{"id":20071,"date":"2020-07-04T17:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-04T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/jul\/04\/india-lockdowns-cases-rising-"},"modified":"2020-07-04T17:00:08","modified_gmt":"2020-07-04T08:00:08","slug":"india-had-one-of-the-worlds-strictest-lockdowns-why-are-cases-still-rising-rukmini-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=20071","title":{"rendered":"India had one of the world&#8217;s strictest lockdowns. Why are cases still rising? | Rukmini S"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unable to expand testing or hospital capacity, Narendra Modi\u2019s administration has turned to bluster and brute force <\/p>\n<p>The response to the spread of coronavirus that most Indians are talking about this week is not an innovation in contact tracing or a big increase in hospital beds, it\u2019s the <a href=\"https:\/\/uk.reuters.com\/article\/uk-india-police-crime\/indias-george-floyds-father-son-death-in-police-custody-sparks-outrage-idUKKBN23Y0FZ\">death of a father and son<\/a> in judicial custody in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. It happened after the local police picked them up for complaining about having to close their small store early to comply with lockdown rules. In some ways, the case exemplifies India\u2019s struggle with its coronavirus response: if you can\u2019t beat it with a stick, what do you do?<\/p>\n<p>India now has nearly twice as many cases as the UK, and will surpass Russia to become the world\u2019s third worst-affected country after the US and Brazil within days. India\u2019s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is no Jair Bolsonaro; since his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.narendramodi.in\/text-of-prime-minister-narendra-modi-s-address-to-the-nation-on-vital-aspects-relating-to-the-menace-of-covid-19-548941\">24 March address<\/a> to the country announcing a national lockdown, Modi has been relentlessly on message, and wears a mask and practises physical distancing.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/jul\/04\/india-lockdowns-cases-rising-\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unable to expand testing or hospital capacity, Narendra Modi\u2019s administration has turned to bluster and brute force The response to the spread of coronavirus that most Indians are talking about this week is not an innovation in contact tracing or a big&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1423,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1069,62,433,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus-outbreak","category-india","category-narendra-modi","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20072,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20071\/revisions\/20072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}