SIRSIWALA, India — Randhir Singh was already deeply in debt when the coronavirus pandemic struck. “This is what we feared,” said Rashpal Singh, Mr. Singh’s 22-year-old son, choking back tears in his family home in Sirsiwala, a small village in the northern Indian state of Punjab. “The lockdown killed my father.”Months ago, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Singh’s livelihood came crashing down. India now leads the world in new daily reported coronavirus cases and has the second-highest number of cases globally, surpassing Brazil on Monday. The measures, economists say, are forcing millions of households into poverty and contributing to a long-running tragedy: farmer suicides.

Source: New York Times September 08, 2020 06:56 UTC