India's migrant workers fall through cracks in coronavirus lockdown

Foreign workers seen at a construction site in New Delhi. Migrants are the backbone of the urban economy. Foreign workers are a necessity for India's rapidly expanding cities. Others clean toilets, drive taxis and deliver takeout. They predominantly earn daily wages, with no prospect of job security, and live in dirty, densely populated slums, saving money to send back home. - AFP

JUGYAI (India): Most days, you can find Dayaram Kushwaha and his wife, Gyanvati, hauling bricks for stonemasons in a booming northern suburb of New Delhi. They bring their five-year-old son, who plays in the dirt while they work.

But now a hush has come over the clattering construction site, silenced by India's nationwide order to shelter in place to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Site managers no longer come to the intersection where Dayaram and many others stand, hoping to pick up work.