India Under Coronavirus Lockdown

Alan Taylor
April 23, 2020
33 Photos
In Focus

Responding to the coronavirus outbreak, the government of India ordered a nationwide lockdown on March 24, closing down businesses and limiting the movements of more than 1.3 billion people. Originally planned to last 21 days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced that the lockdown would be extended until May 3, with a few exceptions. Since the outbreak began, India has reported 21,700 confirmed cases and 686 deaths. The lockdown has exacted severe tolls on India’s poor and marginalized communities and its many migrant workers. Collected below, scenes from around India during this pandemic.

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Health-care workers enter a residential area of Mumbai, India, on April 20, 2020, to check on people living there during a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus. #

Francis Mascarenhas / Reuters

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Vehicles line up to pass a police barricade in New Delhi on April 20, 2020, after the government eased a nationwide lockdown. #

Prakash Singh / AFP / Getty

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A health worker scans a resident with an infrared thermometer to check her temperature as a precautionary measure in a residential area of New Delhi on April 20, 2020. #

Adnan Abidi / Reuters

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A man shows his hand, which was stamped by a doctor advising home quarantine after a swab was taken from him to test for the coronavirus, in Mumbai on April 8, 2020. #

Prashant Waydande / Reuters

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Migrant workers eat their dinner inside a shopping mall turned shelter in Ahmedabad on April 7, 2020, during a 21-day nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus. #

Amit Dave / Reuters

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A man drives an auto-rickshaw depicting the coronavirus to create awareness about staying at home during a nationwide lockdown in Chennai on April 23, 2020. #

P. Ravikumar / Reuters

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People are seen inside a temporary quarantine center during lockdown in Kolkata on April 15, 2020. #

Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters

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A doctor in a protective chamber takes a swab from a man to test for the coronavirus at a newly installed walk-in sample kiosk in a government-run hospital in Chennai on April 13, 2020. #

P. Ravikumar / Reuters

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An Indian railway employee works to convert a train coach into an isolation ward for the fight against the coronavirus in Guwahati on March 29, 2020. #

Anupam Nath / AP

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Traders stand inside a pen as they wait to purchase vegetables and fruits at the Agricultural Produce Market Committee market during a government-imposed lockdown in Navi Mumbai on April 20, 2020. #

Indranil Mukherjee / AFP / Getty

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A laborer sits next to closed shops as he waits for daily work during the lockdown in Kolkata on April 22, 2020. #

Dibyangshu Sarkar / AFP / Getty

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A civic worker sprays disinfectant on beds at a special temporary hospital facility for COVID-19 patients in Mumbai on April 10, 2020. #

Rajanish Kakade / AP

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Medical staff wearing protective gear walk in a residential area of Amritsar on April 12, 2020, to screen people during the coronavirus outbreak. #

Narinder Nanu / AFP / Getty

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Veda Hrudya Nadendla, a marketing and branding specialist, works from her home in New Delhi on April 9, 2020, after her office was closed due to the lockdown. #

Adnan Abidi / Reuters

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Rickshaws sit parked in a deserted commercial hub in New Delhi during India's nationwide lockdown on April 2, 2020. #

Yawar Nazir / Getty

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Relatives wearing protective gear offer funeral prayers for a woman who died due to COVID-19, at a graveyard in Chennai on April 8, 2020. #

P. Ravikumar / Reuters

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Volunteers wearing protective gear practice burial techniques, lowering a dummy into a burial pit, in a graveyard in Ahmedabad on April 18, 2020. #

Sam Panthaky / AFP / Getty

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Workers make coffins at the workshop of a funeral-services company in Secunderabad on April 20, 2020. #

Noah Seelam / AFP / Getty

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Plainclothes policemen wield their batons against a man for defying the lockdown imposed by the government in Howrah, on the outskirts of Kolkata, on April 19, 2020. #

Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters

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A drone with a mounted loudspeaker, used by police to monitor activities of people and broadcast announcements, is seen in Chennai on April 4, 2020. #

Arun Sankar / AFP / Getty

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Staff members of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation watch large screens to monitor the movement of people on the roads, inside a "war room" focused on halting the spread of the coronavirus in Mumbai on April 10, 2020. #

Francis Mascarenhas / Reuters

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Indian fishermen, who said they were refused entry at two ports after a nationwide lockdown was imposed, travel in the Arabian Sea, attempting to reach their home state of Maharashtra, on April 17, 2020. #

Prashant Waydande / Reuters

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An Indian policeman wearing a virus-themed helmet rides on a horse during an awareness rally in Hyderabad on April 2, 2020. #

Mahesh Kumar A / AP

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In this picture taken on April 5, 2020, in Pune, hotel rooms with their lights switched on form the word hope on the building's facade during a nine-minute vigil called by India's prime minister. People across the country lit candles and turned on their mobile-phone lights on their balconies and in their homes, in a show of unity and solidarity in the fight against the coronavirus. #

Sanket Wankhade / AFP / Getty

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People in need wait for their turn to collect free rations and groceries distributed by the Karnataka state congress in Bangalore on April 21, 2020, during the nationwide lockdown. #

Manjunath Kiran / AFP / Getty

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A view of the deserted Yamuna Expressway, which connects Delhi with Agra, during the lockdown on April 7, 2020 #

Danish Siddiqui / Reuters

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A health official uses a swab to collect a sample from a woman for coronavirus testing from inside a mobile testing van in Changodar village on April 23, 2020. #

Sam Panthaky / AFP / Getty

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A child plays with a goat on a rooftop in the old quarters of Delhi on April 2, 2020, during the nationwide lockdown. #

Anushree Fadnavis / Reuters

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A motorist rides through a disinfection tunnel in Chennai on April 5, 2020. #

Arun Sankar / AFP / Getty

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A local Gaddi shepherd sits with his flock at a temporary shelter in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh state, India, on April 19, 2020, against a backdrop of the snow-covered Dhauladhar range of the Himalayas. The Gaddis, which remain mobile most of the year, taking their flocks to green pastures, were given special passes to move during the lockdown in the state. #

Ashwini Bhatia / AP

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A doctor holds a vial containing a sample from a swab test of a resident in Dharavi during the coronavirus outbreak in Mumbai on April 9, 2020. #

Francis Mascarenhas / Reuters

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A migrant textile worker rests inside a workroom in Bhiwandi, on the outskirts of Mumbai, on April 1, 2020, after it was closed due to the lockdown. #

Francis Mascarenhas / Reuters

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Staff members of a hospital in Kolkata, India, carry candles and oil lamps to show solidarity with people affected by the coronavirus, and with doctors, nurses, and other health-care workers from all over the world, on April 5, 2020. #

Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters

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