Top Virologist Shahid Jameel Quits Covid Panel After Criticising Government

Monday, 17 May 2021Newsdesk

Senior virologist Shahid Jameel has resigned from a forum of scientific advisers set up by the government to detect variants of the coronavirus, he told NDTV on Sunday, days after questioning the authorities' handling of the pandemic.

New Delhi, 17 May 2021

"It's correct and I shall have nothing more to say," Dr Jameel, chair of the scientific advisory group of the forum known as INSACOG, said. "I am not obliged to give a reason," he said in a text message to news agency Reuters, adding that he quit on Friday. Renu Swarup, the secretary of the Department of Biotechnology that oversees INSACOG, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Dr Jameel had recently written a piece in The New York Times in which he had said that scientists in India are facing a "stubborn response to evidence-based policy making."

Source -NDTV