This book brings together contributions that explore various dimensions of the pandemic from a long-term development perspective. It also analyzes the existing policy responses and the gaps therein, to enable a greater understanding of how public policy ¿ during a pandemic like COVID-19 ¿ can be better aligned with the developmental challenges faced by individuals and households in India. Through its thirteen contributions, the book highlights the connection between the pandemic and development as deep and multilayered, and not unidirectional. It highlights how the existing inequalities and inequities in the system determined who gets impacted and to what extent, and how soon they can recover, if at all. It analyzes policies and programmes that have been implemented based mostly on the immediate pandemic crisis, and responded less to the pre-existing conditions that have shaped socio-economic outcomes. The book would be a great resource to study possible future responses to similar health disasters in a multi-cultural, multi-religion, multi-caste and multi-class melting pot like India.

Gives longer-term developmental perspective to contextualize COVID-19 pandemic in India

An Unequal Recovery - The Income and Employment Fallout of the Pandemic.- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on India's Financial Sector.- Macroeconomic Performance During COVID Recession and Recovery.- Impact of COVID¿19 on agricultural markets: assessing the roles of commodity characteristics, disease caseload and market reforms.- COVID-19 and Education in India: A New Education Crisis in the Making.- The COVID-19 pandemic and gendered division of paid work, domestic chores and leisure: evidence from India's first wave.- Chronicling the observed gendered effects in India's labour markets during COVID-19.- COVID, Social Protection and Women's Work.- Over-nutrition and COVID Prevalence in India: Evidence and Implications.- India's COVID-19 Vaccination Drive: How did we fare?.- The Impact of COVID-19 on Risk Perception and Wellbeing in India.- Livelihoods and Government Support in the Wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Rural Bihar.- Role of Trust in Effective Policy making: Lessons from the Pandemic.