in the first wave, have risen to the occasion even in the second wave.
“Thousands of oxygen concentrators have been given to various hospitals across the country, PSA and VSA plants had also been set up in different places. Wherever there was a need, the Rotarians have risen to the occasion, my biggest gratitude towards them. But my biggest thanks is to all the people who are here. When
I first heard about this tie-up I was very excited and ready for the very moment I got all the details and of course I would also like to thank the other signatory Venkata Sudhakar. Our team has done exemplary work when the need arose during the second wave; we developed technologies through artificial intelligence and thousands of oxygen concentrators were delivered as and when the demand arose.”
Some of the other eminent personalities who were also present in the online MOU signing ceremony were eminent lawyer Vivek Tankha, Director of United Way Venkata Sudhakar, Rotary President Shekhar Gupta, Chairman RIHF Ashok Mahajan, among others. Eminent lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Tankha in the program said that generally in politics coalition is not looked at highly, but at these tough times of the Covid-19 pandemic this coalition for humanity which has been formed is a coalition of the highest order.
Fugitive diamond merchant Mehul Choksi (62) seems to be inspired by a 2002 Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood biographical crime thriller film ‘Catch Me If You Can’ starring Tom Hanks. Our sleuths seem to be committing blunders to catch Choksi. There are many unanswered questions connected to Choksi’s sudden disappearance from his new home-nation Antigua and appearance in the small adjoining island nation Dominica in the Caribbean.an eight-member team of CBI and Enforcement Directorate officers and head of the CBI’S Bank Securities and Frauds (Mumbai) division–which had suddenly landed in Dominica some days ago to bring Choksi back–flew home on their chartered Qatar Airways private jet that took off from Dominica’s Melville Hall Airport Thursday night–without the most wanted fugitive. The team was hoping to bring Choksi back to India if the Dominican court cleared his deportation. Obviously, something went wrong with the secret covert operation that, we are told, was closely monitored by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.
It is clear that India’s “Vaccine Diplomacy” did not work. Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit had written a “Thank You” note to Modi some time back saying, “Thanks to the kindness of the Indian nation, 35,000 Dominicans will be vaccinated by April 2021; India has once again come to Dominica’s aid, and this too will not be forgotten.”
Was the gift of vaccines to Dominica in advance part of India’s secret mission to “catch” the fugitive jeweller and bring him back home to put him on trial? Sources say that a success would have helped the government salvage its image that has been dented by vaccine shortage, death of lakhs of people due to Covid-19 and thousands of bodies seen floating in the holy Ganga.but the Indian sleuths returned without the fugitive jeweller.