Will education be the biggest casualty of coronavirus.

Defending the most stringent lockdown enforced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, R Jagannathan wrote, "True, the lockdown sent the economy tumbling, but not only India's." Misery is not comparable. Seeing pictures of the long queues for food parcels in the US, will not decrease the misery of our domestic migrants who had to walk hundreds of miles, often with little children, without food or water. Jagannathan wrote his article in response to industrialist Rajiv Bajaj who gave four reasons for not understanding why the lockdown was imposed on the nation. The math does not add up, said Bajaj. The lockdown was imposed on 24 March when the total number of confirmed cases were 564, with 10 deaths, and most cases in those coming from abroad. It is ridiculous that the lockdown is being lifted when the total has reached 287,155 and there were over 12,000 new infections in the last 24 hours. Delhi may need 150,000 hospital beds by the end of July, said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. According to a group of epidemiologists, the government did not consult experts before imposing this "draconian" lockdown. Had the government run special trains from 25 March to take migrants home they would not have been infected. Now migrants, who have been infected by being helplessly incarcerated in cities, are carrying the virus home to their villages where they will have little or no access to any hospital and certainly none to any intensive care unit. "Small businesses in industrial enclaves across India are confronting the harsh new realities of a post-Covid world as they count their losses from the pandemic," wrote Zia Haq. "Cash is short. Supply lines are frayed. Export markets are shut. And workers have vanished." Around 80 percent of working Indians have experienced income loss and over 90 percent of them are bracing themselves to bear more hardship in the future, said a study by Generali on consumer sentiments during the Covid-19 crisis." "Out of all the countries, India remains in a particularly precarious position being one of the most unequal countries in the world with a significant burden of poverty as well," wrote Prof Amit Kapoor and Chirag Yadav. "The access to education, for instance, is becoming more challenging for children from poorer households." "Then there is the question of access to digital devices like smartphones and computers and also a reliable electricity connection to operate them," which means that distant education will not be accessible to the poor. There are no jobs in villages, so the threat of hunger is forcing many migrants to return back to their jobs in cities but the memory of the hardship they suffered may cause many to leave their families behind. That would mean their children will have to attend village schools and not better ones in cities. The future will be even more unequal.