India's economic outlook weakens as COVID variant rages

Lockdowns seen reducing consumer spending and jobs for migrant workers

20210421N Migrants in India

A migrant worker's family sits next to a bus at a bus station, as they wait to return to their village, after Delhi government ordered a six-day lockdown. © Reuters

MOYURU BABA, Nikkei staff writer

NEW DELHI -- The variant-driven wave of coronavirus cases sweeping through India is casting a cloud over the country's prospects for recovery from a year of record economic contraction.

The country of more than 1.3 billion people is now nearing 300,000 new coronavirus cases per day -- triple the worst daily figures during the peak of the first wave in September -- and local authorities are scrambling to curb the spread.

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