Listen to the forty-ninth episode of ThoughtSpace featuring Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Ajay Vir Jakhar and Yamini Aiyar. The Government of India passed three farm reform bills- The Farmers’ Produce Trade And Commerce (Promotion And Facilitation) Bill, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, in the Monsoon Session of the Parliament. The passage of these bills has led to widespread protests by farmers across the country. It has also raised critical concerns over the direction in which agricultural reforms should go, the nature of these three bills and the process through which they were passed in Parliament. In this episode, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Senior Fellow and Director, State Capacity Initiative at CPR and Associate Professor, Ashoka University, and Ajay Vir Jakhar, Chairperson, Bharat Krishak Samaj. Krishnamurthy and Jakhar are India’s most prolific commentators on agriculture and have deeply studied agricultural reforms. They shed light on what the current reforms mean for the Indian farmer and the future of agriculture in the country. In an earlier episode of ThoughtSpace, Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy discussed how the government could strengthen the mandi system to truly double farmers’ incomes. Listen here: https://bit.ly/3383lF2. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

ThoughtSpace - A Podcast from the Centre for Policy Research

Episode 49: Why are Farmers Protesting Against the Government’s Agricultural Reforms?

In the 48th episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr KP Krishnan, Professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research and former IAS officer. As we debate the future of the Indian economy, the issue of regulation has emerged consistently as a crucial fault line. How does India design regulatory systems in ways that are effective, constrains capital where needed, but at the same time builds markets, enables the unleashing of animal spirits, and protects labour and citizens? These are critical roles the state is meant to play, but given India’s complex regulatory system, it has been argued that the only way ahead for India is to rid ourselves of the regulatory cholesterol to unleash animal spirits and build the Indian economy. In such a scenario, what ought to be the role of the state in building regulatory institutions and mediating the relationship between capital and labour? Dr Krishnan sheds light on the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ regulatory cholesterol, shares examples of positive financial regulation by the state, and calls for participatory processes in the design of regulation. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. You can read more on TeamLease’s work on India’s compliance regime and regulatory cholesterol here: https://bit.ly/31M9xAu and here: https://bit.ly/2PMY1zj.

Episode 48: How to regulate India’s economy to enable growth

In the 47th episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham, India’s leading NGO in the space of elementary education. Pratham has been playing an active role during this pandemic to connect with students and communities across the country and partner with governments to support learning. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the closure of schools for over five months, and they are unlikely to reopen any time soon. This not only affects students and parents in the here and now, but is likely to have an impact on students learning levels, psychological development, and social engagement for years to come. To prepare for the post-COVID world, we need to discuss what happens when schools reopen. How should India deal with the challenge of school closures? What does the education system need to do to prepare for the reopening? And how can it ensure that the long gap in schooling is effectively filled to improve children’s’ learning levels and move on in their learning trajectories? Banerji recommends leveraging the pandemic as an opportunity to truly integrate the community and parents in students’ learning, rethinking the curriculum to focus on basics and start where the child is in their learning trajectory. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 47: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Impact on Education

In the forty sixth episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Jishnu Das, Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR and professor at Georgetown University. As India begins to unlock, after three months of the world’s strictest lockdown, cases of COVID-19 are increasing in many parts of the country. This has put into question the effectiveness of the lockdown and our ability to flatten the curve. This presents us with important challenges for our public systems, especially the healthcare system, as it now rushes to cope with increased mobility and economic activity, and at the same time, deal with the surge in COVID-19 patients. How should India’s public health system respond as we unlock, and cases increase? What impact has the virus had on other public systems, like education? And what are the big questions we need to think about in the policy sphere as we learn to live with the virus? Das talks about the challenges India’s public health system is likely to face going forward and how to build India’s public infrastructure in a world beyond COVID-19. He calls for building trust, flexibility, and agility in the public healthcare system in order to manage surges. In addition, he stresses on the losses that students are likely to face as a result of schools closing, and a need to rethink how students are taught once schools reopen. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. This episode draws on findings of the paper, ‘Two Indias: The structure of primary health care markets in rural Indian villages with implications for policy’ authored by Jishnu Das, along with Benjamin Daniels, Monisha Ashok, Eun-Young Shim and Karthik Muralidharan. The paper provides a first-of-its-kind nationwide picture of rural healthcare and can be accessed here: https://bit.ly/3h2XPre .

Episode 46: The Coronavirus Pandemic: How can India learn to live with the virus?

In this forty-fifth episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Senior Fellow and Director of the new State Capacity Initiative at CPR and Associate Professor at Ashoka University. In the last few weeks, the government of India has made significant announcements on reforming agriculture, particularly the regulatory framework for managing agriculture markets in India. These changes have been described as pathbreaking, long-term changes that will significantly alter the terms of trade in favour of the farmer. What are these reforms, what do they mean in practice, and what impact are they likely to have on the everyday lives of our farmers and markets? Krishnamurthy sheds light on the history of agriculture market reforms in India, the intricacies of the mandi system (wholesale vegetable markets), and where the current reforms fall short on benefitting farmers. She recommends that while they are a step in the right direction, the government must look at expanding and strengthening the mandi system in order to truly double farmers’ incomes. For more information on the centre’s work, follow CPR on Twitter @CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org.

Episode 45: Agriculture Reforms: Are the recent reforms likely to double farmers’ incomes?

In episode 44 of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR speaks with Shyam Saran, Former Foreign Secretary and Senior Fellow, CPR. In the last few weeks, a crisis has been brewing on our borders between India and China over the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Late last week, in an unprecedented move, top Generals from both countries met to seek a resolution to the crisis. The discussions have opened up the prospects of a second phase of dialogues. Against the backdrop of these dialogues, we explore the dynamics of India-China relations, the nature of this particular border dispute and the immediate and long-term implications this may have on India-China ties. Saran, who is an expert on China, sheds light on the history of border disputes with China despite the LAC, the growing asymmetry of power between the two countries and calls for constraining Chinese aggression by cultivating strong ties with countries like the US. He also highlights that it is important to continue engaging on issues that may be mutually beneficial while at the same time confronting China where Indian interests are being threatened.

Episode 44: The Future of India-China Relations

In episode 43 of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr K R Shyam Sundar, one of India's leading researchers on labour laws, and professor at the Xavier Institute of Management, Jamshedpur. In a bid to revive the economy in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, several state governments issued ordinances with respect to labour reforms that have further skewed the dynamics of labour-capital relations in India. These reforms have come under significant scrutiny and some steps have been taken to address the more draconian ones, but these debates have put a spotlight on some of the big questions that need to be addressed around the framing of labour-capital relations. Dr Sundar takes us on a journey of the evolution of labour laws in India, discusses flaws inherent in them and how they fail to protect the most vulnerable of workers, and what the current reforms could mean for the future of labour-capital relations in the country. This is the eleventh episode in a series by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org/covid-19. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here: https://scroll.in/topic/56263/coronavirus-conversations.

Episode 43: The Coronavirus Pandemic: How is the pandemic shifting labour-capital relations?

In episode 42 of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Ambassador Shyam Saran, India’s former foreign secretary and Senior Fellow at CPR. The coronavirus pandemic is a global crisis of an unprecedented nature that is reshaping the global order. Countries are grappling to control the spread of the disease by announcing lockdowns and closing borders. Economies have come to a grinding halt, and many countries, including India, have seen a rise in the narrative around self-reliance and self-sufficiency. With travel within and across countries barred, citizens are turning to technology communicate across borders. Simultaneously, states are using technology to mount surveillance on citizens to track and control the spread of the virus. What do these trends signal for a post-COVID global order? Are we likely to see a shift in the balance of power between the US and China? And where does India stand in the picture? Ambassador Saran discusses the wide-ranging implications of the pandemic on the world, the need for decentralisation in India, and ends on a hopeful note that this period of change will give emerging powers like India more weight in the diplomatic space. This is the tenth episode in a series by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org/covid-19. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here: https://scroll.in/topic/56263/coronavirus-conversations.

Episode 42: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Will the pandemic lead to a shift in the global order?

In episode 41 of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with members of the Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) initiative on the limitations of India’s social security architecture and the need to rethink what it means to be a welfare state. Our guests include Anindita Adhikari, PhD student at Brown University and a member of the Right to Food and Right to Work movements; Seema Mundoli, faculty member at the Azim Premji University; and Sanjay Sinha from Muzzaffarpur, Bihar, who is part of the Samaj Parivartan Shakti Sangathan and NREGA Watch in Bihar. On March 25th, when the Government of India announced the first lockdown, it brought to light a problem that has remained invisible in the minds of our policymakers and public consciousness – the problem of insuring dignity and rights to the vast majority of India’s workers, most of whom are in the casual and informal sector. Within days of the lockdown, a group of researchers and activists came together to form SWAN to collect data on the experiences and challenges stranded workers were facing. Adhikari, Mundoli, and Sinha shed light on the ground realities of migrant workers’ plight, where government initiatives and relief measures have failed, and what shape future policies measures need to take. This is the ninth episode in a series by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter or visit www.cprindia.org/covid-19. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here: https://scroll.in/topic/56263/coronavirus-conversations. You can read the SWAN Report here: https://bit.ly/2T1r307.

Episode 41: The Coronavirus Pandemic: How to Secure Lives of Migrant Workers

In episode 40 of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Ananth Padmanabhan, Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research and Dean of the Daksha Fellowship; and Sahil Deo, co-founder of CPC Analytics and faculty at Daksha Fellowship. Historically, pandemics have been watershed moments in altering citizen-state relations. In the context of COVID-19, data and technology are the underlying vehicles fuelling and powering these changes. States like South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Israel have done a stellar job of handling the unfolding coronavirus pandemic by testing, contact tracing, isolating, and quarantining. But underlying this approach is the highly effective deployment of surveillance data as a means by which these states have effectively controlled the pandemic. In India, we have seen debates emerge around the privacy implications of the Aarogya Setu app. What are the legal and privacy implications of these changes? Once the world exits from the immediacy of the coronavirus pandemic, will this new data and technology regime will fundamentally reshape the social contract? Padmanabhan and Deo tell us about the different ways in which data and technology have been used, from controlling the spread of the disease to supporting governments, policymakers, and the public health system. They shed light on legal frameworks required to think through the long-term implications of these technological developments, as well as the likely changes in citizen-market relations. This is the eighth episode in a series by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here: https://scroll.in/topic/56263/coronavirus-conversations.

Episode 40: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Data and Technology Implications on Citizen-State Relations

In episode 39, part 2 of ThoughtSpace, co-hosts Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, and Dr Jishnu Das, Professor at Georgetown University and Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR, speak with Dr Madhukar Pai, Professor and Director of McGill Global Health Programs and International TB Centre; Nandita Venkatesan, a journalist, TB survivor and TB disability advocate; and Dr Sarthak Rastogi, consultant pulmonologist at the Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai. In part 1 of the seventh episode of the CPR ThoughtSpace series on coronavirus, our guests, talked to us about how access to medication and new diagnoses of TB patients have come to a near halt because of the coronavirus lockdown. They highlighted that India has the highest TB burden in the world with over 1,000 deaths every day, even without COVID-19. In part 2, we continue the conversation with them to look at what the government needs to do immediately during the lockdown and once it is lifted to help patients who are already on treatment and ensure that new patients continue to get diagnosed and treated. This is part 2 of episode seven in a series of episodes by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here: https://scroll.in/topic/56263/coronavirus-conversations.

Episode 39 | Part 2: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Impact of the lockdown on Tuberculosis Care

In episode 39, part 1 of ThoughtSpace, co-hosts Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, and Dr Jishnu Das, Professor at Georgetown University and Senior Visiting Fellow at CPR, speak with Dr Madhukar Pai, Professor and Director of McGill Global Health Programs and International TB Centre; Nandita Venkatesan, a journalist, TB survivor and TB disability advocate; and Dr Sarthak Rastogi, consultant pulmonologist at the Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai. On a regular day, tuberculosis (TB) claims over 1,000 lives in India. This is without the coronavirus pandemic. While the government and health care system’s energies have been focussed on controlling the spread of COVID-19, access to healthcare facilities for other infectious diseases, especially TB, has reduced significantly. How has the lockdown impacted TB patients and how are they coping? As we continue our fight against COVID-19, what must the government do to ensure that we do not slide back on the all progress we have made with TB care over the decades? In part 1, Pai, Venkatesan, and Rastogi lay out the context of TB in India and share first-hand accounts of the disruption in diagnosis and care as a result of the lockdown. They point to the fact that new diagnoses have come to a complete halt and patients on treatment regimens are facing extreme difficulty in accessing their medication. This could have devastating consequences for India’s fight against TB. This is part 1 of episode seven in a series of episodes by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here: https://scroll.in/topic/56263/coronavirus-conversations.

Episode 39 | Part 1: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Impact of the lockdown on Tuberculosis Care

In the 38th episode of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Dr Mahesh Vyas, MD and CEO of Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy. As the economy comes to a grinding halt and businesses close for the duration of the lockdown, the big question we look at in this episode is the impact of the lockdown on unemployment, labour force participation, and the overall income levels of both individuals and business. The economy had not yet recovered from the previous shocks of demonetisation and GST; the lockdown has accentuated concerns around labour force participation and income levels, which have dropped staggeringly. As India thinks about post-lockdown strategies, what must the government do to ensure that households across the country have enough to meet basic requirements? Dr Vyas sheds light on India’s labour force participation and income levels by sharing findings from CMIE’s regular household surveys and what they have revealed since the lockdown was imposed. He points out that unemployment rate shot up from 7-8% to 23-24%, labour force participation rate dropped from 43% to 35.5%, and over 45% households report a reduction in income as compared to a year ago. Vyas recommends better communication from local governments to build confidence among workers and direct income transfers to beneficiaries equivalent to at least two months of salary, despite chances of wastage. This is the sixth in a series of episodes by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here: https://scroll.in/topic/56263/coronavirus-conversations.

Episode 38: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Impact on Unemployment and Labour Force Participation

In episode 37 of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar and Dr Jishnu Das speak with Dr Christiana Iyasere, Dr Saumya Das and Dr Nim Pathy. While India goes into lockdown 2.0 and determines the best strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19, countries across the world have adopted myriad approaches to tackle the outbreak. In this episode, we step away from India to look at what is happening across the world, especially in the United States of America. We also delve deeper into understanding epidemiological models – what is required to build sound models and to what extent can they accurately predict the spread of disease. While the episode does not focus on India, we do probe lessons India can learn from what is happening in other parts of the world. In the fifth episode on the Centre for Policy Research’s series on the coronavirus pandemic, co-hosts Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, and Dr Jishnu Das, Senior Fellow at CPR and Professor at Georgetown University dive into the medical, testing, and epidemiological aspects of COVID-19. They speak with Dr Christiana Iyasere and Dr Saumya Das, doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and Dr Nim Pathy, an epidemiologist at Imperial College, London. Iyasere, Das and Pathy talk to us about why the disease manifests differently in different people, speculation over aerosol versus droplet transmission, different testing mechanisms, variation in epidemiological model and whether or not comparisons between countries is justified. This is the fifth in a series of episodes by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here: https://bit.ly/3afpv8D.

Episode 37: The Coronavirus Pandemic: A Global Perspective

In episode 36 of ThoughtSpace, Yamini Aiyar, President & Chief Executive of CPR, speaks with Pravesh Sharma, former IAS officer and CEO of Kamatan Farms Pvt. Ltd., and Dr Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Senior Fellow at CPR. The agriculture economy in India came to halt with the 21-day national lockdown. Supply chains have broken down, labour is in short supply and there has been a surge in food prices, leading to a drop in food availability. This comes at a time when farmers were gearing up to harvest the rabi crop and have raised issues about the difficulty anticipated in harvesting and brining the crop to market. What role does agriculture play as we think about the economic consequences of COVID-19, and what can India do to ensure that challenges we’ve experienced in the past 21 days do not extend further? Sharma and Krishnamurthy talk about why food supply chains have broken down, what the lockdown means for the farmer, and what the Indian government should be doing to ensure both farmers and consumers are protected. They recommend a revival of government procurement and the mandi within the next few week so farmers can continue trading, while ensuring that all aspects of the supply chain remodel themselves to the new normal of social distancing. This is the fourth in a series of episodes by the Centre for Policy Research on the unfolding coronavirus pandemic in India. You can follow the Centre’s work on Covid-19 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CPR_India or visit www.cprindia.org. You can listen to all the episodes in the Coronavirus Conversation series here: https://bit.ly/2JXygcM.

Episode 36: The Coronavirus Pandemic: Addressing the Food Crisis In India

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ThoughtSpace - A Podcast from the Centre for Policy Research

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