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image captionFamily members of a person who died of Covid-19 react during a cremation

In early March, India's health minister Harsh Vardhan declared the country was "in the endgame" of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Vardhan also lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership as an "example to the world in international co-operation". From January onwards, India had begun shipping doses to foreign countries as part of its much-vaunted "vaccine diplomacy".