Galwan clash: Govt looks beyond China to source APIs amid Covid-19 crisis

With tension growing at the India-China border, the government is actively looking for alternative sources for bulk drugs, which are used to make medicines, to avoid any crisis in the domestic market for its reliance on the hostile neighbour. Price and capacity constraints, however, would be big impediments.

 The Covid-19 lockdown experience is proving useful. When Covid-19 had struck China and imports from that country dwindled, the Union government carried out an exercise that could now become a fallback for the Indian pharmaceutical industry in the case of any disturbance in the bilateral trade.  In February, the Indian commerce secretary