Image source, Reuters

Police in India are prosecuting a man who used Twitter to try to find oxygen for his dying grandfather.

Officers in Uttar Pradesh state charged Shashank Yadav with spreading a rumour over oxygen shortages "with intent to cause... fear or alarm".

Mr Yadav, who did not refer to Covid in his brief tweet, could face jail.

Uttar Pradesh is among India's worst-hit states. Its chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, is accused of downplaying the severity of the coronavirus crisis.

Earlier this week, Mr Adityanath, a right-wing ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanded that the property of anyone spreading rumours and propaganda be seized.

He also said that none of the state's hospitals lacked oxygen, although scenes have unfolded of an overwhelmed health system.

Read more here.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

Image source, Reuters

“For the first few days, I was tearing up. Now my tears have dried up and I have gone numb.”

This morning, I called up a photographer friend of mine who has been on the road for most of the past year, documenting the pandemic. Now he’s in Ground Zero, the national capital, Delhi, taking pictures of the unfolding tragedy. He prefers to remain unnamed. “I’m not the story,” he says. “The pandemic is.”

I asked him how he was doing, going out every day, double-masked, armed with sanitiser and drinking water, and sometimes riding a bike to hospitals, crematoria and hotspots to chronicle the consequences of a fierce second wave and the meltdown of a health system.

“I feel helpless now. Sometimes you don’t want to shoot, but it is our job to document what is going on so the world knows. It’s a big responsibility,” he told me.

“At the same time I feel small, I feel inferior that I am not being able to help people struggling outside emergency rooms and on roads for oxygen and medicines and beds.”

Many of them don’t make it.

I asked him what he felt about some people saying photographers should not be taking pictures of burning pyres because it amounts to “death porn”.

"This is not about creating images, this is about recording things as they are happening," he says.

And he knows this is important to grieving friends and relatives because they have come up to him while he photographed funerals and said, "You guys should show to India and the world what is going on".

He has covered floods, earthquakes, a tsunami and terror attacks in the past, but the second wave of the coronavirus, he says, is “different”.

“Everything is so overwhelming. I haven’t seen so much death and misery. The subjects of your pictures become part of you because they are seeking help. There’s a lot of raw emotion”.

“And I'm praying every minute, God, take care of me. Delhi is now a scary place.”

Narendra Taneja, a leader in India's ruling BJP party, defended the government on BBC radio in the UK earlier.

In January and February, "India was doing actually very well", he said.

"But then we saw the last three or four weeks and the country was hit by a tsunami. As you know, a tsunami comes without any warning and suddenly we saw the number of cases going up. Today the entire country is overwhelmed.

"We were caught off guard."

Taneja was then asked about a BJP resolution written before the current wave that stated: “India defeated Covid-19 under the able, sensible and committed and visionary leadership of Prime Minister Modi."

He replied that India had until that point handled the pandemic "remarkably well".

On the topic of Modi holding mass political rallies - potential super-spreader events - Taneja replied: "He is a politician, he had to go when the party asked him to campaign."

He added that Modi has "100% approval from the people".

On whether the death toll is far higher than is being reported, Taneja said: "Nobody knows the exact numbers. In a country like India, a huge country, you can't hide deaths. If there is any mismatch that will come out in the public domain."

He maintains that despite the devastation, India will bounce back.

"We have that strength, we have that resilience. You will see it."

Speaking to the BBC a couple of days ago, Pawan Khera of the opposition National Congress Party strongly criticised the government and urged it to take responsibility for the crisis.

Does India have enough medical infrastructure for its vast population?published at 16:13 British Summer Time 28 April 2021

16:13 BST 28 April 2021

Question from Ealias in Singapore

Yogita Limaye
BBC India correspondent

In 2018 India’s spending on healthcare was 1.28% of its GDP (GDP measures all the economic activity in a country). By comparison, in the US it was 17%.

From numbers published by the Indian government in 2019-20, there is one doctor for 1,456 people in the country.

This under-investment in public healthcare is a long-running issue. Successive governments have not made it a priority.

In smaller cities, towns and rural areas, the situation is particularly bad. Hospitals have inadequate equipment and staff. In some parts of the country, people have to travel miles to get to any kind of medical services.

An 85-year-old Covid patient who gave up his hospital bed to make way for a younger patient has passed away at home, India Today reports., external

Narayan Dabhalkar reportedly walked out of a hospital in Nagpur, Maharashtra, despite suffering coronavirus himself, after seeing a woman pleading with staff to admit her 40-year-old husband.

“I am 85,” he reportedly told staff. “I have lived my life. Saving the life of a young man is more important. Their children are young… please give my bed to them.”

The retired statistician died three days later at home.

A report by The Times of India quoted an unnamed hospital official who said the younger patient might not have been allocated Mr Dabhalkar's bed, but that his act would have certainly helped with overcrowding on the ward.

“Whom to give the bed is the prerogative of the doctor,” the official said. “Although Dabhalkar leaving would have certainly eased the pressure by creating space for someone else.”

Vikas Pandey
BBC News, Delhi

This day, like the last few, has not been going well. I am still fielding panicky calls and messages from close friends and family, trying to do whatever I can to help.

Last evening, my neighbour messaged, looking for both a bed and a drug that is in short supply.

(Names have been changed)

This morning I was still hunting for hospital beds - for her father and for two of my friends.

I have been getting more news of deaths than recoveries in my immediate circles.

The mind goes numb. The sheer helplessness I feel is draining. I know the sense of loss far too well having lost a loved one barely a few days ago.

But none of us had any time to grieve as more friends and family went down with Covid.

My neighbour still needs the remdesivir for her father-in-law. Her mother-in-law is in hospital fighting for her life.

Her mother is also very sick and we are now looking for a bed for her.

Ashitha Nagesh
BBC News, London

Image source, EPA

Bengaluru is one of the worst-hit cities in India, with some estimates saying there are about 300 active Covid cases per square kilometre.

I've just spoken to a senior consultant at a government hospital in Bengaluru about the situation there. They've asked to remain anonymous, as healthcare workers have been advised not to talk to the media.

"We were not prepared for this second surge," they say. "For the first surge it was well organised - as soon as we came to know [of the virus] everything was streamlined and we were much better prepared. This time there are more cases, it was more sudden, and the situation was not prepared for."

They say that in the first few days of the surge, people whose cases weren't severe "rushed in" and admitted themselves into hospitals, which then led to a shortage of space for those more in need.

"I think people are all panicked," the doctor adds.

Reality Check and BBC Monitoring

Despite the gravity of the pandemic in India, there are still those spreading misinformation online about the situation.

A video showing people collapsing in public after a deadly gas leak at a chemical plant in southern India is being widely shared and linked to the current Covid crisis in the country.

The images are from a factory gas leak in May last year in the city of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh state.

The fumes caused some people to faint and drop unconscious on the streets.

The BBC wrote a story about this at the time.

The misleading video, a montage of several clips taken in the aftermath of the leak, went viral across multiple social media platforms as "evidence" of the severity of the current Covid surge in India.

It was also widely posted among anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown groups, who claimed India’s surging pandemic would be used to fuel fear and promote vaccine uptake and further lockdowns.

On Twitter, one post by an anti-lockdown account claimed the video had been staged using actors. It has had over 100,000 views.

In the past year, videos erroneously claiming that the pandemic is exaggerated or a hoax have spread widely among both fringe groups and to audiences at large.

Image source, Getty Images

For people in Britain with family and friends in India, watching the situation spiral in recent weeks has been acutely painful.

Members of the Indian community in Wembley told the BBC they had been praying for the safety of their loved ones - but that many had been unable to travel to attend the funerals of those who had died.

Image source, Getty Images

Russia will deliver emergency aid to India as it battles its deadly coronavirus wave, President Vladimir Putin has told Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Vladimir Putin expressed words of support to Narendra Modi in this difficult period in the fight against the spread of the coronavirus infection," the Kremlin said in a statement.

The deliveries will include 20 units of equipment for the production of oxygen, 75 artificial lung ventilation devices, 150 medical monitors and 200,000 packages of medicines, it said.

Meanwhile, the first batch of the Russian vaccine, Sputnik V, is set to arrive in India on 1 May, The New Indian Express reports today., external

It has not yet been revealed how many doses will be delivered.

It's worth remembering that while all aid is valuable, India is a country of 1.3 billion people - so the impact of overseas support will inevitably be limited.

Image source, Getty Images

India is a huge, diverse country but right now the news coming from most places is distressingly similar.

In the southern state of Karnataka, where cases and deaths are climbing fast, local news is dominated by Covid patients desperate for treatment, reports BBC Hindi's Imran Qureshi.

In the last 10 days alone, there have been reports of at least 100 people dying at home or arriving dead at hospitals because they didn't get oxygen in time. Many died while being driven around in auto rickshaws or makeshift ambulances from one hospital to another in the dead of the night.

But the long line of ambulances outside hospitals and the winding queues at crematoriums are just as familiar a sight in the northern state of Punjab.

BBC Punjabi's Arvind Chhabra reports that local media there is also filled with heart-wrenching stories of people fighting to get their loved ones the medical care they need and, when they don't make it, struggling to find a place to put them to rest.

In one instance, the bodies of two Covid patients were ferried to the crematorium on a hand-pulled cart as no ambulances were available.

In both states, the rising deaths have also spotlighted a discrepancy between official death tolls and the higher numbers being reported in local media.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

Condolences are again pouring in on the WhatsApp group.

These groups full of strangers have become a powerful symbol of India's Covid story - a place where people share pleas for help, and stories of both loss and hope.

This time, it's the former: another journalist has died of Covid-19, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

"It's so heart-breaking to lose your colleagues like this. May he rest in peace and may God give us strength to fight back," a message reads.

The prayer emojis, hands placed firmly together, have become ubiquitous, sometimes thanking people for helping others get beds, medicines and oxygen; and at other times, announcing Covid-19 deaths.

Early this morning, another journalist was gasping for breath in her Delhi apartment and the message read:

(Names and times have been changed)

And last night, before I went to bed, someone posted an eerily dystopian clip.

The flashing red lights of the ambulance light up the deserted street. A man steps out of the vehicle and sprints into a building. I can hear a woman wailing inside.

The message read:

More than 100 journalists have died of Covid-19 in India, according to Press Emblem Campaign, a media group based in Switzerland.

Forty-five of those deaths have come in the last two weeks.

Surinder Maan
BBC News, Bhatinda

Gurdev Kaur Dhaliwal is back at her sewing machine. The 99-year-old is once again making masks, something she started last year when the pandemic first swept through India.

"I will stitch masks to my last breath because I think this is an actual service to society during Covid," she told me.

And she stitches them on a 100-year-old sewing machine made in Singapore - a treasured gift, she says, from her in-laws.

She wakes up early and calls relatives and friends, asking them to distribute the masks to the poor.

She urges people to wear masks so they can fight the virus effectively.

Cases are on the rise in her home state of Punjab, where wearing masks outdoors is mandatory.

Dhaliwal's efforts earned her the appreciation of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh last year after BBC Punjabi reported her story.

Frances Mao
Sydney

Image source, MANDEEP SHARMA

Australia’s decision to block all flights from India for the next few weeks has left more than 9,000 citizens stranded.

Mandeep Sharma is one of them, and he’s desperate to get home to his wife and two daughters in Adelaide. He's been in the northern state of Punjab since his father passed away there a few weeks ago.

His return flight was booked for early May. But then Canberra imposed the ban.

"My heart stopped when I heard my flight had been cancelled," he told me, adding that the uncertainty of the situation made it worse.

The family fear they may now be separated for months.

Public opinion back home in Australia largely supports the ban and he says: "It’s really devastating to see when people on social media say: 'Just let them stay there' – what kind of thing is that to say about a fellow Australian?

"When the US had a similar rate of 300,000 cases per day, Australia didn’t stop the flights then. So why are they banning the flights now?"

Ask the average person on the street and the chances are they won't know what an oxygen concentrator is.

Unless you’re in India that is, where it’s now become part of the everyday vocabulary. Just slightly bigger than a computer monitor, the device extracts oxygen from the air and collects it in concentrated form.

It’s become a life-saving alternative for many in the daily, desperate search for oxygen cylinders - but the cost of them has also soared.

Image source, Getty Images

This post contains images some people may find upsetting.

India's death toll has now passed 200,000. Mortality data there is poor and deaths at home often go unregistered, especially in rural areas - so this is simply the official figure.

People have died waiting for hospitals beds, as oxygen supplies run critically low, and hospitals buckle under the strain.

Crematoriums are also running out of space, with some operating non-stop.

In the capital Delhi, workers have been forced to build makeshift funeral pyres in parks and other empty spaces.

Families have had to wait hours before being allowed to cremate their dead and have also been asked to help by piling wood and assisting in other rituals.

Here are some photographs from Delhi showing the reality for those grieving: workers and relatives taking part in cremations.

Image source, NAVEEN SHARMA/SOPA IMAGES/SHUTTERSTOCK

Image source, DANISH SIDDIQUI / REUTERS

Image source, ADNAN ABIDI / REUTERS

Image source, ADNAN ABIDI / REUTERS

Image source, ADNAN ABIDI / REUTERS

Ashitha Nagesh
BBC News, London

There have been reports recently of private jet companies seeing a spike in people wanting to leave India for Dubai. But the Indian head of one charter service has told me the vast majority of requests have been from people desperate to fly their Covid-positive loved ones to cities where hospitals have beds.

"Requests to the UAE died down after about one day," Ashish Wastrad, head of Air Charter Service's Mumbai office, says.

"Currently, as sad as it is, the majority of requests we're getting are to move Covid patients domestically in the country from one hospital to the other. It's basically families of patients who are looking to get into a hospital and are trying to see if there are any beds in other parts of the country."

He says the company is doing everything it can to help people, but currently their planes aren't properly equipped to carry Covid-positive patients.

Amid all of this chaos and sadness, many people are trying to press on with their daily lives and celebrate the milestones they had planned. In Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, a couple have been allowed to marry, despite the groom testing positive for coronavirus a few days earlier. Local officials were initially concerned about the event but, following discussions, the participants agreed to wear full PPE kit.

Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst

As China borders India and has a similarly large population, there are concerns there that cases in India could spill over into the country.

China has seen this month how quickly cases can rise via border arrivals; people coming from Myanmar led to more than 100 cases in the city of Ruili in a matter of weeks.

However, China’s leading foreign affairs daily, Global Times, says “India’s surging infections [are] unlikely to impact China.” , external

Feng Zijian, the deputy director of China’s Centre for Disease Control, says: “China has taken strict precautions to prevent the import of the disease from outside.”

At the same time, China has vowed to provide aid to India.

Its embassy in India said, external: “We will encourage and guide Chinese companies to actively cooperate with India to facilitate acquiring medical supplies, and provide support and help.”

Before the outbreak, the relationship between China and India had been somewhat rocky; the two countries have a well-documented history of border disputes.

However, the Global Times says that “a close neighbour is better than a distant relative”., external In recent days, Chinese media outlets have emphasised that traditional allies of India – the US and the UK – have not bent over backwards to offer the same help.

Papers have criticised the US and the UK for not offering assistance with vaccinations, while praising the acceleration of their own drives. Global Times said yesterday that US aid to India was “long overdue”, and outlets are also highlighting a comment made by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman, who said: “We don’t have surplus doses.”

Some Weibo users, meanwhile, are of the view that “capitalist” countries have “abandoned India at a critical moment”.

Soutik Biswas
India Correspondent

Yet another day has been consumed by WhatsApp groups incessantly buzzing with queries about hospital beds, pleas for leads on medicines or distressing news.

We have been following some of the threads and themes that come up in these groups - it’s been the story of India for weeks now since this devastating second wave began.

And today was no different, swinging between snippets of bad news with the occasional good news.

There’s a vaccine shortage in my neighborhood, and stocks ran out a couple of days ago.

And then I get this message: Some 30 doses of vaccines have arrived at a public health clinic. Go and get them before 2pm. Run!

Within minutes, there's another message on my phone.

(Names have been changed)