The study proposes to examine the impact of the national lock down following the outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on dietary practices of women and their children in rural Bihar, financial status of household, and access to government schemes, and quantify the resultant change in their welfare.

COVID-19 has created a perfect storm for global malnutrition. The crisis is expected to adversely affect the nutritional status of households—particularly vulnerable groups like women, children and aged—through livelihood and income losses related to government-mandated shutdowns and de-globalization, freezing of food transfer schemes such as school feeding programs, supplementary nutrition programme implemented under Integrated Child Development Scheme, breakdown of food markets due to both demand shocks and supply constraints, and healthcare failures (as already strained healthcare systems are forced to divert resources from routine immunization, and a range of nutritionally important functions—like antenatal care, micronutrient supplementation, and prevention and treatment of childhood diarrhea, and acute malnutrition—toward combating COVID-19) [1]. Although the Central and State Governments have both announced several relief measures, media reports that implementation of such measures has been poor. Further, households with political links are often better able to access such programmes [2, 3, 4].

It is necessary, therefore, to undertake a study that will (i) examine the extent to which COVID-19 affects dietary practices of women and children; (ii) assess whether households are able to access Government programmes aiming to mitigate such adverse effects; (iii) Quantify the resultant change in welfare using the concept of compensating variation [5]; and, (iv) Examine whether political connections of household members improves access to government schemes, thereby reducing welfare losses. Given that COVID-19 is projected to remain for the next two years, recurring in repetitive waves [6, 7], and that current relief measures have implementation and leakage related issues [8, 9, 10, 11], this knowledge should be useful in designing bail out measures to ensure better targeting of relief measures directed to ensure food security, reduce leakages, and make such policies more inclusive. Further, the results of this study should also help to improve service delivery to vulnerable sections in general and in the context of disasters.

The proposed study will build further knowledge based on an IGC commissioned project (Project Code: 18013) that we are currently undertaking in six districts of Bihar (Begusarai, Katiahar, Muzzaffarpur, Nalanda, Purva Champaran, and Saharsha). Our ongoing study analyses, inter alia, dietary practices of mothers and children aged below three years; it also examines variations of such practices between members of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) formed under JEEViKA (World Bank funded scheme for socio-economic empowerment of the rural poor) and non-SHG members. We propose to undertake telephonic interviews of 1,200 randomly selected respondents out of the 2,276 respondents for whom data has been collected, using multi-stage stratified random sampling method, in the ongoing study. Additional information will be collected on change in financial status, change in dietary practices, access to Government support schemes, and political links of family members.

We will investigate, using probit and ordered probit models, whether impact on dietary practices, change in financial status, and access to government schemes depend upon socio-economic characteristics and political links of households. We will also estimate time cost to avail relief measures. This will enable us to estimate change in welfare of respondents using the concept of compensating variation, and identify the characteristics of households witnessing reduction in welfare.

Funding: £10,720.

Duration: August 2020 - January 2021

Video: The Impact of COVID-19 in India and pathways to recovery, organised by IGC, 5-7 May 2021

Press coverage: Dainik Jagaran, dated 8th May 2021

The study proposes to examine the impact of the national lock down following the outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on mental health of adults and youths in metropolitan cities of India. The metropolitan cities are Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai. It proposes to estimate the proportion of respondents suffering from mental health problems, the level of such problems, and identify the risk factors associated with mental health.

On 24th March, 2020 the Government of India announced a national level lockdown to contain the spread of COVID. The lockdown policy has generated considerable controversy, with critics arguing that it was done without adequate notice or planning, exposed vulnerable section of the population to a humanitarian crisis, and failed to contain the spread of COVID. In response, the Government has claimed that lockdown slowed the transmission process of COVID, thereby reducing the number of cases and deaths substantially. The consequent pressure on the health infrastructure was also much less. To judge between competing claims, this study has undertaken the first cost-benefit analysis of the worlds biggest lockdown. Although the data for a proper cost-benefit analysis is currently not available, we have made a ball point estimate of the net benefit of the lockdown under alternative scenarios. Our estimates reveal the net benefits of lockdown to be negative; moreover, the results are robust under all scenarios.

For MedRxiv (Yale University and BMJ) paper click here, for Europe PMC link click here

This study analyses district level data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare using spatial statistical methods to examine the association between Shramik trains and the spread of COVID in India.

On 24^th March, 2020, the Prime Minister announced a national lockdown to combat the spread of COVID in India. The adoption of such an extreme step, without careful planning, resulted in, inter alia, a humanitarian crisis. Lakhs of migrant workers were stranded in their places of work— exposed to COVID, and without work or income or access to the Public Distribution System. Their long march back to their homes was initially ignored; it was only from May that the Indian Railways started to transport these workers back to their states of origin. This study argues that— in the absence of adequate health screening at both source and destination, over-crowding, insanitary conditions in the train, and failure to run trains on schedule— the Shramik trains resulted in COVID spreading from existing hotspots like Maharashtra and Gujarat, to create new epicenters in states like West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Chattisgrah, and Assam from where the migrant workers had originated; further, these labourers were branded as being carriers of COVID into districts, changing the dynamics of COVID transmission.

Watch video of study

We explore the nature of time-varying market risk of investment in green stocks in US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific region during 2007-2020. Such exploration is crucial given the need to accelerate green investment to have a resilient, inclusive, and sustainable world, particularly in the post-pandemic era. While examining resilience of green stocks in crises, we explore channels through which shocks transmit to escalate market risks. Transmission channels may be exogenous, located in local and/or global markets. Alternatively, market risk may be chaotic making its volatility endogenous to the system. The defensive green stocks exhibited remarkable resilience during crises. While local transmission channels exist for the US and European greens, they are insulated from global market fluctuations. Although the Asia-Pacific greens are relatively vulnerable, investment worthiness of greens may still be established. Skepticism, however, remains. With chaotic market risks, reversal in investment optimism is frequent. Green stocks are safe, but only apparently.

The study explores the dynamics of time-varying currency exposure of the Indian Stock market. Using Markov Switching Model and Discrete Threshold Regression, it inquires whether and how such exposures get affected by the movements in the stock market and the foreign exchange market across regimes. How do the crises, including the recent pandemic, affect such relationships? What implications do this bear for the risk avert investors?

Our study examines whether social networks, particularly links existing between members of formal institutions (like micro-credit and Self Help Groups bodies formed by organizations like JEEViKA) can be used to disseminate knowledge about best practices in maternal health seeking behaviour, leading to behavioural change. The research questions of the proposed study are: [1] Do social networks improve maternal health outcomes? [2] What are the attributes of social networks that lead to better health outcomes? [3] What is the mechanism through which social networks modify decision-making and behaviour? Experience with public health interventions has demonstrated that changing the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of target population groups is possible. However, research has also shown that such effects are typically modest and short-lived. We argue that the network-based strategy to improve MCH outcomes may have more long lasting effects and be replicable.

For detailed Proposal, click here.

Funding authority: The India Growth Center, London School of Economics, UK

Funds: £52,089

Duration: March 2019 - January 2021.

Presentations: Video of presentation before JEEViKA

The study has received a Seed Funding grant under the Affordable Approaches to Cancer scheme of Department of Bio-Technology, GoI & Cancer Research United Kingdom (CRUK). The seed-funding grant has been awarded under the “Affordable Approaches to Cancer research initiative of DBT India and Cancer Research, UK, under the category - Identification and quantification of cancer risk factors to better understand regional variations in incidence, enabling new approaches to cancer prevention.

The seed fund enables collaboration between Indian and the UK teams to develop an understanding of research contexts and to establish research partnerships to address one of the seven research challenges, leading to the preparation of submitting a full application for Programme Award.

The complete announcement can be found on the DBT/WT India Alliance website.

Details of the study may be found here.

The study explores the factors behind employee turnover. It is based on primary survey that has been initiated in March, 2020.