COVID meltdown exposes new front in India’s digital divide

As state helplines struggle and Twitter emerges as means to seek help, people without internet miss out on information.

As India’s daily coronavirus cases set global records, people desperately searching for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders are finding help on social media. But for others like Ruby Yadav, who has never heard of Twitter, time and hope are running out. Travelling by rickshaw, Yadav and her mother – who is seriously ill with COVID-19 – have been turned away by nearly a dozen public hospitals in the northern city of Lucknow this week as the country’s health system crumbles.