Search

The outbreak of the SARS CoV2 virus, commonly referred to as the COVID‐19 pandemic, has impacted the social, economic, political, and cultural lives of citizens around the world. The sudden outbreak of the pandemic has exposed the legal preparedness, or lack thereof, of governments to reduce and contain its drastic impact. Strong legislative measures play a crucial role in any epidemic or pandemic situation. In this situation, the Indian Government has requested all state governments to invoke the Epidemic Disease Act (EDA) of 1897 to address the COVID‐19 emergency. The Central Government has also used the powers provided in the Disaster Management Act (DMA) of 2005. As the country is facing its first major health emergency since independence, the existing legislative measures to deal with a COVID‐19 like situation are lacking and require certain amendments to address such situations in the future. This paper aims to present the current constitutional and legislative response to health emergencies in India and attempts to identify gray areas in the statutory provisions. Based on the analysis, this paper suggests several recommendations for amending current legislation and suggests the promulgation of comprehensive public health law. This paper is largely based on primary sources such as the EDA and the DMA, regulations, guidelines, rules issued by the public authorities and court cases related to health and health emergencies along with secondary resources such as newspaper articles and published papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID‐19) has impacted everyday lives globally. The number of positive cases is growing and India is now one of the most affected countries. This paper builds predictive models that can predict the number of positive cases with higher accuracy. Regression‐based, Decision tree‐based, and Random forest‐based models have been built on the data from China and are validated on India's sample. The model is found to be effective and will be able to predict the positive number of cases in the future with minimal error. The developed machine learning model can work in real‐time and can effectively predict the number of positive cases. Key measures and suggestions have been put forward considering the effect of lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines whether investing in R&D reduces the impact of exogenous shocks like the COVID‐19 on stock market performance and accounting performance of manufacturing firms in India. For the sample of listed manufacturing firms, the paper finds that the firms engaged in R&D activities had lower negative cumulative abnormal return than those firms that did not invest in R&D in the pre‐pandemic period using multiple event windows. The result suggests that R&D investments can lower value erosion for the shareholders during a severe crisis period. Further, using a difference‐in‐difference fixed effects model, the study finds that manufacturing firms engaged in R&D activities in the pre‐pandemic period exhibited higher return on sales and growth of total income during the pandemic quarter vis‐à‐vis the non‐R&D firms. The favorable accounting performance indicates the possibility of firm‐level R&D being associated with the firm's ability to adjust its functioning during a crisis, thereby reducing the effect of the crisis. Finally, the study documents that government intervention to reduce the spread of the virus had a differential impact on firms based on their industry of operation. The findings have implications for investors, corporate managers, and policymakers in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the impact of COVID‐19 on the volatility of stock prices in India with the help of a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model. Daily closing prices of stock indices, Nifty and Sensex from September 3, 2019 to July 10, 2020 has been used for the analysis. Further, the study has been attempted to make a comparison of stock price return in pre‐COVID‐19 and during COVID‐19 situation. Findings reveal that the stock market in India has experienced volatility during the pandemic period. While comparing the result during COVID period with that of the pre‐COVID, we found that the return on the indices is higher in the pre‐COVID‐19 period than during COVID‐19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic crisis triggered by the COVID‐19 urgently required active policy interventions to enhance the revival strategies of the world economy. This paper examines the effectiveness of policy intervention of the State Government of Kerala in India in mitigating the risks caused by the pandemic. The policy effectiveness is evaluated by analyzing the data collected from a sample of 300 beneficiaries with the help of descriptive statistics, ordered probit (OP) model, and semi nonparametric extended OP (SNEOP) model. Our results are assertive with the fact that state policies are effective in reviving the crisis‐hit economy as they have primarily helped low‐income groups and other marginalized communities. The majority of BPL families, self‐help group members, and social security beneficiaries rated government policies as highly or fairly effective. Though the policies are found to be highly effective among those who have suffered income loss, the study does not find sufficient evidence to believe that the government interventions are effective in helping those who have lost their jobs. The level of effectiveness is inversely related to age, education, and family size. Our results suggest that an extensive fiscal package is required to help people recover from the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective crisis communication is essential to efficiently handle the uncertainty and anxiousness of citizens during the COVID‐19 crisis. Government Twitter handles are an excellent platform for faster information dissemination and engaging citizens. While most government ministries actively use Twitter, limited attention is given to its modus operandi. Using data retrieved from the official Twitter handle of 'The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare' (MOHFW) of India, the current study examines the effect of the content characteristics, including content type and media type, on citizen engagement measured as tweet likes and retweets. The findings are based on 3742 tweets from MOHFW, recording more than 4.06 million likes and 1.23 million retweets over the initial six months of the largest COVID‐19 vaccination drive. Results show that content‐sharing guidance for stakeholders gained the maximum engagement, while the latest news about the COVID‐19 crisis resulted in the least engagement. Photos gained maximum engagement, while statuses resulted in the least engagement. The results illuminate the textual features of the government's Twitter communication and will enable policymakers to manage their social media content strategy diligently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effect of testing and social distancing measures on the severity of COVID19 across Indian states during the 68th day nationwide lockdown period. We also explore whether pre‐existing socio‐economic factors such as quality of health care and the ability to practice social distancing influences the effect of these policy measures across states. Using daily level data between April 1 and May 31 for 18 of the major states, we find that both testing and social distancing have a negative effect on COVID‐19 fatalities in India. Further, testing is more helpful in reducing CFR for states with lower per capita health expenditure and weaker medical infrastructure. This highlights how ramping up testing can aid states that have a weak health care system through the detection of infection, contact tracing and isolation. In contrast, social distancing measures are more effective in states that are less populous and have lesser people dwelling in single‐room houses. Our results confirm the role of pre‐existing institutional factors in shaping the effect of policy actions on health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the dynamics of the impact of the evolving policy response during the COVID‐19 pandemic on the equity market sentiment in India. We operationalise our study by examining the India VIX, the fear gauge of the Indian equity market as an indicator for the market sentiment, and the country level Government Response Index of the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University as an indicator for the policy response. The relation is examined through the Markov‐switching model using high‐frequency daily data from January 30, 2020, to May 31, 2021. The evidence suggests that the policy response has a positive impact on the market sentiment when the market is fearful. Further, the evidence suggests that both the high‐fear state and the low‐fear state of the market sentiment given by the model are short‐lived indicating heightened volatility and possible speculation during the ongoing pandemic in the Indian equity market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The healthcare sector is increasingly facing changing demand patterns and escalating pressures for innovative services during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Market‐focused flexibility refers to the capabilities of adaptation and facilitating the innovative performance of the firm. Accepting the overall role of innovation in COVID‐19 response, this study aims to explore how public healthcare organizations exhibit market‐focused flexibility to introduce new and innovative services. This study conducts an exploratory case study in a national‐level healthcare firm in India. This study identifies four specific dimensions of market‐focused flexibility that healthcare firms execute to deliver customized services. The study's findings contribute to an integrative framework of market‐focused flexibility and innovative performance in public healthcare. The mechanisms of market‐focused flexibility are unearthed and explained how the different facets influence innovative services in various manners. The implications to theory and practices are discussed, and future research avenues are sketched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments around the world are utilizing their digital ecosystems to respond to the COVID‐19 pandemic. To increase awareness among the beneficiaries about privacy risks, they must proactively publish the data handling practices for their digital initiatives through appropriate privacy policies. This study analyzes the privacy policies of public COVID‐support mobile applications (apps) in the context of India. We found a total of 63 government initiated COVID‐support apps in India out of which 38% were found to have an app‐specific privacy policy. These policies were analyzed further to assess their coverage of key principles, such as "Purpose," "Data Categories," and "Data Retention," derived from legal requirements. We also analyzed the extent of the specificity of policies with a high coverage. In India, only one nation‐wide app stood out to have both considerable coverage of key principles as well as a high level of specificity. Other national/regional apps fail to display the desired levels of coverage and/or specificity. The broader policy recommendations of this study are that the government should better address privacy concerns regarding its existing and future disaster management apps as well as its other digital initiatives by (a) establishing and enforcing a comprehensive legislative framework for data protection and (b) increasing privacy awareness among the beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we developed and analyzed a mathematical model for explaining the transmission dynamics of COVID‐19 in India. The proposed SIuIkR model is a modified version of the existing SIR model. Our model divides the infected class I of SIR model into two classes: Iu (unknown infected class) and Ik (known infected class). In addition, we consider R a recovered and reserved class, where susceptible people can hide them due to fear of the COVID‐19 infection. Furthermore, a non‐monotonic incidence function is deemed to incorporate the psychological effect of the novel coronavirus diseases on India's community. The epidemiological threshold parameter, namely the basic reproduction number, has been formulated and presented graphically. With this threshold parameter, the local and global stability analysis of the disease‐free equilibrium and the endemic proportion equilibrium based on disease persistence have been analyzed. Lastly, numerical results of long‐run prediction using MATLAB show that the fate of this situation is very harmful if people are not following the guidelines issued by the authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household air pollution is a serious public health concern in India with more than half of the Indian households relying on solid fuel use. The long periods of lockdown related measures to control COVID‐19 pandemic in India further aggravated the adverse health effects of household air pollution as millions Indians were exposed to high level of health‐damaging air pollutants inside their homes. This commentary discusses the vulnerability of the socioeconomically disadvantaged population forced to stay indoors during the pandemic. Exposure to household air pollution has detrimental effects on health, which might put individuals at higher risk for complications related to COVID‐19. A large proportion of socioeconomically disadvantaged section of the population were exposed to critical levels of household air pollution and more vulnerable to severe health effects of COVID‐19. There is a pressing need to understand the aggravated health consequences of household air pollution in association with COVID‐19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid spread of COVID‐19 pandemic has caused a severe disorder in the global economy. The sudden imposition of lockdown is expected to largely impact the global as well as Indian economy. To overcome serious economic fallouts, the honorable Prime Minister of India, Sri Narendra Modi in his address to the nation called for "Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan" or "Self‐reliant India" as self‐reliance would help in making pragmatic developments of the economy. According to WHO, COVID‐19 is a new strain found among humans that are caused by SARS‐CoV‐2, mainly a respiratory tract infection. As a consequence, the COVID‐19 pandemic gives India a unique situation to face this period of crisis boldly for optimum utilization of the available resources, and shift towards a more resilient and sustainable economy. Attainment of self‐reliance and sustainable resource management will also help the nation to overcome various global challenges. The present study mainly focuses on two objectives: Firstly, to understand the different possibilities which will secure India to become self‐reliant; and secondly, to know the prospects of self‐reliant of India in the post‐COVID‐19 scenario. It has to be kept in mind that Covid‐19 may not be the last viral infection that the world might see. Therefore, Novel Coronavirus sets a distinctive chance for India and the countries alike to utilize the available resources strategically and transform its dreams of "local" India into "Glocal" India for a better and brighter future of her people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To contain the spread of the Covid‐19 pandemic, the mandated social distancing and restricted market activities have adversely affected the employment and earnings of the poor who are considered the targeted beneficiaries of the Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). The MFI operation and more specifically fresh lending are under serious threat as the mode of operations primarily involve physical interaction while distributing credits at the clients' doorsteps, conducting periodic group meetings and carrying out regular collections. This short article attempts to analyze the various challenges that MFIs may encounter in their current and future operations due to the ongoing pandemic. It discusses how the government initiated coping mechanisms may help MFIs overcome or minimize the pandemic challenges. At the same time, MFIs' efforts towards continued services are expected to create a win‐win situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyse the effectiveness of the lockdown measure taken to control the transmission of COVID‐19 in India by examining the peak of the epidemic pre and post the adoption of stringent lockdown from 25 March 2020. Susceptible‐exposed‐infectious‐recovered (SEIR) model has been developed to trace the peak of the outbreak. The study suggests that with the implementation of lockdown the peak of epidemic in India has delayed by two and a half month. Before lockdown peak was examined in end of May 2020 but post lockdown, it is expected to arrive in mid‐August 2020. Thus lockdown measures has delayed the arrival of peak of epidemic which would be helpful in preparing the healthcare system in advance, to tackle worst situation if arises in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Coronavirus Disease (COVID‐19) a pandemic due to the huge upsurge in the number of reported cases worldwide. The COVID‐19 pandemic in India has become a public health threat, and if we go by the number of confirmed cases then the situation seems to be a matter of grave concern. According to real‐time data, the numbers of confirmed cases are growing exponentially. No doubt, substantial public health interventions both at the national and state levels are implemented immediately by the Government of India; there is a need for improved preparedness plans and mitigation strategies along with accurate forecasting. The present study aims to forecast the COVID‐19 outbreak infected cases in India. The data have been obtained from https://www.covid19india.org, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus, and ICMR reported publicly available information about COVID‐19 confirmation cases. We have used the double exponential smoothing method for forecasting the trends in terms of confirmed, active, recovered and death cases from COVID‐19 for emergency preparedness and future predictions. Findings reveal that the estimated value of point forecast is just 8.22% of the total number of confirmed cases reported on a daily basis across the country. It was observed that the deaths were lower for the states and union territories with a higher detection rate. It is suggested that by keeping in view the limited healthcare resources in the country, accurate forecasting, early detection, and avoidance of acute care for the majority of infected cases is indispensable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present study made an attempt to examine the penalty of joblessness following coronavirus induced lockdown on income and remittances of inter‐state migrant labourers from Assam. The primary data for the study were collected through telephonic‐based survey of 451 labourers during May–June 2020. The results of this study showed that, on an average, labourers in the study area remained jobless for nearly 2 months and incurred income loss of INR 28,955 thereby failed to send remittances towards their families by an amount of INR 12,215 during the reference period. As per the analysis of covariance the income loss and remittances unsent amount was higher amongst the elderly labourers engaged in professions which remained non‐operational during lockdown period. Further, the additional days of joblessness increased their hardship in terms of income and remittances. With coronavirus being more than a health crisis, in short term it is necessary to minimise the loss of life, forwarding social and financial security for the families of migrant labourers and vulnerable sections for extended period of crisis, strategies for supporting agriculture and allied activities, promotion of small and medium‐size enterprises, imparting skill training for the unemployed and reverse migrant labourers, financial assistance for self‐employment may be helpful. Suitable coordination of monetary and fiscal policy would be helpful for reducing the unemployment heading from the recessionary trend of the economy in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]