Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism organized an online webinar on the 14th of May 2020. The main topic of the webinar was the Indian Diaspora during the COVID-19: Coping Strategies and Future Prospects. Mehen Poinoosawmy was one of the speakers at this webinar.
Mehen Poinoosawmy was born in Mauritius and is an Overseas Citizen of India. He is a coordinator of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO). Poinoosawmy talked about the situation related to the COVID-19 pandemic prior to the time of the conference.
Poinoosawmy compared the spread of the pandemic in different European countries. Among Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain, Germany got the lowest level of deaths. He also mentioned a quite different approach adopted by Sweden, where the government did not lock down the country but did quite opposite. Everything was open and people continued living a normal life. However, Sweden had more deaths compared to Denmark and Norway.
Related to Indian Diaspora, Poinoosawmy mentioned a number of Indian students studying in France, who were stacked in France and were the most affected during the pandemic. Students were not able to continue their studies or internships. For these reasons, the companies they were having internships were closed and they lost their source of income. However, the GOPIO managed to help them and distributed a number of ration bags and organized crowd funding.
“The Commission (European) inform social media platforms like Google, Twitter, and Facebook to take steps to promote alternative content and to downgrade and remove misleading illegal and harmful content. For example, there can be theories of conspiracy relating to the origin of virus or it’s illegally intentionally spread”: Mehen Poinoosawmy
At the end of his speech, Poinoosawmy mentioned the approach adopted by the European Union with the main aim to protect its economy and citizens during the pandemic. Some of the measures were: control of borders and mobility, repatriations of European nationals, support of research, financial support, and most important the fight against misinformation.
Michal Tengeri, PhD Candidate in Asia-Pacific Studies at National Chengchi University. Twitter: @Michal8810