India's greatest test since partition

In the aftermath of the lockdown, entrepreneurs will need liquidity and loan forgiveness. The millions now sliding into poverty will need direct transfers of money and food

J B S Haldane, scientist extraordinaire and communist ideologue, was a courageous soldier. In World War I, he served in the trenches of France and specialised as a frontline demolitions expert, blowing up enemy pillboxes and trenches. He also studied chemical warfare, experimenting upon himself with toxic gases.

Despite his politics, his scientific eminence led to him being made a member of a dozen scientific committees driving military research in World War II. One of his more controversial stances was the advocacy of chemical warfare, in preference to high explosives.

His logic was poison gas did not destroy infrastructure even as it