BREAKING: Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a "complete" lockdown for India's 1.3 billion people on Tuesday, warning that "many families will be destroyed forever" if the country didn't get to grips with its coronavirus outbreak in the next three weeks. https://t.co/zbjFkhdyKW— CNN International (@cnni) March 24, 2020
By converging around shops, you are risking the spread of COVID-19.— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 24, 2020
No panic buying please.
Please stay indoors.
I repeat- Centre and State Governments will ensure all essentials are available. https://t.co/bX00az1h7l
CNN News
written by Manveena Suri, Swati Gupta and Ivana Kottasovรก
Tuesday March 23, 2020
New Delhi (CNN)Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a "complete" lockdown for India's 1.3 billion people on Tuesday, warning that "many families will be destroyed forever" if the country didn't get to grips with its coronavirus outbreak in the next three weeks.
Modi said the lockdown would start at midnight local time, would last for a minimum of 21 days, and would apply to all of India's 36 states and territories.
"You have seen the worldwide situations arising from the coronavirus pandemic in the news. You have also seen how the most powerful nations have become helpless in the face of this pandemic," Modi said in a live televised address to the nation on Tuesday evening ahead of the deadline.
India is the world's second most populous country and the fifth biggest economy, but so far, it has appeared to avoid the full hit of the pandemic. The country has confirmed 519 coronavirus cases, including 10 deaths and 39 patients who have been cured, according to the Ministry of Health.
A number of Indian states have ordered lockdowns in the past few days, in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading. International borders have been shut to most travelers coming from the Europe.
A protest against the country's Citizenship Amendment Act at Delhi's Shaheen Bagh was cleared by the police on Tuesday after the government prohibited all public gatherings in the city. Hundreds of women have been protesting at the site for months, expressing their solidarity with protesters who have been allegedly assaulted by police.
Modi said that the measures are necessary to protect the population, and referred to experience from other countries.
"What the experts are saying is that social distancing is the only option to combat coronavirus. That is to remain apart from each other and stay confined to within your homes. There is no other way to remain safe from coronavirus. If we have to stop the spread, we have to break the cycle of infection," he said.
"From 12 midnight today, the entire country will go under a complete lockdown to save India and for every Indian, there will be a total ban on venturing out of your homes. Therefore, I request you to remain wherever you are in this country," Modi added.
Only essential services will be operational. These include water, electricity, health services, fire services, groceries and municipal services.
All shops, commercial establishments, factories, workshops, offices, markets and places of worship will be closed and interstate buses and metros will be suspended. Construction activity will also be on a halt during this period.
Modi said if the outbreak was not dealt with properly it could set the country back decades.
"According to health experts, a minimum of 21 days is most crucial to break the cycle of infection. If we are not able to manage this pandemic in the next 21 days, the country and your family will be setback by 21 years.
If we are not able to manage the next 21 days, then many families will be destroyed forever," Modi said.
To soften the economic blow from the shutdown, the Indian government announced a number of measures on Tuesday.
Deadlines to file tax returns have been extended by three months, charges on minimum bank balances have been waived and no fees will be charged for using other banks' ATMs.
The threshold for invoking insolvency has been raised to $131,000 from $1,300, India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at a news conference earlier on Tuesday.
Separately, India's Labor Ministry has advised all territories to to help construction workers who are out of work because of the outbreak. The vast majority of the country's construction workers are considered as informal labor and earn their livelihood through daily wages. Around 35 million construction workers across the country are registered with construction welfare boards.
India will go under total #coronavirus lockdown for 21 days:— AJ+ (@ajplus) March 24, 2020
▪️ It has at least 485 cases, 9 deaths
▪️ New Delhi borders are sealed
▪️ Trains + domestic flights canceled
Experts say lack of testing may be hiding cases and warned 1M+ could be infected by mid-May without action. pic.twitter.com/X4XHx1OKgU
India has closed all schools, colleges, malls, gyms, public places, tourist places, temples already and now today onwards most of the non-essential goods production factories will remain closed till 31st March. I appreciate my India government @narendramodi— Jagtar (@IND_Jagtar) March 22, 2020
"If we are not sincere in the curfew for 21 days then the country will fall back 21 years. Forget about venturing out. Draw a Laxman Rekha outside your door and remember that even a step outside of it will bring coronavirus into your house."— Telugu Desam Party #StayHomeSaveLives (@JaiTDP) March 24, 2020
Sri Narendra Modi
Hon'ble PM of India pic.twitter.com/S1ABUe4lK5
— เคตिเคถाเคฒ (@VISHUU101) March 24, 2020
Police fine people for breaking virus lockdown rules in Australia.— Keira Savage (@KeiraSavage00) March 27, 2020
In India, police just belt you with a big stick.. pic.twitter.com/wKzlzpwuMx
#Covid_19 | Migrant labourers returning to their homes from cities were forced by the administration in Bareilly to take an open bath in groups with sanitiser solution before they were allowed entry into the district. https://t.co/T2DxZFFC8f pic.twitter.com/hXPQdUl5cp— The Hindu (@the_hindu) March 30, 2020
The government is doing everything to ramp up the production of medical ventilators in the country, amid reports of a shortagehttps://t.co/Io7VhCgsI6— Hindustan Times (@htTweets) March 28, 2020
Delhi: Migrant workers in very large numbers at Delhi's Anand Vihar bus terminal, to board buses to their respective home towns and villages. They have walked to the bus terminal on foot from different parts of the city. pic.twitter.com/IeToP3hX7H— ANI (@ANI) March 28, 2020
Everybody please be safe. ๐ฅ— Global Awareness 101 (@Mononoke__Hime) March 29, 2020
India’s three-week lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus has stung millions of India’s poor, leaving many hungry and forcing jobless migrant laborers to flee cities and walk hundreds of miles to their native villages https://t.co/bNy0Z56ads pic.twitter.com/lPCgtZXoME— Reuters (@Reuters) March 30, 2020
A migrant worker in India collapsed and died while walking 168 miles to get home. He is one of dozens who have reportedly died trying to get home after being stranded by the 21-day #coronavirus lockdown.— AJ+ (@ajplus) March 30, 2020
"We will die of walking and starving before getting killed by corona." pic.twitter.com/Rjc3nqqO8n
— Nirmala Tai (@Vishj05) March 30, 2020
The Wire
written by Staff
Monday March 30, 2020
New Delhi: At least 17 migrant labourers and their family members – including five children – have lost their lives so far in the course of their desperate efforts to return home since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on March 24 that a 21-day lockdown would kick off within four hours. The total number of lockdown-related deaths stands at 22.
Aside from these deaths, and those of two others who were not migrant workers, an 11-year-old boy also reportedly died of hunger on March 27 in Bhojpur area of Bihar as the family could not arrange for food due to the strict implementation of the lockdown. The total number of deaths due to the lockdown is now 20.
On March 23, Modi announced the three-week national lockdown at 8 pm. Since stores and vendors selling essentials typically bring their shutters down in many parts of the country by that hour, particularly in small towns and villages, Modi’s sudden announcement triggered considerable panic among the public countrywide, forcing people to step out of their homes to procure food and other necessary items that night itself – thus overturning the very principle of social distancing the prime minister had advocated.
The Central and state governments also had not devised any arrangement for those who survive on daily wages. This led daily wage earners to take to the roads and walk hundreds of kilometres to reach the safety of their homes in different states. Instructed to implement the lockdown strictly, the police in several areas also lathi-charged them. They also meted out other forms of ‘punishment’ to those found walking on the roads by themselves, an act which may have broken the strict lockdown norm even if there was not necessarily any violation of the principle of social distancing.
A Twitter thread of published news reports collated till March 29 morning by @_kanikas_, a postgraduate student of Emory University in Georgia, highlighted the horror of the march of migrant workers back home by foot or hopping on to any available vehicle.
According to the latest news reports, a 39-year-old man, employed by a restaurant in Delhi as a home delivery worker, died in Agra on March 28 while on his way to the Morena district of Madhya Pradesh. By the time he arrived exhausted in Agra, he had covered around 200 km by foot. A resident of Badfa village of the district, the man has been identified as Ranveer Singh, a father of three children. He was employed in a restaurant in Tughlakabad area of Delhi for the last three years.
A Times of India report said, after his death, the police took his body for post mortem. Saurabh Dixit, the commanding officer Hariparvat area of Agra, was quoted in the report as having said, “The autopsy revealed heart attack as the cause of death, but considering his travel history, we assume that exhaustion of long walk might have triggered his existing heart condition.”
On March 29 morning, a tweet posted by Sonu Yadav, a senior correspondent of Navbharat Times reporting from Gurgaon, had it that a fast moving canter hit as many as five persons belonging to migrant labour families while they were walking home in the Bilaspur area of Haryana, leaving all of them dead. He said the dead included women and two children. Yadav’s tweet said the Bilaspur Police “is trying to identify the dead. None of the dead had any identity cards with them.”
However, reports by ANI and India TV later said the number of dead was four and four others were injured. Both the news reports said the accident occurred on the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressway on March 29 early morning. The India TV report said, “The incident took place when eight people were walking on the expressway, heading towards their hometown amid coronavirus lockdown.”
On March 27 night, in Telangana too, eight persons belonging to a group of migrant labourers returning to their homes in Raichur district in neighbouring Karnataka were killed in a road accident. Those dead included an 18-month-old baby, a boy and a nine-year-old girl.
An Indian Express report said the accident, which happened on the outskirts of Hyderabad, also left four women and two men with severe injuries.
“In view of the nationwide lockdown, 31 migrant labourers employed by a construction firm in Suryapet district of Telangana were travelling in a Bolero max open truck when their vehicle was hit by a truck loaded with mangoes from the rear,” it said.
The injured are at present being treated at Osmania General Hospital while the rest of the migrants have been put up at a camp in Shamshabad town in Ranga Reddy district.
“He fell unconscious on the road near his house in Pandesara and was taken back to the hospital where he was declared brought dead,” the report said
In yet another case of road accident faced by migrant labourers walking home due to non-availability of any other means of communication due to the lockdown, four persons were run over by a truck at Virar on the Mumbai-Gujarat highway on March 28. According to news reports, the incident occurred at around 3 am.
Reports said the migrant labourers, who were originally from Rajasthan, had tried to return home. They were a group of seven persons, including some who worked at tea stalls and canteens in Mumbai which had closed down due to the lockdown. However, they were turned back by police from Bhillad on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border and were returning to Virar when the accident took place. The four deceased were identified as Ramesh Bhatt (55), Nikhil Pandey (32), Naresh Kalusuva (18) and Lauram Bhagora (18), all from Baswada in Rajasthan, the report added.
On Saturday, a 26-year-old migrant worker was killed in the Pakwarha area of Moradabad while walking from Sonipat, Haryana to his village in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. Nitin Kumar, a shoe factory employee, had decided to walk home after the lockdown was announced and was hit by a private bus on the road.
Nitin’s younger brother Pankaj was also walking with him. Police have seized the bus and are reportedly probing how it was running despite the lockdown.
The first deaths due to the lockdown occurred in Tamil Nadu. Four people – including a one-year-old baby– died in a forest fire in Theni district while taking the forest path home from the estate they worked at, due to the lack of motorised transport. “This path was frequented around 15 years ago. After motorised transport came in, most of the workers took jeeps sent by the estate into Kerala, thus rendering the path unused. Ever since the borders between Tamil Nadu and Kerala have closed due to COVID-19, there has been a spike in the number of illegal paths used,” the district forest officer told The Hindu.
Another death due to the lockdown – though of a migrant worker – occurred in West Bengal on March 26. A 32-year-old man, identified as Lal Swami, had stepped out of his house in Howrah to buy milk when he was reportedly beaten by police. A heart patient, he died soon after.
Another Indian Express report on March 28, from Surat, had it that a 62-year-old man died after walking about eight km from the hospital to his house due to non-availability of any vehicles to take him home. Gangaram Yelenge was accompanied by his son, a helper in a plastic shop, from Surat’s New Civil Hospital to Mujuragate area.
Our Railways connects people and powers our nation’s progress. The IRTS family is adding valuable power to the fight against COVID-19. Thank you! #IndiaFightsCorona https://t.co/eIBtSay7gg— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 29, 2020
I am extremely proud of our industrial leaders, who are rising to the occasion and contributing towards a healthy India.— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 29, 2020
Thank you to @TheJSWGroup. The poorest of the poor will benefit from their remarkable gesture. #IndiaFightsCorona https://t.co/YjzSiPCLpo
Thank you, Honourable President.— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 29, 2020
Rashtrapati Ji is leading the way and inspiring the nation. #IndiaFightsCorona https://t.co/QCiERMuFBW
It is my appeal to my fellow Indians,— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 28, 2020
Kindly contribute to the PM-CARES Fund. This Fund will also cater to similar distressing situations, if they occur in the times ahead. This link has all important details about the fund. https://t.co/enPvcqCTw2
The PM-CARES Fund accepts micro-donations too. It will strengthen disaster management capacities and encourage research on protecting citizens.— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 28, 2020
Let us leave no stone unturned to make India healthier and more prosperous for our future generations. pic.twitter.com/BVm7q19R52
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