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India’s Lockdown: An Interim Report

Author

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  • Ray, Debraj

    (New York University and University of Warwick)

  • Subramanian, S.

    (Independent researcher)

Abstract

Our goal is to provide an interim report on the Indian lockdown provoked by the covid19 pandemic. While our main themes — ranging from the philosophy of lockdown to the provision of relief measures — transcend the Indian case, our context is deeply India-specific in several senses that we hope will become clear through the article. A fundamental theme that recurs throughout our writing is the enormous visibility of covid-19 deaths worldwide, now that sensitivities and anxieties regarding the pandemic have been honed to an extreme sharpness. Governments everywhere are propelled to respect this visibility, developing countries perhaps even more so than their developed counterparts. In advanced economies, the cost of achieving this reduction in visible deaths is “merely” a dramatic reduction in overall economic activity, coupled with a farreaching relief package to partly compensate those who bear such losses. But for India, a developing country with great sectoral and occupational vulnerabilities, this dramatic reduction is more than economics: it means lives lost. These lost lives, through violence, starvation, indebtedness and extreme stress, both psychological and physiological, are invisible, in the sense that they are—and will continue to be—diffuse in space, time, cause and category. They will blend into the surrounding landscape; they are not news, though the intrepid statistician or economist will pick them up as the months go by. It is this conjunction of visibility and invisibility that drives the Indian response. The lockdown meets all international standards so far; the relief package none.

Suggested Citation

  • Ray, Debraj & Subramanian, S., 2020. "India’s Lockdown: An Interim Report," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 476, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
  • Handle: RePEc:cge:wacage:476
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ashwini Deshpande, 2020. "The Covid-19 Pandemic and Lockdown: First Effects on Gender Gaps in Employment and Domestic Work in India," Working Papers 30, Ashoka University, Department of Economics, revised 02 Jun 2020.
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    Cited by:

    1. Minu Philip & Debraj Ray & S. Subramanian, 2021. "Decoding India's Low Covid-19 Case Fatality Rate," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 27-51, January.
    2. Decerf, Benoit & Ferreira, Francisco H.G. & Mahler, Daniel G. & Sterck, Olivier, 2021. "Lives and livelihoods: Estimates of the global mortality and poverty effects of the Covid-19 pandemic," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    3. Bottan, Nicolas & Hoffmann, Bridget & Vera-Cossio, Diego A., 2021. "Stepping up during a crisis: The unintended effects of a noncontributory pension program during the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    4. Shubhda Arora & Mrinmoy Majumder, 2021. "Where is my home?: Gendered precarity and the experience of COVID‐19 among women migrant workers from Delhi and National Capital Region, India," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S2), pages 307-320, July.

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    Keywords

    JEL Classification:;

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

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