Omicron impact on India and global diplomatic engagements

India and world's diplomatic engagements have been impacted due to the recent surge in Covid cases. Many of the events have been postponed and some have even cancelled.

 Vibrant Gujarat, the biennial mega investors' summit, is one such major event that has been postponed due to increasing number of COVID cases. The summit due to take place from 10th to 12th January was also expected to be major diplomatic event with participation of 5 head of governments--Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi, Mauritius PM Pravind Jugnauth and Slovenia's PM Janez Jansa.

The summit was to see a special session of PM with Governors and Heads of Far Eastern Federal Districts of the Russian Federation. Country sessions for Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Mozambique, UK, Japan, Sweden, Norway, South Korea were also planned.

Earlier, PM Modi's visit to United Arab Emirates, that was supposed to happen on 6th January was postponed due to increase in number of cases of omicron variant of covid in Dubai. He was to visit the India Pavillion at Dubai Expo during the one-day long visit. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's planned visit to Dubai on 2nd January was also called off due to covid crisis.

Not just south Asia, globally - Japan PM Fumio Kishida had to cancel his US and Australia visit in the new year due to covid crisis. Both Japanese, Australian PM later held a virtual summit. During the opening statement at the virtual summit, Australian PM said, "I’m sorry we could not be doing this in person, as I’m sure you are also, here in Australia, but I very much respect and understand the need for us both to be also very focused on the challenges that we are facing domestically to deal with the Omicron variant of COVID."

Covid was first reported from China's Wuhan in 2019 and it has been more than 2 years since the crisis has ravaged the world. In the 2 years, many of the engagements have gone in virtual or hybrid mode. The first quad summit, between India, US, Australia and Japan took place virtually. 2020 saw the G20 summit happening virtually for the first time. While the BRICS Summit has been happening virtually for last 2 years, SCO summit was in hybrid mode in 2021.