Pandemic

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with long-standing systemic, functional, and health inequities put the rural communities at an increased risk. Sustainable long- and short-term measures are suggested to efficiently develop strategies to control the pandemic and strengthen the health system in rural India.

This article portrays the trajectory of Uttar Pradesh’s labour market outcomes between 2011 and 2020 based on the employment and unemployment situation and the Periodic Labour Force Survey data. It finds a deepening employment crisis in the state, worse than what is prevailing in the country; this crisis is severe in rural areas and for women, though even men, in comparison to their status in the past, find themselves in a new low. We find absolute declines in labour and workforce in the state with shrinking self and casual employment. There is an increase in regular salaried jobs, both in absolute terms and proportions. The employment crisis has affected people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder more, marking a dangerous form of livelihood crisis in the state.

When there are public health threats at the local and global levels, how do researchers decide what to prioritise?

This article explores the spatial dynamics of COVID-19—with nationwide and partial lockdowns’ in its two waves, respectively—in India by employing the location quotient and univariate Moran’s I statistics with various variables representing spatial adjacency, proximity, population, population density, urbanisation, migration, and health infrastructure variables. The results suggest that though geographical proximity to the hotspot states played an important role in triggering the outbreak during both the waves, it could not influence the spatial clustering at the sluggish phase of the pandemic.

This paper highlights the possible consequences of the pandemic on the stock markets. It notes that higher profitability in the past years, better growth opportunities in the stock market, and being a stand-alone firm have a favourable impact on stock price reactions to COVID-19 shocks and, hence, they make such firms more resilient.