The Policy Monitor
Odisha with its all-round preparation and fight against COVID has seen positive results. The second Covid-19 wave has been now under control in Odisha with cases declining by 0.5- 1% daily. For every 1 lakh population around 28,500 have been tested. The recovery ratio has reached a high of 92%.
It’s time for the nation to apply the lessons from its unexpected achievements in the past to ignite a health revolution for a bright future. It’s time for the nation to sit back and re-evaluate what is lost and what could have been saved. It’s time for the nation to not settle but instead, move on to a better normal.
A recent study by LSE found that 52% of urban workers went without work or pay and received no financial assistance for over a month. Bihar’s emergency assistance programme has been cited as a rare example of sub-national government’s efforts to identify, onboard and disburse payments to the migrants during the ongoing pandemic.
According to the data of the Centre for Disease Control in the United States, approximately 25 percent deaths in India have constituted the fifty-five and above age group. The worrying factor is that their mortality and morbidity are not dependent solely on the direct effects of the virus, but also on measures like social distancing, travel restrictions, and self-isolation that have a disproportionate effect on healthcare access.
Once the nationwide lockdown is eased, initial supply chain disruptions might impart cost push inflation while on the other hand, lack of demand (except for the essentials) due to lost income would force the aggregate price level to stay low.
More than 90% of India’s labour-force is employed in the informal sector, with limited social security benefits. This informalisation of labour-force does more harm than good and has serious repercussions on a nation’s growth patterns. Two basic policy interventions to improve existing labour conditions in developing countries are: a) increasing […]
This pandemic has exposed the inherent weaknesses of state functioning and questioned the very structure on which modern economies have been thriving.
The evidence and stories about the humanitarian crisis coming from various parts of the country are dire According to the report of Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN), a group of volunteers conducting relief works for the stranded workers across the country, 72% of the workers who have contacted them have food ration left for only two days.
The lockdown has further demonstrated that the governance structures of democracy quite often legitimise use of violence against poor. Therefore, the ever-migrating cohorts of Indian citizens are now reduced to migrant labourers stuck in different cities without having even work or food supplies.
The health turned economic crisis will have a pivotal economic fallout, affecting the demand and supply chain. According to the IMF, we have already entered a recession that will be worse than 2009.