India is dealing with daily new COVID cases well above 300,000, and a new variant, first detected in India, has been declared a global concern by the World Health Organization. Political blowback and calls for a nationwide lockdown are proliferating, even after President Modi had critical Facebook posts removed. 

Dan discusses the difficult and deadly situation in India, the political tensions that seem to just keep escalating, and the role of social media amid the crisis with New York Times reporter Karan Deep Singh, who is based in New Delhi.