"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
The world continues to reel under the impact of the pandemic caused due to SARS-CoV-2 virus. In the first year of the pandemic, people have suffered much – isolation, pain, agony, illness, death, loss of livelihood, largescale migration and massive economic downturn. The pandemic is as much a political, economic and social phenomenon as a public health challenge and medical problem. Every aspect of the pandemic – contact tracing, quarantine, testing, treatment, vaccine trials, lockdown – is closely connected with politics. The promise of free vaccine echoed during local elections held in the course of the pandemic. Politicians rushed to inaugurate clinical trials, push hasty regulatory decisions and tried to bask in the success of scientists and vaccine companies. Government agencies engaged in scapegoating to blame a religious group for the pandemic, and tools like geofencing infringed upon their privacy and data security. The government set an agenda for the media to emphasize positive news and assure citizens that ‘the government is committed to countering the impact of Covid-19.’
Why science and epidemiology were twisted for political gains? How the pandemic management was misused for projecting political leadership as a saviour? How the lockdown that led to the worst migration crisis since the partition in 1947 was marketed as a ‘strategic policy intervention’? The book is an in-depth investigation into such uncomfortable questions.
Dinesh C Sharma
Dinesh C Sharma is an award-winning journalist and author based in New Delhi, India. His journalistic pieces appear in national and international media, including The Lancet. His book on the Indian IT industry, The Outsourcer (MIT Press, 2015) was awarded the Computer History Museum book prize in 2016. Another book, Know Your Heart (HarperCollins India, 2014) explored the links between heart disease and the politics of the state. His upcoming book is about technological and social innovations that have shaped India since 1947. Dinesh is the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow for 2020-2021.
