Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

For more than 20 years, the United Nations has maintained a peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It's still nowhere close to keeping the peace.

We examine the institutional and the human shortcomings behind that deadly failure.

And consider the baked bean.

Depending on how much exposure you've had to British or American culture,

you'll be imagining one of two very different things.

We dive in to the unctuous history of baked beans

and how those two recipes diverged.

But first... India has just surpassed Brazil as the world's second worst COVID-19 hotspot.

4.2 million cases and rising fast. Yet the country has been steadily opening up since May.

Yesterday, the metro system in Delhi resumed. From the very start of the pandemic,

India seemed particularly vulnerable, both economically and epidemiologically. Its wobbly health system, enormous informal economy,

dense urban centers, and multi-generational households elsewhere all added to the risk.

So the country's swift imposition of a sweeping lockdown in March seemed entirely necessary.

But it was announced with little notice

and then haphazardly enforced, brutally squelching the economy, but not the virus. Around the same time

that the world became alarmed at COVID, say early March, it was virtually undetectable

in India. Alex Trevelli is the economist's India correspondent, based in Delhi.

The first few cases were in big cities. They were all people returning from countries with

active infections. And local authorities were reassuring Indians that there was no community

transmission. That is, Indians weren't giving it to Indians, except those who've been abroad.

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