A non-rebreather mask I bought for my family. | Supriya Sharma
It is an unwritten rule in journalism that hard-hitting news investigations do not make for good Sunday reading. But April 18 was no regular Sunday. A ferocious tidal wave of coronavirus was crashing over India and breathless people were dying, unable to find a hospital bed or oxygen.
My colleagues and I had spent a few days investigating India’s oxygen crisis. One of the startling facts we found was that it had taken the Narendra Modi government eight months after the pandemic began to invite bids for 162 oxygen generation plants. Most still weren’t up and running.