India's economy contracted at an annualised rate of 23.9% in the second quarter. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a severe lockdown to combat COVID-19. The contraction in GDP was far greater than most analysts had predicted and highlights the severity of India's initial strategy to combat the epidemic, which required companies to cease operations at once, resulting in about 140 million people unemployment. The government's fiscal response to the crisis has also drawn criticism for failing to provide adequate living allowances to people who have lost income as a result of government restrictions. While the lockdown measures hit the economy, they failed to prevent the spreading of the novel corona virus among 1.4 billion people in India. It now has more new cases than any other country, with about 79,500 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours alone. At the current rate, India's cumulative number of COVID-19 cases is expected to soon overtake Brazil and be second only to the US. The official death toll was 65,000. India's economy faltered even before the outbreak, with GDP decelerating for four consecutive years and growing at an annualized rate of just 3.1% in the first quarter of 2020. However, the lockdown imposed by India since 24 March has been devastating. In the April-June quarter, private consumption fell by 27% from a year earlier and investment fell by 47.5%. Construction output fell by 50% and manufacturing output fell by 40%. Agriculture was a rare bright spot, up 3.4%, partly because farmers under lockdown were allowed to resume work more quickly.