As the migrant labour exodus unfolded with unrelenting grimness through the summer of 2020, there was frequent mention of how the COVID-19 pandemic had exposed the “invisibility” of migrant labour to Indian planners and policymakers.
Bombay Before Mumbai: Essays in Honour of Jim Masselos edited by Prashant Kidambi, Manjiri Kamat and Rachel Dwyer, Penguin Random House India, 2019; pp 428, ₹999 (hardbound).
Holding the executive accountable, a constitutional responsibility, seems to be set aside again in the recently concluded monsoon session of Parliament.
India in the Interregnum: Interim GovernmentSeptember 1946–August 1947 by Rakesh Ankit, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019; pp xii + 376, ₹1,195.
The crisis of COVID-19 vaccines in India is a consequence of government policies dating back decades. Private foundations led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have engineered a shift in research and manufacture of essential technologies such as vaccines to private biotech labs and factories. Companies such as the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech can dictate terms and prices of vaccines developed with public support because the closure of public vaccine manufacturing units over a decade ago has left the government at the mercy of the private sector.
