In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Arun Ku­mar Sahu on Fri­day re­fused to ac­knowl­edge ques­tions about the sta­tus of the vac­cines from In­dia or the let­ters from both Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar about the same.

The In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er's of­fi­cer host­ed the "In­dia's Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Sec­tor" at the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co­op­er­a­tion in Mt Hope and Sahu served as the main speak­er.

Sahu walked off on re­porters and pre-empt­ed any ques­tions by say­ing "not about the vac­cines" while shak­ing his fin­ger at the re­porters and walk­ing off. He ex­it­ed the event and re­fused to re­spond even as re­porters tried to ask him about the let­ters.

In Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, when asked for an up­date on the vac­cines, Row­ley con­firmed that there was no up­date.

On March 1, Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Sahu's of­fice re­gard­ing the Feb­ru­ary 23 let­ter from Row­ley re­quest­ing ac­cess to the In­dia do­nat­ed vac­cines and a re­quest to pur­chase.

In that re­quest for in­for­ma­tion, Guardian Me­dia sent the fol­low­ing ques­tions:

1. Were High Com­mis­sion­ers de­ployed through the Cari­com is­lands aware that In­dia was of­fer­ing a 500,000 vac­cine do­na­tion to re­spec­tive Gov­ern­ments?

2. When was that of­fer com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the High Com­mis­sion­ers?

3. When did your of­fice know that there as a 500,000 vac­cine fa­cil­i­ty avail­able to Cari­com is­lands?

4. Did your of­fice com­mu­ni­cate that to the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go?

5. When did com­mu­ni­ca­tions about the vac­cine be­gin be­tween your of­fice and this Gov­ern­ment?

6. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said that he wrote to In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di. Have you been in­volved in dis­cus­sions about ob­tain­ing do­nat­ed vac­cines for T&T?

In the two weeks since that let­ter, the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er of­fice has sent copies of ar­ti­cles writ­ten by Sahu but no re­sponse to the ques­tions.

His lat­est snub of the ques­tions and the me­dia came just hours af­ter Row­ley, in Par­lia­ment, re­spond­ed to ques­tions for an up­date about his re­quest for vac­cines. The Prime Min­is­ter said then that there was no re­sponse.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so sent a sim­i­lar let­ter on Feb­ru­ary 28.

There was no re­sponse to her let­ter ei­ther.

At Fri­day's event, In­dia was praised for its role in as­sist­ing var­i­ous coun­tries with do­nat­ed and pur­chased vac­cines.

Suc­ces­sive speak­ers, in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion MP for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la Dr Rai Rag­bir and pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce Vish­nu Char­ran praised In­dia's "vac­cine maitri", the dri­ve to vac­ci­nate the world against COVID-19.

Rag­bir said the "ab­solute lapse in diplo­ma­cy" lay at the feet of the Gov­ern­ment.

"I have ab­solute­ly no doubt, as every­one here, that In­dia stands ready, will­ing and able to as­sist the peo­ple of this coun­try in what­ev­er way it can but the chan­nels of diplo­ma­cy had been idle by the coun­tries au­thor­i­ties in their pur­suit of the vac­cine," he said.

Rai high­light­ed that his po­lit­i­cal leader al­so wrote to In­dia Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di.

He ne­glect­ed to men­tion that Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so did not get a re­sponse to her let­ter.

In a dai­ly news­pa­per re­port on Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er, Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Amery Browne said that he spoke with Sahu at a func­tion on Fri­day and he in­di­cat­ed that he had re­ceived no re­sponse as yet from his gov­ern­ment, but would li­aise with his head­quar­ters and pro­vide ap­pro­pri­ate feed­back in due course.