New Delhi, April 14 -- As India witnesses an unprecedented surge in Covid caseloads, voices for a short-duration national lockdown or in severely-hit states/UTs grew louder on Wednesday and experts urged the Centre to immediately plan and execute a 15-day lockdown to break the chain of infection and manage the second wave of the pandemic.
The fact is that when India went into a 21-day national lockdown in March last year, the total number of active Covid cases was a mere over 500. The lockdown then failed to stop the surge as the first wave happened after that period and devastated businesses and normal life.
This time, as India reported 1,84,372 new Covid-19 cases, setting another grim one-day record and taking the overall tally to 13,87...