I do hope that increased possibilities of employment for women will go hand in hand with changes in the gender workload sharing norms inside the house. Which can happen by the way, because with the World Wars, there is evidence in Europe that gender norms for sharing work in a house did change.

On average, in India, employment in April 2020 was about 67% of employment in the previous year...Women relative to their employment level pre-lockdown lost more jobs relative to men and within women it was driven by rural women.

The government should offer to make direct investments in businesses by taking a 'minority stake', which will be recovered through higher taxes on profits over a number of years. By making payments conditional on profitability, rather than saddling firms with repayable debt, equity finance will be more sustainable in the long term.

In a striking demonstration of what can go wrong if we do not keep our own counsel, today India finds herself saddled with an economic model of unbounded growth that destroys natural capital and a political model based on the vision of a majoritarian nation-state that promises endless social turmoil. It is not clear that a course correction will emerge from India’s political parties competing for power. Only a collective effort can achieve it.

When women have less decision-making power than men, either in households or government, their needs are less likely to be met. The shadow pandemic is as real in India as anywhere else...Being gender-blind doesn't mean that the policy is gender-neutral.