First daughter Ivanka Trump drew harsh criticism in India Saturday morning after tweeting support for an impoverished girl who cycled her wounded father some 1,200 kilometers, or roughly 750 miles, amid the COVID-19 lockdown transport shutdown. Jyoti Kumari carried her her wounded father—who lost his rickshaw job after suffering an injury—on the back of her bicycle for seven days to their family village because he was running out of food and money where he was working in northern India. The pair slept rough and survived on handouts during their journey. Trump tweeted her support of the girl late Friday after the Indian cycling federation said it would contact the girl, writing, “This beautiful feat of endurance & love has captured the imagination of the Indian people and the cycling federation!”
But human rights advocates, including former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, said the president’s daughter missed the point. “Her poverty & desperation are being glorified as if Jyoti cycled 1,200 KM for the thrill of it,” he wrote on Twitter. “Government failed her, that’s hardly something to trumpet as an achievement.”India’s harsh lockdown has stranded several impoverished workers like Kumari in cities with no work and no transportation to return to their villages. “This is not a feat of excellence,” opposition member of parliament Kanti Chidambaram tweeted. “It’s a feat fuelled by desperation caused due to the callous attitude of the government.”
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