"INDIA ENDED UP FLATTENING THE WRONG CURVE": INDUSTRIALIST RAJIV BAJAJ TELLS RAHUL GANDHI

A "draconian lockdown" imposed by India that was aimed at flattening the COVID-19 curve ended up flatenning the wrong curve (GDP), industrialist Rajiv Bajaj told Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during a recent video interaction.

"We tried to implement a hard lockdown which was still porous. So, I think we have ended up with the worst of both worlds. On one hand, a porous lockdown makes sure that the virus will still exist and as you said, it is still waiting to hit you when you will unlock. So, you have not solved that problem," Mr Bajaj, Managing Director of Bajaj Auto, said in the online chat aired this morning.

"But you have definitely decimated the economy. You flattened the wrong curve. It is not the infection curve, it is the GDP curve. This is what we have ended (up) with, the worst of both worlds," he said.

Rahul Gandhi had earlier held chat sessions with Raghuram Rajan and Abhjit Banerjee.

Responding to a question from Mr Bajaj, the Congress MP from Kerala's Wayanad said that he had been told by someone that a lockdown like this "brings fear of death in the mind of people" and that is something tough to get rid of.

"Whoever is going to invest in India is going to invest not because of your image, they are going to invest because of what you are and what you have... So the first logic has to be, defend that economy," Mr Gandhi said.

"If you don't have an economy left, there is nothing."