PM Modi to address nation at 8pm today, day after meeting with CMs on Covid-19 lockdown

The Prime Minister announced the 21-day nationwide coronavirus lockdown on March 25 to break the chain of Covid-19 infections in the country.

The address comes a day after PM Modi held a video-conference with chief ministers on the Covid-19 situation. The Prime Minister said in the meeting that states will have greater say in determining the extent of restrictions and relaxations after May 17, within a broad national framework while underlining that India faced two challenges - reducing the transmission rate of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and resuming public activity gradually.

He also emphasised that social distancing remains the “biggest weapon” against the virus till a vaccine is found, and suggested that the lockdown may not be lifted entirely.

PM Modi also said that India now had a good sense of the spread of the disease, and urged states to carefully examine specific geographical areas to come up with a road map for the next phase of lockdown.

“I am of the firm view that the measures needed in the first phase of lockdown were not needed during the second phase and similarly the measures needed in the third phase are not needed in the fourth,” PM Modi said at the meeting, according to news agency ANI.

The country is in the third phase of lockdown which will end on May 17.

At the meeting with chief ministers, PM Modi highlighted the importance of green zones in restarting economic activity, underlined that the full resumption of rail travel would not be possible, pointed out that India will have to use technology in imparting education and, more broadly, spoke about how the pandemic will change the world, just as the world wars did. He said that the new principle of life would be “jan se lekar jag tak” (from an individual to the whole of humanity).