Billions Under Lockdown

When WHO first declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020, there was a great deal of apprehension about how India - the country with the highest TB cases and diabetes, inadequate health infrastructure and a population of 1.3 billion - would fare. Between the Janata Curfew and the first vaccinations, a massive machinery has been working as seamlessly as possible to make sure that, despite some missteps and missed infections, India conquers what has been the greatest challenge the world has encountered in decades. Covering the pandemic from the start, first for The Indian Express and then for ThePrint, Abantika Ghosh has had a ringside view of India's battle against the pandemic. A thrilling tale of unnamed thousands battling against a little-understood virus from the frontlines, Billions Under Lockdown brings that gripping theatre and its dramatis personae to life.

Life under Lockdown- Lived Experiences and Lessons Learnt is an edited book with contributions from 32 people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The contributors to this volume are social work professionals, educators, academicians, bureaucrats, researchers, and even students. Prof. Bhatt presents the narratives of the COVID lockdown from different spheres of life and wove them together to present a volume that offers new perspectives of any such situation ever faced in the future. This book will help social work practitioners, academicians, and people who have an inclination towards social work or related disciplines.

There is no going back to the old "normal". What you used to know as "your life" is no more. This rebuilding phase, disguised as a "pandemic", has been well prepared and none of this has to do with a virus or a health hazard. In 2019, a great reset of the monetary, economic and political system was long overdue. The tension could be felt everywhere. The elite, the "Secret World Government" finally wanted to implement their "New World Order". They were tired of the delusion of free elections, individual rights and self-realization. As long as we were needed as work force they played along, but now that robots and AI are better and faster than us we became dispensable. However, neither those responsible for the old system nor their puppets in politics and the media were willing to take the blame for a major system crash. They feared the rage of the masses. What they needed was a scapegoat, something or someone to be held responsible for the great reset, a complete redesign of our way of living and for many of us the right for living. And then the Chinese presented the perfect way out of their dilemma: an enemy that nobody can see or fight or even understand. SARS-COV-2 is a political virus, designed in a lab in China with Western support and knowing. This is a proven fact. This common cold virus did not come unforeseen. There was a clear build-up of events in 2019 that led to the worldwide lockdown with all its consequences, ranging from intelligence reports to Bill Gates' Event 201 to a Climate Emergency in Europe after faked elections. Even with the easing of lockdown measures in some areas or countries this experiment is far from over. It has just begun. Do you think that politicians or so-called "scientists" and "journalists" will voluntarily renounce their newly gained powers and the attention that they so enjoy? This is a serious political, social, economical and spiritual crisis. This is as serious as it can get. This is Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 all combined. This is the ultimate fight "Good" versus "Evil". What do you want this world to be, for yourself and for your descendants: fearful and oppressive or loving and creative? Find out what lies behind it and get ready to act.

Life is continuity, with the genes we inherited from our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago. Death is not the end of life but a break for life to rejuvenate itself. Life and nature are symbiotic. Our actions should not be in conflict with the laws of nature, which is part of the larger cosmos; else, it will be destructive to life. We cannot be happy by pursuing our objectives for narrow, personal gains. Pleasures that are physical provide only transitory happiness. Lasting happiness is mental—when our actions are for the general good and appreciated by others and when our inner self feels contented. This can happen when our conduct is morally right and we live a life of moderation, avoiding excesses. We have opted for democracy as it provides for rule by the people and for its commitment to protection of human rights, but powerhungry politicians have become despots, repressing the rights of the people. Similarly, the free market has widened the gap between those who own the means of production and the employees, leading to concentration of wealth which creates inequalities and exploitation of the weak. We have to be not only eternally vigilant but also take advantage of the opportunities offered by emerging technologies to banish poverty, which is a blot on humanity in modern times.

THE GUIDE TO USING EVERYDAY TECH—FROM GOOGLE SEARCHES AND AMAZON TO GPS AND FACEBOOK—WITH EYES WIDE OPEN. What if somebody knew everything about you? Your . . . • relationships: work, social, and private • family history, finances, and medical records • even your exact location . . . at any time of the day • personal preferences and purchases Somebody does. That somebody is “Big Tech.” Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft know more about you than you do. And they make billions of dollars by cashing in on your private data. Our personal data, which Big Tech companies get for free, is the engine that drives the unregulated, free-for-all, Wild West world called the digital marketplace. These corporate giants may bring us information and entertainment, convenience and connection, but they also do a lot of harm by: • threatening our privacy, discovering and disseminating our personal information. • spreading dangerous misinformation from foreign governments and bad actors. • manipulating our behavior, affecting what we see, buy . . . even who we vote for. So, what can we do about it? This eye-opening book provides vital information that has been out of reach to those who need it most—the millions of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft users who have come to love and depend upon these digital products. Veteran consumer advocate Jane Hoffman makes the complex world of Big Tech simple to grasp as she reveals exactly how Big Tech uses—and abuses—your personal information. And she proposes a bold blueprint for reforming these corporate behemoths—including a data dividend. Your Data, Their Billions is a guidebook to everything at stake in our digital society, from Big Tech’s overreach into our daily lives to its practices that threaten our democracy. Knowledge is power—and it starts here.

Utilizing extensive research in economics, psychology, political science, neuroscience and evolutionary theory, Ananish Chaudhuri provides a critical perspective on the role of cognitive biases in decision-making during the Covid-19 pandemic. The extensive use of, and support for, stringent social distancing measures in particular is explored in depth.

In this paper we analyze the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the policies adopted to curtail the spread of the disease in Nigeria. We carry out simulations using a multiplier model based on the 2018 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Nigeria, which includes supply-use tables for 284 goods and services. The pandemic’s global reach and impact on the global economy combined with the response policies in Nigeria represent a large, sudden shock to the country’s economy. The SAM multiplier model is well-suited for measuring the short-term direct and indirect results of this type of shock because the SAM represents both the structure of the economy and the interactions among economic actors via commodity and factor markets. Our analysis focuses on the five-week lockdown implemented by the federal government across the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja and Lagos and Ogun states from late March to early May 2020, the federal lockdown for Kano from mid-April, and the state-level lockdowns that were implemented from mid-April for around seven weeks in Akwa Ibom, Borno, Ekiti, Kwara, Osun, Rivers, and Taraba states. We estimate that during the lockdown periods Nigeria’s GDP suffered a 34.1 percent loss due to COVID-19, amounting to USD 16 billion, with two-thirds of the losses coming from the services sector. The agriculture sector, which serves as the primary means of livelihood for most Nigerians, suffered a 13.1 percent loss in output (USD 1.2 billion). Although primary agricultural activities were excluded from the direct restrictions on economic activities imposed in the lockdown zones, the broader agri-food system was affected indirectly because of its linkages with the rest of the economy. We estimate that households lost on average 33 percent of their incomes during the period, with the heaviest losses occurring for rural non-farm and for urban households. The economic impacts of COVID-19 include a 14-percentage point temporary increase in the poverty headcount rate for Nigeria, implying that 27 million additional people fell below the poverty line during lockdown. Lastly, we consider economic recovery scenarios as the COVID-19 policies are being relaxed during the latter part of 2020. Our findings have implications for understanding the direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19, for policy design during the recovery period, and for planning future disease prevention measures while protecting livelihoods and maintaining economic growth.

This timely and powerful autoethnography traces the spread of and responses to Covid-19: from the uncertainty surrounding its outbreak, to its devastating and continued aftermath. Following the virus in real time, it explores the fears, risks and responses to the global pandemic, and how it has shaped our everyday lives against the backdrop of social and political upheaval, and the looming climate crisis. Social theorist and moral philosopher, Victor Jeleniewski Seidler, discusses fundamental questions of inequality and injustice regarding race, class and gender brought to the fore by the visibility of varying risk levels, vulnerabilities and protections provided by legislative measures against the virus. This interdisciplinary analysis scrutinises values, ethics, responsibilities and uncertain futures formed by the global health crisis, and evaluates media and communications strategies, government responses and political communications at domestic and international levels. Seidler shares critical insights into the cultural history of pandemics, highlighting lessons to be learned from anticipating, preparing for and enduring moments of crisis. Perceiving how the pandemic and climate emergency are interwoven, the book concludes with an urgent call to rebuild sustainable economic, political and ecological imaginations. This wide-reaching volume will appeal to a broad academic readership in environmental studies, sociology, philosophy, health studies, cultural studies, gender studies, media and communication.