Life at a standstill!
Regular life of Indian citizens has come to a standstill thanks to the 3-week curfew in force at the moment. Never before we faced such a situation - a war-like ambience except the blackout in the night hours. With a few exceptions here and there the curfew has been successful so far. In certain pockets of urban and rural areas where the dangerous nature of virus has not still been realised by some people inspite of dreadful and devastating news coming from other countries like Italy, Spain, U.K & USA.
Nearly 40% of households in India depend on daily wage earned out of manual labour engaged in unorganised jobs. State authorities can of course come to their rescue with free cereals, pulses, oil etc or cash doles distributed in advance for a few more weeks but not indefinitely. The condition beyond the 3-week curfew i.e after April 14 is not difficult to imagine. The people's patience would reach its edge and result in unrest.
The government in all probability would withdraw the curfew and allow normal activities. If by God's grace the virus is totally controlled by then, life would be normal like in China. Or else the action of some stupid and mischievous citizens would cause the community spread of the virus easily resulting in the deaths of some hundred thousands.
We are thus cornered with no other option except to strictly enforce curfew for the remaining days upto April 14. State governments should show their might and enforce discipline at any cost. We are lucky the chief ministers are fully competent to execute the task.
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