We find that autocracies are much more preemptive in their policy response. However, right after the first case is registered, democracies are very quick in ramping up their testing policy, contact-tracing policy and public campaigning. In fact, they surpass the autocracies.

The response of the Government of India to the likely COVID-induced recession is incommensurate. Assuming production is spread evenly across the year, the two month lockdown may be estimated to have wiped out the equivalent of a sixth of the GDP for 2019-20, which was Rs. 203,84,759 crores.

On one hand, you see a dop in their [women's] employment. On the other hand, you see that when you think of a stigmatized job that dalits do or these very risky frontline health jobs, they seem to be exclusively reserved for women.

The economic package announced by the finance minister in mid-May was not a stimulus, as it does not inject demand into the economy. Greater public spending alone can do that at the present juncture. But, for some reason the government has shied away from undertaking it.

Lodged as he was in the belly of the beast, Ahluwalia narrates the developments in economic policy for about 25 years from 1991, but does not turn a sufficiently critical gaze towards it. When we do so, we find that one of the expectations of the reforms has not been realized.