After the nation's Pradhan Sevak announced a lockdown with just four hours for India to prepare for the grim measure, thousands and thousands of daily wage workers from west and north India walked hundreds and hundreds of miles to return to their villages.
They have not come home yet, many of them having been barricaded in quarantine zones in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on this unique Indian tragedy.
'It is unlikely most labourers have returned home'
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'Who will feed us for three months?'
'Hunger is a real problem'
How will India's poor cope with this crisis?