Covid-19: E-commerce saves the day as delivery workers emerge as heroes

Trade Minister Piyush Goyal held a video conference with nearly two dozen e-commerce executives in a bid to understand hurdles faced by the sector.

Three days after the nationwide lockdown was imposed, Devender Singh revved up his motorcycle to deliver meat and eggs to customers - but his heart was in his mouth as he closed in on a police barricade on a deserted New Delhi road.

Beatings of delivery workers by overzealous police after Prime Minister Narendra Modi suddenly imposed the world's biggest lockdown to contain the coronavirus had unnerved him.

"That day, it felt like my time to get thrashed had come," Singh, 30, told Reuters on a quiet summer afternoon as he was out making deliveries.

"But what I was expecting