The countrywide lockdown to tackle the novel coronavirus commands the front pages Tuesday. Some states, like Punjab and Delhi, declared a curfew and sealed their borders, restricting movement to the absolute essentials.
The pink papers focus on the economic impact of the outbreak as markets crash and rupee breaches the 76 mark for the first time.
Read about another day in the life of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Times of India’s lead story ‘Curfew Pass Needed To Enter City’, reports, “Police issued an order to this (curfew pass) effect late on Monday evening. As of now, persons from Delhi-based essential services organisations — both private and government — can move around in the city for work by showing their official identity cards.”
TOI also notes, “the count of coronavirus cases in the country stood close to 500, with 498 cases reported so far by the states. As many as 246 cases have surfaced in the past three days, accounting for nearly half of all cases reported since January 30.”
TOI also puts out a note on ‘Fighting fear with facts’ on how it values only verifiable information to share in the public domain.
Hope that applies to the website too.
With ‘Locked Down and Grounded’, Hindustan Times leaves no room for ambiguity in its lead story. The daily reports, “Thirteen more states and union territories, including Haryana, Gujarat, Assam and Manipur, announced a complete lockdown on Monday, taking the total number to 28. Some states that announced a partial lockdown on Sunday upgraded their response, ordering complete lockdowns and curfews, increasing the curbs on residents. Almost 75% of India’s population is covered by the lockdowns.”
In more bad news, the paper reports that Sensex had the worst day ever Monday with a drop of 3,934 points. “India’s benchmark stock indices posted their biggest drop on record on Monday in a torrid start to the week as deepening concern over the extent of the coronavirus crisis… caused another wave of selling by investors”, reports HT.
The Indian Express leads with the lockdowns but the second lead is important and touching: ‘Unorganised workers have been hit hard, need direct payments, India Inc tells PM’ notes, “At least six top corporate leaders are said to have recommended to PM Modi that the government should make payments to organised sector workers since they bear the brunt of severe lockdowns measures.”
Another report on the findings by the NITI Ayog (“No community spread of coronavirus yet, all actions to stop it: NITI panel head”) notes that “the strategy as of now was to guard against it and intensify containment measures.” Quoting NITI Ayog member Dr. V K Paul, the paper notes, “the numbers show we haven’t reached the stage of serious deaths or disease.”
The panic continues to spread across India as ‘Migrant workers’ rush chokes transit points in the East: Where do we go, what do we do now?’. The report further details how “from Jharkhand to Bihar, the government scrambled to cope with the return of thousands of migrant workers from cities and states as far away as Kerala.”
Some political news sneaks in from Madhya PRadesh, as BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s swearing in as Madhya Pradesh chief minister got a little attention (“Chouhan back in MP, takes charge as CM to start his fourth innings”). The report notes, “Chouhan’s first crucial test will be the Assembly bypolls to 24 seats — 22 held by Congress rebels who resigned and two left vacant deaths of two MLAs”
News of the lockdown continues in The Hindu as well. The paper refers to the lockdown in the national capital as a “stuttering start”. It reports, “The Delhi police registered 100 FIRs against violation of lockdowns. The police conducted checks on the borders and requested people to return home if they hadn’t stepped out in order to perform essential services. The government said that if people were not going to comply with the restrictions through persuasion, it would have to enforce them by booking people under relevant sections of the law.”
And then there is the cautionary tale of ‘Reckless residents spook Central Delhi colony’. According to the daily, a man who had returned to Delhi from Nepal in the second week of March did not isolate himself for 14 days as has been stipulated by the government.
The Tamil Nadu government announced a special hospital only to treat COVID-19 patients. Hindu reports, “Other operations of the hospital in Chennai would be wound down and it will be dedicated to the treatment of the SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.”
With news of the deadly COVID-19 disease getting grimmer day by day, The Telegraph foregoes snappy headlines for a more sombre approach.
The lead story is ‘Challenge: Detect and isolate half of patients within 3 days of symptoms’. The paper reports, “India would need to detect and quarantine half of all patients infected by the novel coronavirus within three days of them developing symptoms to reduce its cumulative patients numbers through the epidemic by 62 per cent, researchers said on Monday amid rising counts.”
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umbai Mirror pays a full-page tribute to those who are playing a “supporting role” in the battle against the coronavirus in ‘Rampaging virus or city in lockdown, we won’t let the city down’. These people “are travelling in crowded buses, sometime changing three, to get to their workplaces to make sure the drains don’t get clogged, the streets are policed 24 hours, the power supply remains uninterrupted, the hospitals continue to be stoic in the face of this calamity, markets don’t run out of essential provisions, you get your food home delivered and there is no let up in this battle with an enemy so sneaky that we don’t even know where it will pop up next,” it writes.
The Tribune leads with ‘19 states locked down, violators to face action’, adding the “government deepened national lockdown asking states to to punish curfew violators.” The paper also details how Punjab was the first state to declare curfew as the heads of department in government offices have been asked to prepare “a duty roster of bare minimum”.
The terrifying anchor story, ‘Community transmission can be delayed not stopped: ICMR’, is an important read. The report notes that a research published in the Indian Council of Medical Research journal mentions that “the transmission of the virus in the community can be delayed by early passenger screening and social distancing measures but it can not be stopped completely”. However, it is significant to note that social distancing can flatten the curve, which is the need of the hour.
The Economic Times leads with ‘Manic Monday’ for the markets as “Sensex, Nifty plunge 13% to 39-month low; massive selling wipes out ₹14 lakh crore; rupee breaches 76 mark for the first time.”
Another report (‘RBI Readies Liquidity Push to Ease Credit Squeeze’) notes the central bank’s steps as credit markets begin to “see a squeeze with short-term rates climbing as investors hoard cash amid uncertainty about the impact and duration of the coronavirus outbreak.”
Mint also focuses on the crashing markets as “Indian stocks suffered their biggest rout ever on Monday, wiping out a staggering ₹14.2 trillion of investors wealth and firmly placing the markets in bear territory as the government took drastic steps to curb new coronavirus infections.”
Another interesting report (‘Internet service firms in a race to keep up as web traffic swells’) notes how “The spike in remote work and curbs on civic life to check a raging pandemic are driving up internet use, posing unique challenges for internet service providers and telecom operators.” To accommodate working from home, customers are “upgrading to faster speeds and bigger data plans” in a country that has “over 630 million mobile (3G/4G) users compared with around 19 million fixed broadband users, indicating that a large part of the work-from-home pressure will be on mobile networks.”