NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered a collaborative approach to dealing with Covid-19 in South Asia with shared data, expertise and a fund to which India will make an initial contribution of $10 million even as Pakistan sought to muddy waters by raising Kashmir at a conversation of Saarc leaders over video conferencing on Sunday.Chairing the unique video-conference of Saarc heads of government, Modi suggested a fund; rapid response teams of Indian doctors, specialists and testing gear for use by Saarc nations; online training for emergency response staff of participating nations; and video-conferences by doctors for distance diagnosis.Towards the end of the interaction, Pakistani PM Imran Khan ’s special assistant on health, representing Khan, made a reference to Kashmir. Responding to a prompt from the background, Mirza said, “It is a matter of concern that Covid-19 has been reported from Jammu & Kashmir and in view of health emergency, it is imperative that the lockdown in the territory must be lifted immediately.” Khan was the only head of government to be absent from the conference call.Government sources said they were not surprised at Pakistan’s determination to raise Kashmir on an occasion intended to deal with a health emergency. Modi, who was apparently not surprised at the reference, ignored the comment and summed the discussions stressing on offers on cooperation. Earlier, he had said that the shared challenge was an opportunity to collaborate, rather than grow apart.“Pakistan is trying to politicise a humanitarian initiative. It’s a pity they chose to be churlish on this occasion. From our point of view, we have the political will to see this through. We could have kept Pakistan out. We chose to bring them in,” an official source said.Sources said the government will continue to demonstrate the political will and ability to lead in the region. In fact, Australian PM Scott Morrison said in Canberra on Sunday that in his chat with Modi, the latter had proposed a similar video-conference by G20 leaders, and that Australia would support it. On Monday, the G7 leaders are expected to hold a similar exercise among themselves.In his opening remarks, Modi said, “South Asia is densely populated. As developing countries, all of us have significant challenges in terms of access to healthcare facilities. Our people-to-people ties are ancient and our societies are deeply inter-connected .Therefore, we must all prepare together, we must all act together and we must all succeed together.”The video conference showed in sharp relief the disconnect between most of the region’s countries and Pakistan. Except for Afghanistan, whose President Ashraf Ghani called for a different approach than closing borders, almost all other countries expressed willingness to work with India on this issue, including on post-epidemic economic revival measures. India has already sent a rapid response team to Maldives to deal with their Covid-19 challenge. The conversation also made it clear how exposed South Asian countries were to the three hubs of the Covid-19 outbreak — China, Iran and Italy.Ghani said Afghanistan’s greatest vulnerability was the open border with Iran which has been overwhelmed by the number of infections and deaths from coronavirus Ibrahim Solih of Maldives highlighted the peculiar problems his country has — while the islands are spread out enough to create the space needed for quarantines or isolation, medical treatment made it imperative to come to Male, which is bursting and with inadequate infrastructure. Gotabaya Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka was more concerned about the impact of Covid-19 on the region’s economy and asked for a ministerial-level group to assess and recommend ways forward. Lotay Tshering of Bhutan was equally concerned that the pandemic would affect smaller and vulnerable economies disproportionately. Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh offered to host a secretariat to monitor health emergencies now and in future. Modi agreed to arrange for a meeting of trade officials to assess the economic impact of the pandemic.This was the first time since 2014 that all the region’s leaders gathered together to find solutions to immediate problems. It also gave India an opportunity to bat on the front foot by taking a leadership role in the region. A senior government official said, “India also agreed to share the self-designed software of India’s health information platform for disease surveillance with all other countries, to help them track the spread of the disease. India has offered ICMR’s help to set up a research platform for sharing ideas for diagnostic and therapeutic interventions for diseases.”