You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the programme. I do hope you enjoy it. My guest today is both a

technocratic expert on India's energy sector and a national spokesman for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling BJP party.

Narendra Taneja is therefore well placed to respond to the charge that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed weaknesses in the seemingly impregnable political armour of India's leader.

Officially, India has seen more than 6 million people

infected with the virus and more than 100,000 killed. Unofficially, the figures are much, much worse.

And yet the government is intent on easing many of the remaining COVID restrictions in the name of

reviving a cratering economy.

To many outsiders, India is now paying the price for years of neglect of its health care and infrastructure,

and it's not clear that Mr Modi's populist promise to build a new India, prosperous and efficient,

will retain its power in the wake of his government's

response. In fact, Mr Modi sometimes seems more intent on silencing his critics and expanding his

repressive powers than he does on addressing the country's structural weaknesses.

Is India's strongman about to come unstuck? Well, Narendra

Taneja joins me now on the line from Delhi. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure, Mr. Toneja, would you accept that over the past seven months,

the Modi government's attempts to control the coronavirus pandemic

in your country have not succeeded?

Not succeeded?

Oh, well, I think if you look at our record, you know, in terms of coronavirus patients per

million and at the same time, overall numbers. Right now as we speak, the number

of cases, active cases in India is about 960,000. There's less than a million in a country

...