Lauren Frayer

As the world marks the sad milestone of 1 million lives lost to the coronavirus, NPR's international team reviews the way nations have handled the pandemic.

The Taj Mahal reopened this week for the first time in more than six months. But Indian hospitals are still full, and the country's coronavirus cases are soaring.

The Taj Mahal reopened at sunrise Monday for the first time since March 17. It is limited to 5,000 visitors a day, and all must wear masks. Before the pandemic, up to 70,000 people visited every day.

With more than 5 million coronavirus infections and the world's highest daily tally of new cases, India is expected to become the world's worst-affected country within weeks.

Indian lawmakers were required to get tested for the coronavirus within 72 hours before entering parliament — which met on Monday for the first time since March.

In China, authorities handled the coronavirus pandemic by centralizing control and locking down vast swaths of the country. India didn't. How has that affected health outcomes in the two countries?

"This year, we are facing an extraordinary situation," Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told a conference last week before GDP figures were released. "We are facing an act of God."

Mumbai officials get creative to allow devotees to celebrate the elephant-headed god safely, even as virus cases surge in other parts of India.

"This is a historical, transformational, and proud moment for... all women of colour, all Black women, and all South Asian women," Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra tweeted.

A Boeing 737 with 190 people aboard skids off the runway and plunges down a 35-foot slope — leaving the airliner cracked in two.

India's prime minister laid the cornerstone of a Hindu temple that is being built on the ruins of a mosque destroyed by Hindu extremists — a gesture painful to Muslims, hundreds of whom died there.

The 1992 destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya by Hindu extremists sparked riots that killed thousands of Muslims, leaving a deep rift between the country's religious communities.

India's Narendra Modi lays the cornerstone for a Hindu temple built on the ruins of a 16th century mosque destroyed by Hindu extremists, where hundreds of Indian Muslims died.

Some Indians became known TikTok personalities and even earned money and gifts for their content. The government banned the app as tensions flare with China.

Despite one the world's earliest and most restrictive lockdowns, India's numbers continue to soar, exceeded only by the United States and Brazil.

Temples in India are offering special prayers for Bollywood's most famous actor Amitabh Bachchan. The 77-year-old is hospitalized in Mumbai with COVID-19.

The American call for racial justice has led to a heated debate over attitudes about skin tones — and caused some lightening creams, like Fair & Lovely from Unilever, to change their names.

The journey from India can zigzag to Russia, the Mideast, the Caribbean and Central America. U.S. Border Patrol figures show more than 7,600 Indians were detained on the U.S.-Mexico border last year.

An Indian vaccine company has started mass production of four coronavirus vaccines before clinical trials. If one of the formulas proves effective, India will have hundreds of millions of doses ready.

The Trump administration urges schools to reopen in the fall. Immigration and Customs Enforcement rules say international students can't stay in the U.S. if their schools are entirely online.