State leaders, businesses and working class Indians have called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reopen the battered economy, but the government is expected to extend the lockdown, which would otherwise expire on Sunday, though with fewer restrictions.
Bengaluru: India's COVID-19 count has crossed the grim milestone of 85,000. At least 3,970 people tested positive for novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours. At 85,940, India confirmed more COVID-19 cases than China.
Indications emerged about greater relaxations in the fourth phase of the lockdown beginning Monday to contain economic costs of the pandemic.
State governments want more relaxations in lockdown restrictions for scaling up economic activities in non-containment coronavirus zones, as the Centre mulls easing some strict curbs in the fourth phase of the shutdown from Monday.
However, some governments are also in favour of extending the lockdown till the end of this month.
Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar spoke at length in an interaction with Hudson Institute about India's response to coronavirus pandemic, lockdown and the future of the country.
"My interactn wth @HudsonInstitute abt #India ‘s respnse to #CoronaVirus n our future. I say here -Pandemic must n will cause democracies like #India #USA etc to build a new world order. Do watch,comment n share @PMOIndia @DrSJaishankar," he tweeted.
My interactn wth abt ‘s respnse to n our future.
I say here -Pandemic must n will cause democracies like etc to build a new world order.
Do watch,comment n share
https://t.co/D63iSr0RYN
A strict lockdown enforced since late March has reduced the rate of contagion.
Indian officials say the low death rate could be because a majority of people infected with the virus were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms and that the vast shutdown imposed early on had helped avoid a major catastrophe.
Read Exclusive COVID-19 Coronavirus News updates, at MyNation.