Covid 'Lockdown is only option left for India to save lives'

India's opposition Congress party is calling for a full lockdown in order for the country to get on top of the current wave of coronavirus.

Spokesman Pawan Khera said the government had ignored the warnings of experts and been too slow to react to the scale of the current epidemic.

He told BBC World News: "Nobody wanted the lockdown. Nobody wants a lockdown. But as I have said, if you want to save lives, this is the only option left."

National spokesperson for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shaina Nana Chudasama, has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not rejected the idea of a lockdown but has left it to individual states to impose measures from curfews to full lockdowns.