The Bharatiya Janata Party's Twitter game is usually rather strong. In recent times, amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, it has taken to reiterating the actions and policies of the Modi government when it comes to combating the virus.
One particular tweet however seems to have misfired recently.
The Bharatiya Janata Party had taken to Twitter last Friday to say that India had scored a 100 out of 100 on the Government Response Stringency Index that had been developed by researchers at the University of Oxford. This score was for "taking composite measures to combat COVID-19".
"The ‘full marks’ underline Modi government’s proactiveness, seriousness and swiftness in implementing effective lockdown," the party had added.
The post had drawn positive responses from many quarters, with the comments reminding that the World Health Organisation too had praised India for its work. "Proud to be an Indian," wrote one Twitter user.
"Today the people of India are relying on two things: 1. god 2. Shri Narendra Modi Together these two can free India from coronavirus," added another.
The comment section has since turned a tad critical after the "test" developers clarified that the tracker was simply intended to record the "number and strictness of government policies".
"The related stringency index should not be interpreted as measuring the appropriateness or effectiveness of a country’s response - there are no 'marks' as such," the Blavatnik School of Government wrote on Twitter.
The Blavatnik School of Government in case you were wondering is one of the departments under the University of Oxford. As per a post on the deparment's website, "the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker aims to track and compare government responses to the coronavirus outbreak worldwide rigorously and consistently".
For this, 13 indicators of government response -- ranging from school closures and travel bans to fiscal measures -- are recorded on an ordinal scale.
