Modi Orders 3-Week Total Lockdown for All 1.3 Billion Indians [View all]

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Source: New York Times

With four hours’ notice, India’s prime minister announced that no one could leave their homes for 21 days — the most severe step taken anywhere in the war against the coronavirus. India’s prime minister ordered all 1.3 billion people in the country to stay inside their homes for three weeks starting Wednesday — the biggest and most severe action undertaken anywhere to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

“There will be a total ban of coming out of your homes,” the prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced on television Tuesday night, giving Indians less than four hours’ notice before the order took effect at 12:01 a.m.
“Every state, every district, every lane, every village will be under lockdown,” Mr. Modi said.
The breadth and depth of such a challenge is staggering in a country where hundreds of millions of citizens are destitute and countless millions live in packed urban areas with poor sanitation and weak public health care.

Though India’s number of reported coronavirus infections remains relatively low — around 500 — the fear is that, should the virus hit as it has in the United States, Europe or China, the consequences would lead to a disaster far bigger than anywhere else.
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Without being specific, Mr. Modi said “all the steps to ensure essential commodities will be maintained.”
But Mr. Modi did not make clear how people would get food, water and other necessities during the lockdown, or how they would maintain a safe distance from one another in the cramped spaces many now live. Nor did the prime minister make clear whether exceptions would be made for workers deemed critical to keep the country — the world’s most populous nation after China — functioning.

Mr. Modi acknowledged that his decree would create “a very difficult time for poor people.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/world/asia/india-coronavirus-lockdown.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage