Growth in the world’s second most-populous nation was already weakening when it recorded its first Covid-19 case on Jan 30, then saw its number of cases shoot above 1,000 cases in March. India’s economy took a big hit after the lockdown on March 25, with first quarter GDP to June 30 shrinking by 24 percent year-on-year, the first contraction since publicly available records began in the mid-1980s. Consumer demand slumped. India still has the world’s second-highest number of cases, over seven million, after the US. One bright spot: India’s health care stocks have climbed about 50 percent so far this year.
(This story appears in the 20 November, 2020 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)