India's Villages during the COVID-19 Pandemic
https://coronapolicyimpact.org/
2020
Research Study
Agriculture
The poorly planned and implemented response to COVID-19 pandemic in India has caused havoc to the livelihoods of workers in the informal economy. While a lot of journalistic reports have become available, most of these are from the cities. In comparison, little is known about what is going on in the villages. These reports, commissioned by the Society for Social and Economic Research, have been prepared by research scholars on the basis of telephonic interviews with key informants in villages across the country that these scholars have been studying. The aim of gathering village-level information from across the country, and presenting them in the form of short reports, is to provide an initial account of the different dimensions of rural life during COVID-19 pandemic. While we hope that these scholars will follow up this work through more detailed studies whenever it is possible, these initial reports are invaluable sources of information about the situation in Indian villages. The first four reports are from villages in Haryana, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. New reports will be published every day.