How India's coronavirus lockdown created a massive migrant crisis

A 15-year-old girl named Jyoti Kumari became an overnight celebrity in India last month after she cycled more than 700 miles carrying her injured father on the back of her bike back home. Their harrowing journey from the city back to their rural village is shared by millions of others as the Indian government’s COVID-19 lockdowns have left mass numbers of migrant workers unemployed, and with no choice but to go home. Today, we’re joined by Maria Abi-Habib, a South Asia correspondent at the New York Times, to talk about how this happened and why experts are predicting that this mass influx of migrants back to their villages could create a new wave of extreme poverty.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A 15-year-old girl named Jyoti Kumari became an overnight celebrity in India last month after she cycled more than 700 miles carrying her injured father on the back of her bike back home. Their harrowing journey from the city back to their rural village is shared by millions of others as the Indian government’s COVID-19 lockdowns have left mass numbers of migrant workers unemployed, and with no choice but to go home. Today, we’re joined by Maria Abi-Habib, a South Asia correspondent at the New York Times, to talk about how this happened and why experts are predicting that this mass influx of migrants back to their villages could create a new wave of extreme poverty.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.