‘Ready for a shot’ : New Delhi locals react after vaccine approval

While the visiting US President was hailing Indian Prime Minister Modi as a "defender of religious freedom", lynch mobs were gearing up for a third night of rioting, the worst Delhi's seen in decades. What had started Sunday as clashes over the Hindu nationalist government's new citizenship law has since turned into a full-blown anti-Muslim rampage. With police accused of standing idle, opposition parties are calling for the resignation of Home Secretary Amit Shah. We'll measure the government's response

Days of deadly riots in New Delhi have pitted Hindus against their Muslim neighbours, in the worst sectarian violence to hit the Indian capital in decades. How did we get here? And how much blame can be attributed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist agenda? We sit down with Indian historian, novelist and filmmaker Vijay Singh.

As the smoke clears following the violent communal riots in New Delhi, stories have emerged of Muslim and Hindu neighbors helping each other as mobs vandalized their communities.

Indians react to the banning of popular Chinese app TikTok as New Delhi's ties with Beijing deteriorate sharply following a deadly border clash.

The White House is blocking new FDA guidelines that would likely have prevented the approval of a vaccine before next month's election, US media reported. Ireland has introduced new restrictions as cases tick up.

The US Food and Drug Administration is confronting a crisis of trust just as it faces a major task: Approving a COVID-19 vaccine under the Trump administration.

US experts vote to recommend granting emergency approval for Pfizer-BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine, paving the way for America to become the next country to move ahead with mass immunization as the country's virus death toll approaches 300,000. The US government's top infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci also comments on the vaccine recommendation, saying "they are safe and they are highly effective, and those decisions were made by independent bodies without any political or other influence,".

This week we begin by looking at South Korea's strategy against Covid-19. It has been widely praised as effective against the virus but is it corrosive to personal freedoms? Next we see how monks are racing to save a Buddhist temple from rising waters in Thailand. The result of failed economic planning at the cost of the local environment. Finally, we head to India where the pandemic has exacerbated the problem of aggressive monkeys in New Delhi. We will look at how innovative solutions such as facial recognition are being used to deal with the problem.

"When the vaccine comes, I’m ready. I’m ready to take a shot," says one man in India's capital, New Delhi after two Covid-19 vaccines were approved for use, kicking off one of the world's biggest inoculation drives. India, which has the second highest number of registered cases worldwide, authorised the use of shots developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University as well as by local pharmaceutical firm Bharat Biotech.

The capital is the worst-hit city in India, with new infections threatening to overload the health care system. The country as a whole has reported another record daily rise in cases.

Cars line up outside a shopping mall in India's capital New Delhi where a drive-thru clinic has been set-up to administer Covid-19 vaccines. Demand is far outstripping supplies for jabs in India, with only 3.5 percent of the population fully vaccinated. "We’re vaccinating a little more than we were about 10 days ago, two weeks ago. We’ve crossed three million per day," says Gautam Menon, professor of physics and biology at India’s Ashoka University.

New Delhi's Central Vista used to be a favourite spot with residents of the Indian capital. But the large public space, close to the president's house and heritage buildings, is being remodelled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The €2 billion construction caused uproar when it was deemed an "essential service" at a time when Indians were dying by the thousands from Covid-19. The move reopened debate around heritage conservation and public spaces in India’s ancient capital. Our correspondents report.