(Jug Suraiya is a former associate editor with Times of India. This column first appeared in The Times of India on August 24, 2021)
- The worldwide campaign against coronavirus is becoming colour-coded and adopting new shades of meaning, some beneficial and others not. On the plus side, technology has developed VVMs, or Vaccine Viral Monitors, small stickers featuring a square within a circle which are stuck on the vaccine ampoules. The square is lighter in colour than the circle surrounding it, but with undesirable exposure to heat, it becomes darker, indicating that the vaccine has lost its effectiveness. As restrictions on international travel ease, another kind of colour-coding is being mooted involving so-called ‘green’ passports for those who are fully vaccinated. While such documentation certifying to the health of the bearer is a good thing in itself, there are underlying shades of meaning which aren’t desirable…