‘I am so afraid’: India’s poor face world’s largest lockdown – By Tim Sullivan and Sheikh Saaliq

…As governments around the world try to slow the spread of the coronavirus, India has launched one of the most draconian social experiments in human history, locking down its entire population – including about 176 million people who struggle to survive on $1.90 a day or less.…

Those near the top can hunker down in gated apartment complexes, watching Bollywood movies on Netflix and ordering food deliveries online. But not Jakhawadiya, who makes a living selling cheap plastic buckets and baskets with her husband on the streets of Mumbai.

For her, the order means 21 days in a 6-by-9-foot room with five people, no work, a couple days of food and the equivalent of about $13 in cash. She looked at Modi speaking on their little television, spattered with stickers left over the years by one child or another. “I am so afraid,” she thought.…

SEE ALSO

Lockdown: ‘Suffering of Poor Is Constitutional Concern. But Don’t Look to SC for Answers’ – By Karan Thapar (Apr 16, 2020, The Wire)

Spectre of poverty looms – By The Editorial Board (Apr 14, 2020, The Telegraph)

Preventing a pandemic of hunger along with COVID-19 – Editorial (Apr 21, 2020, New Indian Express)

Already scared by job loss and hunger, working class dreads aftermath of the lockdown – By Nazish Hussain (Apr 18, 2020, TCN)