Contextualizing the COVID Pandemic in India - A Development Perspective

This book brings together contributions that explore various dimensions of the pandemic from a long-term development perspective. It also analyzes the existing policy responses and the gaps therein, to enable a greater understanding of how public policy - during a pandemic like COVID-19 - can be better aligned with the developmental challenges faced by individuals and households in India. Through its thirteen contributions, the book highlights the connection between the pandemic and development as deep and multilayered, and not unidirectional. It highlights how the existing inequalities and inequities in the system determined who gets impacted and to what extent, and how soon they can recover, if at all. It analyzes policies and programmes that have been implemented based mostly on the immediate pandemic crisis, and responded less to the pre-existing conditions that have shaped socio-economic outcomes. The book would be a great resource to study possible future responses to similar health disasters in a multi-cultural, multi-religion, multi-caste and multi-class melting pot like India.

Indrani Gupta is Professor and Head of the Health Policy Research Unit (HPRU) of the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG). She received her PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland, USA.  Prof Gupta's work experience has been diverse, including teaching and academic institutes, the World Bank and the Government of India. Her areas of interest cover a wide range of topics in the area of health economics and policy, and include demand for health and health care, health financing and coverage, poverty and health, costing and cost-effectiveness and economics of diseases.

Mausumi Das is Professor at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi where she has been teaching since 2005. Previously she has also held faculty positions at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and a visiting position at the Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi. Her areas of interest are economic growth and development macroeconomics. She has published in top field journals such as Journal of Economic Growth, Journal of Development Economics and Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.