Economy needs more govt support

Lockdown was a brave decision. Now, policy-making requires a similar display of boldness

The government deserves full marks for reacting quickly to the Covid-19 outbreak and imposing a comprehensive 21-day lockdown. India had very few cases when the lockdown was announced but the government, seeing the writing on the wall and the spread in Italy, was determined to be proactive in tackling the pandemic. 

Independent assessments carried out by Oxford University and others have all ranked India as having the most comprehensive and total lockdown of any major economy. It was a decisive and brave move by the government to shut down the economy. The fact that we have about 8,500 cases and not