The year 2020 has been unlike anything we’ve seen before. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly slowed down economic activities, unleashed a mental health crisis, led to job losses across industries and caused severe distress to migrant workers.
To shed light on how the pandemic affected different sectors, the India-Oxford Initiative (IndOx) and LEAD at Krea University bring to you an insightful roundtable called ‘India Research Insights – The COVID Impact’.
Scheduled to take place on December 29, this virtual event brings together researchers that have been tracking the impact of the pandemic on Mental Health, Migration, Gender, and Digital Media Consumption.
Here are the four presentations that will be part of the session, with each one of them lasting for about 15 minutes.
Mental Health
Mental health has become a much-discussed topic in the wake of the pandemic. Sapna Nair, LEAD at Krea University, will present the paper titled ‘The COVID-19 pandemic and impact on mental health services: The provider perspective’.
While mental health conversations have been largely around anxiety, depression and insomnia faced by the general public, this paper seeks to explore the effect the pandemic has had on care givers of those that are mentally ill. It will address the challenges they faced and the resilience of the response systems involved in caring for those dealing with severe mental health problems. This study is done in collaboration with SCARF india, with support from the India-Oxford Initiative.
This will be followed by an overview of Peer-Support program at Krea by Samuel Prithiv, representing the Office of Student Life. This is one of the many innovative initiatives at Krea aiming to translate student well-being into continuous action, and reinforces the critical focus that education institutions should adopt during times of crisis.
Migrant Workers
Among those that were the worst hit during the pandemic were migrant workers. They were rendered unemployed overnight and had to undertake long and arduous journeys back home. Priyansha Singh from India Migration Now (IMN) dwells on the migrant crisis in her paper called ‘Migrants During COVID-19: IMN Initiatives’.
IMN was at the forefront of responding to the migrant crisis through multiple avenues. They included co-ordinating relief activities, collating SOS lists, pursuing media advocacy strategies, engaging with stakeholders, and conducting surveys and research into the conditions of migrants. In addition to this, they regularly curated a list of helpline numbers, monitored and ran a WhatsApp group for co-ordinating aid, conducted surveys and even launched an app. They also interacted with migrants that had returned to India from foreign countries to understand how they were impacted by the pandemic.
Women in the Informal Sector
The pandemic took away the jobs and livelihoods of several women working in informal sectors. Dr Sona Mitra from IWWAGE - an initiative of LEAD at Krea University, will present a paper ‘Impact of COVID on Women Labour in Informal Sector’ that focuses on the challenges faced by female migrant construction workers as well those employed in factories and informal enterprises.
It will examine the role communities and self-help groups played in mitigating the effect of the pandemic. The paper will also discuss what steps policymakers can implement to enable women to return to the labour force.
Digital Media Consumption in India
What changes did the pandemic bring about in our digital media consumption habits? How did it alter the the content we consume? Neha Singh, from Comscore, will present a paper titled ‘Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Media Consumption in India’.
The paper will discuss the changes witnessed in content consumption and what they mean for consumers and business. It will delve deeper into the numbers and insights, and decode the key trends that were observed.
With four well-curated research presentations, the session on December 29 promises to throw up interesting and engaging insights while paving the way for meaningful solutions and outcomes. Click here to register.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)