India's population of 1.3 billion people will go under "total lockdown" from midnight Tuesday for 21 days to combat the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday.

"From 12 midnight today, the entire country will be in lockdown, total lockdown," Modi said in a national television address to the world's second-most-populous nation.

"To save India, to save its every citizen, you, your family ... every street, every neighborhood is being put under lockdown."

India has so far reported 482 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and nine deaths.