Op-ed

Op-ed July 15, 2020

Opinion | Don’t blame dense cities. They have been resilient

It’s not density, but socioeconomic factors, State capacity, and lack of experience which explain case load

Op-ed July 9, 2020

Opinion | How can the BMC help Mumbai recover?

COVID-19 has taught us that raising revenues from sustainable sources, reinforcing financial literacy, autonomy of local administrations, and revising the current approach in planning expenditure are essential for good urban governance

Op-ed June 5, 2020

Covid is India’s Big Change to Fix Police–From Blunt Force Instrument to Civilian Service

By Priya Vedavalli & Avanti Durani

The COVID-19 outbreak has provided an opportunity to reimagine police, which requires a focus on the transformation of police-public relations and improving inter-agency coordination.

Op-ed May 18, 2020

Opinion | Our youth might not shield us from high Covid mortality

By Vaidehi Tandel & Paul Novosad

As of now, nobody knows whether the protective advantage of India’s youth will outweigh the disadvantage of its health dispositions and health system.

Op-ed May 8, 2020

Opinion | COVID-19: With guidance from govt, RWAs can play a crucial role in deploying community testing, overseeing quarantine across the country

By Vaidehi Tandel & Prakhar Misra

To further standardise the process of testing, RWAs will need to be given a standard operating procedure with an emphasis on ensuring no discrimination against those who may be sampled or test positive.

Op-ed May 6, 2020

Opinion | After eventual lifting of lockdown, behavioural science must form key part of India’s COVID-19 response

By Priya Vedavalli & Kadambari Shah

How much the virus spreads will, to a large extent, depend on how effectively we bring about and sustain these behavioural shifts.

Op-ed April 21, 2020

Opinion | COVID-19: COVID-19 a grim reminder for govts to improve sanitation, housing in cities to prevent pandemics; science won’t be enough

By Vaidehi Tandel

The ability to quickly overpower disease outbreaks through the use of science, innovation and technology had led governments to neglect their role in effective prevention of such epidemics

Op-ed April 16, 2020

Why does India have so few COVID-19 cases and deaths?

By Arpit Gupta, Dr. Anup Malani & Dr. Reuben Abraham

India is four times more populous than the US, but has just 2% the number of cases and only 1.5% of the number of Covid-19 deaths. How has the country, whose per capita income is just tenth of the US, avoided being flattened by the pandemic?

Op-ed April 6, 2020

Opinion | Covid-19: To get an accurate estimate of the spread, India must ensure random community testing

By Arpit Gupta, Dr. Anup Malani & Dr. Reuben Abraham

While we have estimates on the number of deaths, we are flying blind in estimating the denominator of the fatality rate.

Op-ed February 7, 2020

How India’s data bill falls short of offering solutions for regulating digital competition

By Vikram Sinha

The bill’s brute force approach to giving users control over their digital selves through data portability provision runs roughshod over market dynamics.