The second wave of COVID-19 left an already-strained health system crumbling. As one of the initial states hit by the surge of cases, Delhi faced many challenges ensuring adequate oxygen supply to patients. In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Shailendra Sharma (Education Advisor, Delhi Government) about his experience of working and supporting the oxygen control room that was set up in response to the crisis by the Delhi Government. Why did the oxygen crisis happen and how was it overcome? What was it like to be a Front Line Worker in this crisis? How did the government react? What were the big challenges during that period? Sharma discusses what it was like to be in the thick of that control room, confronting a crisis of deep distress but also concerns of managing the health system in the midst of constant SOS messages about lack of basic supplies and most importantly, oxygen. He speaks about the role of the courts in fixing responsibility and bringing in some transparency to the process of allocation. Finally, Sharma elaborates on the logistical and technical complexities in ramping up oxygen supply and its distribution across hospitals. About the Series The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series: ● Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari ● Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh Vyas ● Impact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit Basole ● Responding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Abhijit Chowdhury ● Realities of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Anurag Behar ● Unpacking India's COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy featuring Partha Mukhopadhyay ● Dissecting India's Problem of Economic Inequality featuring Maitreesh Ghatak For more information on the Centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

ThoughtSpace - A Podcast from the Centre for Policy Research

Episode 8: An Inside View of Delhi Government's Oxygen Control Room

The slowdown of economic activity experienced due to the lockdowns resulted in a significant impact on the lives of the poorest. In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Dr Maitreesh Ghatak (Professor of Economics, London School of Economics) to discuss India's inequality problem. How unequal is India? Are these inequalities because of COVID or merely economic realities that COVID has now exposed? How do we bring India back on a more equitable growth path? Dr Ghatak who has written extensively on the inequalities of the Indian economy walks us through the issue of widening inequality in the context of the pandemic, unpacks the growth versus inequality debate, and discusses the long term implications the pandemic has posed. He explains the impact on the informal sector, intergenerational mobility, and discusses the dynamics of potential recovery. About the Series The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series: ● Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari ● Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh Vyas ● Impact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit Basole ● Responding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Abhijit Chowdhury ● Realities of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Anurag Behar ● Unpacking India's COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy featuring Partha Mukhopadhyay For more information on the Centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 7: Dissecting India's Problem of Economic Inequality

India embarked on its COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in early January prior to the second wave. In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Partha Mukhopadhyay (Senior Fellow, CPR) to discuss India's vaccine policy and guide us through the many bottlenecks, confusions, and successes we have encountered in the last few months. Why didn't India start vaccinating earlier? How did the policy evolve once the second wave hit? Mukhopadhyay who has been closely tracking the vaccine policy walks us through the different phases of the vaccine strategy across the country. He sheds light on the many inequities of the policy, the state of private supply, the role of the Supreme Court, the Centre-State dynamic and more. He further discusses how the digital inequity was built in with the CoWIN app from an economic, linguistic, and spatial standpoint. Finally, Mukhopadhyay share's his perspective of where we are today vis-a-vis our goals on achieving universal vaccination. About the Series The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series: ● Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari ● Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh Vyas ● Impact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit Basole ● Responding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Abhijit Chowdhury ● Realities of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Anurag Behar For more information on the Centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 6: Unpacking India's COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy

The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic saw rural parts of India get affected as well, unlike the previous year during the first wave. In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Anurag Behar (Chief Executive Officer, Azim Premji Foundation) to discuss the impact of COVID-19 in the hinterlands. How are people in those areas responding to the pandemic? What are the economic consequences beyond just the health consequences they face? Behar walks us through his experiences over the last few months visiting different parts of the country that were ravaged by the virus. He sheds light on the stigma associated with COVID, the challenges of documenting death, and the state of India's health infrastructure. He further discusses the levels of economic deprivation, condition of hunger, the potential for schools reopening and more. Finally, Behar share's his perspective on what we need to do now, in advance of a potential third wave. About the Series The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series: • Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari (https://bit.ly/2T7VSU6) • Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh Vyas (https://bit.ly/3jcCKze) • Impact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit Basole (https://bit.ly/3qq92rT) • Responding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India featuring Abhijit Chowdhury (https://india-speak-the-cpr-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-4-responding-to-the-spread-of-covid-19-in-rural-india) For more information on the Centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 5: Realities of COVID-19 in Rural India

Unlike last year during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the second wave witnessed the virus making inroads into rural areas of India as well. To discuss this and more, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Abhijit Chowdhury (Chief Advisor, Liver Foundation, West Bengal) in this episode of India Speak. Chowdhury discusses what the on-ground realities look like in rural India. He sheds light on how the health system in these areas can be prepared to respond to this unfolding crisis. Finally, he discusses what it will take to achieve universal vaccination for all adults in these areas, advocating for a community-based approach to both treatment and vaccination. About the Series The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series: • Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari (https://bit.ly/3q6lBIB) • Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh Vyas (https://bit.ly/3xt027F) • Impact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty featuring Amit Basole (https://bit.ly/3gvFPIO) For more information on the Centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 4: Responding to the Spread of COVID-19 in Rural India

The State of Working India 2021 (https://bit.ly/3xc4W98) report by the Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE) at the Azim Premji University finds that the pandemic has further increased informality and led to a severe decline in earnings for the majority of workers resulting in a sudden increase in poverty. In particular, the poor, women and younger workers have disproportionately borne the brunt of the pandemic. To discuss key findings of the report and more, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Amit Basole (Associate Professor of Economics and Head, CSE, Azim Premji University) in this episode of India Speak. Basole sheds light on the trends in employment patterns and the dynamics of informality in India’s labour market prior to the pandemic, to make sense of the slow structural transformation in the economy. He discusses the implications of the differentiated gender dynamics, the move to informality and the loss of income for India’s economy. He further highlights what the policy response should be to the immediate crisis and the lessons that can be learned from it. About the Series The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series: • Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari (https://bit.ly/355aQwE) • Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation featuring Mahesh Vyas (https://bit.ly/3wpcNjL) For more information on the Centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 3: Impact on Jobs, Incomes, Inequality and Poverty

The second wave of the pandemic saw localised lockdowns across India that brought economic activities to a halt. What has been the impact of this on unemployment and labour force participation? In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Mahesh Vyas [Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE)]. Through its surveys, CMIE has been closely tracking the health of the Indian economy, particularly the labour market, consumer sentiment and investment patterns. Vyas sheds light on the trends in unemployment and labour participation rates during the peak of the national lockdown, the phase of economic recovery and the second wave. He discusses the impact of increased informality and decreased female labour force participation and the lessons learned from the first wave of COVID-19. Further, he underscores the impact of the second wave on consumer sentiment and what the government must do to revive the economy. Finally, he discusses the need to monitor the economy regularly and ways to strengthen India’s statistical systems. About the Series The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. Listen to other episodes in this series: • Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy featuring Pranjul Bhandari (https://bit.ly/2RXsCPH) For more information on the Centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 2: Impact of the Second Wave on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation

The Indian economy was going through an unprecedented slowdown that was exacerbated by the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant national lockdown. Just as the economy was showing signs of recovery, the country has been hit by the virulent second wave. With multiple localised lockdowns, a halt on mobility and economic activity and an unprecedented health crisis, this time, the ravages of the pandemic are being felt across the nation, even rural areas. What has been the impact of the second wave on India’s economy and how does it differ from the first wave? In this episode of India Speak, Yamini Aiyar (President and Chief Executive, CPR) speaks to Pranjul Bhandari (Managing Director and Chief India Economist, HSBC). Bhandari sheds light on the state of India’s economy before the second wave hit, the implications of the second wave particularly for the informal sector and why it needs a special focus and what a policy response to the economic crisis from the Centre and states should look like. About the Series The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic poses serious challenges that need immediate attention. The collapse of an already strained health system, vaccine supply shortage, an unprecedented economic crisis and sharpening inequality, are factors that raise crucial concerns. How must India confront this crisis? The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) brings leading experts to discuss what the country’s response should look like in a new podcast series, India and the Pandemic. For more information on the Centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 1: Impact of the Second Wave on the Economy

Home-chefs and the gig economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 lockdown forced many businesses, big or small, to innovate and find creative ways to stay relevant. This included small restaurant owners and home-chefs across the country. In the first episode of The Gig Sisters, we look at the stories of three women entrepreneurs in the food space and how they leveraged platforms to sustain themselves when everything else came to a standstill. Do their differing strategies tell us something about how platforms operate and what that means for their business? The Gig Sisters is a new podcast by the Jobs Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research. It is an output of a collaborative research project called Digital Platforms and Women’s Work in Sri Lanka and India. Our partners on the project are World Resources Institute India, Indian Institute for Human Settlements, LIRNEasia in Sri Lanka. The project is a part of the Women, Work, and Gig Economy consortium managed by the JustJobs Network and funded by the International Development Research Centre. The show is edited and mixed by Anmol Karnik.

The Gig Sisters Episode 1: In the mood for food

Listen to the 50th episode of ThoughtSpace (above) featuring Shibani Ghosh, Santosh Harish and Yamini Aiyar. While air pollution levels are unsafe across the country, all-year round, they spike to dangerously high levels during the winter months in North India. This year, as the country confronts the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenge of air pollution is even more pressing, given increasing evidence of levels and transmission of the infection being exasperated by pollution. How can India solve this public health emergency? In the 50th episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Shibani Ghosh and Santosh Harish, Fellows at CPR’s Iniitative on Climate, Energy and the Environment. Ghosh and Harish have closely studied and engaged with this crisis in various capacities. They shed light on crop burning and other sources of pollution, the challenges of governance and state capacity, the new Commission set up to manage air quality, and the need to build a larger public discourse around the environment that views this problem as a social justice issue. The recommend a shift from reactive, political quick fixes to more systematic, long-term, institutional solutions. You can follow the Centre’s work on air pollution on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 50: Confronting the Crisis of Air Pollution

Listen to the forty-ninth episode of ThoughtSpace featuring Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Ajay Vir Jakhar and Yamini Aiyar. The Government of India passed three farm reform bills- The Farmers’ Produce Trade And Commerce (Promotion And Facilitation) Bill, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, in the Monsoon Session of the Parliament. The passage of these bills has led to widespread protests by farmers across the country. It has also raised critical concerns over the direction in which agricultural reforms should go, the nature of these three bills and the process through which they were passed in Parliament. In this episode, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Senior Fellow and Director, State Capacity Initiative at CPR and Associate Professor, Ashoka University, and Ajay Vir Jakhar, Chairperson, Bharat Krishak Samaj. Krishnamurthy and Jakhar are India’s most prolific commentators on agriculture and have deeply studied agricultural reforms. They shed light on what the current reforms mean for the Indian farmer and the future of agriculture in the country. In an earlier episode of ThoughtSpace, Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy discussed how the government could strengthen the mandi system to truly double farmers’ incomes. Listen here: https://bit.ly/3383lF2. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 49: Why are Farmers Protesting Against the Government’s Agricultural Reforms?

In the 48th episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr KP Krishnan, Professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research and former IAS officer. As we debate the future of the Indian economy, the issue of regulation has emerged consistently as a crucial fault line. How does India design regulatory systems in ways that are effective, constrains capital where needed, but at the same time builds markets, enables the unleashing of animal spirits, and protects labour and citizens? These are critical roles the state is meant to play, but given India’s complex regulatory system, it has been argued that the only way ahead for India is to rid ourselves of the regulatory cholesterol to unleash animal spirits and build the Indian economy. In such a scenario, what ought to be the role of the state in building regulatory institutions and mediating the relationship between capital and labour? Dr Krishnan sheds light on the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ regulatory cholesterol, shares examples of positive financial regulation by the state, and calls for participatory processes in the design of regulation. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. You can read more on TeamLease’s work on India’s compliance regime and regulatory cholesterol here: https://bit.ly/31M9xAu and here: https://bit.ly/2PMY1zj.

Episode 48: How to regulate India’s economy to enable growth

In the 47th episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham, India’s leading NGO in the space of elementary education. Pratham has been playing an active role during this pandemic to connect with students and communities across the country and partner with governments to support learning. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the closure of schools for over five months, and they are unlikely to reopen any time soon. This not only affects students and parents in the here and now, but is likely to have an impact on students learning levels, psychological development, and social engagement for years to come. To prepare for the post-COVID world, we need to discuss what happens when schools reopen. How should India deal with the challenge of school closures? What does the education system need to do to prepare for the reopening? And how can it ensure that the long gap in schooling is effectively filled to improve children’s’ learning levels and move on in their learning trajectories? Banerji recommends leveraging the pandemic as an opportunity to truly integrate the community and parents in students’ learning, rethinking the curriculum to focus on basics and start where the child is in their learning trajectory. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 47: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Impact on Education

In the forty sixth episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Jishnu Das, Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR and professor at Georgetown University. As India begins to unlock, after three months of the world’s strictest lockdown, cases of COVID-19 are increasing in many parts of the country. This has put into question the effectiveness of the lockdown and our ability to flatten the curve. This presents us with important challenges for our public systems, especially the healthcare system, as it now rushes to cope with increased mobility and economic activity, and at the same time, deal with the surge in COVID-19 patients. How should India’s public health system respond as we unlock, and cases increase? What impact has the virus had on other public systems, like education? And what are the big questions we need to think about in the policy sphere as we learn to live with the virus? Das talks about the challenges India’s public health system is likely to face going forward and how to build India’s public infrastructure in a world beyond COVID-19. He calls for building trust, flexibility, and agility in the public healthcare system in order to manage surges. In addition, he stresses on the losses that students are likely to face as a result of schools closing, and a need to rethink how students are taught once schools reopen. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. This episode draws on findings of the paper, ‘Two Indias: The structure of primary health care markets in rural Indian villages with implications for policy’ authored by Jishnu Das, along with Benjamin Daniels, Monisha Ashok, Eun-Young Shim and Karthik Muralidharan. The paper provides a first-of-its-kind nationwide picture of rural healthcare and can be accessed here: https://bit.ly/3h2XPre .

Episode 46: The Coronavirus Pandemic: How can India learn to live with the virus?

In this forty-fifth episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Senior Fellow and Director of the new State Capacity Initiative at CPR and Associate Professor at Ashoka University. In the last few weeks, the government of India has made significant announcements on reforming agriculture, particularly the regulatory framework for managing agriculture markets in India. These changes have been described as pathbreaking, long-term changes that will significantly alter the terms of trade in favour of the farmer. What are these reforms, what do they mean in practice, and what impact are they likely to have on the everyday lives of our farmers and markets? Krishnamurthy sheds light on the history of agriculture market reforms in India, the intricacies of the mandi system (wholesale vegetable markets), and where the current reforms fall short on benefitting farmers. She recommends that while they are a step in the right direction, the government must look at expanding and strengthening the mandi system in order to truly double farmers’ incomes. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 45: Agriculture Reforms: Are the recent reforms likely to double farmers’ incomes?

Understanding India and her place in the world in different ways. Tune into ThoughtSpace, the Centre for Policy Research’s podcast, and delve deeper into the important issues of our time: accountability, sanitation, urbanisation, land rights, climate change, technology and society, environmental law, state capacity, infrastructure, social conflict, great power politics, identity politics, election studies, and more.

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ThoughtSpace - A Podcast from the Centre for Policy Research

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