New Delhi, April 5: India was late in issuing an advisory to its citizens for evacuation from Ukraine, RSP MP N K Premchandran said on Tuesday as he initiated a debate in the Lok Sabha on the situation in that country. He said the advisory from India on February 15 lacked clarity while other countries like the US, New Zealand, Australia, Britain, Japan and Norway issued timely advisories for their citizens to evacuate from Ukraine. “This is a strategic flaw on our part in the evacuation process. The hardship the government of India faced in evacuation is absolutely correct. Those miseries could have been avoided if we would have issued an advisory earlier,” he said.
“When we take pride in evacuation, we also have to be introspective.” Premchandran said the government should now focus on resettling the students who returned from Ukraine. “With the students back in India, the government’s priority should be to resolve matters related to the students.” He said India’s diplomatic stand was of paramount importance, and asked if a “new form of political consensus is being formed in West and East”. “Thirty-six per cent of the world’s population lives in countries which have supported sanctions on Russia… Nearly one third of the world’s population lives in countries that have remained neutral so far… The third is 32 per cent world population lives in countries which support Russia’s action,” he said stressing that India has to take a careful position.
UNI
