India, Jan. 29 -- '1918 Spanish Flu lessons were guiding factors for India's lockdown, other pandemic strategies'

The Economic Survey 2020-21's highlight was the novel coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19) and its impact on health, economy and society and the path to recovery. The first chapter, that traced India's fight against the pandemic, tried to establish a single point - India got the upper hand in the 'war' against a 'once-in-a-century crisis' solely through the lockdown .

A complete lockdown was imposed from March 24-May 31, 2020. Following that, there was a partial lockdown for another couple of months.

The survey stated that India imposed the most stringent lockdown (equal to 100 according to the index) for around a period...