India's Modi urges citizens to follow lockdown as coronavirus spreads

DECISION REVERSED

In Modi's home state of Gujarat, government officials on Sunday reversed the decision to open several retail outlets, citing growing numbers of infections across the western state.

Authorities continued to send hundreds of migrant labourers who had set out on foot from cities where they had lost their livelihoods to their homes or to quarantine centres across India.

In the eastern state of Odisha, nearly two dozen fishermen were stopped and quarantined at the coast after they had sailed for five days from the southern coast, an official said.

Thousands of people pack coronavirus quarantine centres in government buildings across India, complaining of poor food and sanitation. A lack of social distancing between inmates has led to minor scuffles.

Three men were arrested after a woman said she was gang-raped while under temporary quarantine alone in a school building in the desert state of Rajasthan, police said.

Many healthcare workers also complained of poor facilities at India's overburdened hospitals and nursing homes.

In West Bengal state, a health official succumbed to COVID-19 infection on Sunday, the state chief minister said in a tweet.