With the diplomatic row over UK’s international travel guidelines behind them, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called PM Narendra Modi on Monday.
In the wake of a diplomatic face-off over UK’s international travel guidelines, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called PM Narendra Modi on Monday to discuss wide-ranging issues.
During the conversation, the two leaders agreed that the UK’s recognition of Indian vaccine certification is a welcome development to that end.
PM Modi and Boris Johnson also discussed the India-UK Agenda 2030, exchanged views on climate action in the context of the forthcoming COP-26 in Glasgow, and shared assessments on regional issues including Afghanistan.
India and UK were locked in a diplomatic tiff after the latter announced changes in its travel and quarantine rules in the last week of September. The UK’s fresh international travel norms essentially considered fully vaccinated Indians as “unvaccinated” and made it mandatory for them to quarantine for 10 days on arrival in the country.
India was left out of the 18 countries on an approved vaccinations list, requiring Indians to follow rules set out for “non-vaccinated” travellers.
Justifying the move, British High Commissioner to India Alex Ellis had said “Covishield is not a problem”, and that talks were on with the builders of the CoWin app over vaccine certificates.
In response, India imposed reciprocal measures against the UK’s “discriminatory” international travel norms, making it mandatory for British nationals arriving from the island nation to undergo a 10-day quarantine irrespective of their vaccination status.
Following this, the UK announced that fully vaccinated Indian travellers will no longer have to quarantine on entering the country. The new rule comes into effect today, October 11.
