Are Indian statistics understating covid-19 cases and deaths?

A FEARSOME SECOND wave of the covid-19 pandemic has engulfed India. With 350,000 people now testing positive every day, it accounts for almost half the recorded global rise in covid-19 cases. India’s official death toll has topped 200,000 and keeps rising by more than 3,000 a day. Yet experts, backed by reports from journalists, insist that India’s crisis is far bigger than even those numbers suggest. The real caseload could be ten or even 30 times higher (see chart), and the number of deaths much more, too. Could India’s official statistics really be so drastically understating the scale of the pandemic?