Thoughts on #SSR - soul that opened a can of worms that won't ever close..

Lockdown certainly amped up our entertainment quotient - the time I spent on commuting, fitness, and chores was significantly spent on rooting out old entertainment content on Amazon Prime Video (APV) and You Tube (YT). Bollywood became like a close aid during these times since I was spending so much time watching stuff and contemplating on impressions these things left.. When you are homebound, you do also end up watching a lot of mainstream entertainment like Tarak Mehta and Kapil Sharma, where actors put their best foot forward for promotional activities. Unfortunately, such things form your opinion and selection of content for future..

When the news of Sushant Singh Rajput's (SSR) suicide reached me, I felt really uncomfortable deep inside, despite not being a fan of any actor per say. I thought it was an impact of prolonged lockdown, which left people depressed - which was Trump's argument for not locking down USA! As a person fond of watching documentaries and extremely unbiased content - rare on even APV and YT; that I need to first sift through the unbiasedness of any new content before daring to watch it so I wouldn't feel stolen of a certain 'mood threshold' or time, finding Bollywood consistently superficial at the intellectual level! I still watched Paatal Lok and Four More Shots initially - one of which was biased and the other extremely below average. Inside Edge was extremely intriguing, but Richa Chadha was annoying and out of character.

This was how I viewed content before SSR opened my eyes to the reality of Bollywood and the wickedness of the business and reasons that compelled the beautiful, hardworking and extremely intellectual person to take this step - the more I read and watch SSR-oriented content, the more I fell in love with the innocence and honesty of this man who I wished just found an outlet to express himself! We needed him more in this industry of facade just like I realised and feel grateful for having actors like Kangana Renaut, who is opening public eye to the injustice in Bollywood along with gems like Vivek Obroi. Sorry for poor spellings of the actors!

I realised how there is a divide between star kids actors and those who struggle to get success. This was just like nepotism in any other industry - politics, business, lawyers etc. and how favouritism gets kiths and kins more opportunities - like how the rich and powerful of India only give further opportunities to their own bloodline before anyone else. For instance Ravi Shankar Prasad's daughter who I interacted with at MIT, was leading projects at BCG and BMGF in India, the opportunity that never percolated down to a super qualified person like me, because these "so called star kids of politics" were absorbed there first and perhaps these were only created for them! So if Bollywood has its very apparent curses, so do all industries have and perhaps the sensible people are pushed to follow the difficult path of accepting the reality, keep working harder, give up or fight back aggressively. As a country to become more transparent, merit-oriented and "truly developed", we would need to have anti-nepotism awareness, rights backed by a legal provision that allows people in all industries to compete with fairness and fearlessness.

It has been disheartening to know how SSR was bound by anti-competitive contracts, which gave undue advantage to his mediocre peers like Ranvir Singh, who thrived in Bollywood out of frivolity. The concept of "Roasting" other actors by failed star kids and using abuses was extremely indecent at one point of time, but a culture introduced and made "cool" by the alleged mafia king of Bollywood, Karan Johar. His show had a cult following in India, relying on gossip and making personal judgments about talented stars like SSR and Kangana Renaut - for which people like me are responsible because we found this brainless content as entertainment.

 

Going back to some YT interviews of SSR, I observed how he paid attention to his dressing sense along with every word that came from his mouth. As an Indian and Hindu, I felt so proud of seeing him sport Kurtas in a number of events, followed by a Shiva T-Shirt to his citing reading old Hindu scriptures and texts as they give wisdom in terms of similarity of human lives existing now and centuries ago! Such a brilliant mind has gone away from this planet and he had to teach so much more to each one of us - through more meaningful films like Byomkesh Bakshi that I started watching on DD, then on APV as well a touching biopic, Dhoni...

The incident and loss has made me even more cautious about choosing my content. I wish this backlash does not die down - those who are part of each industry fight back harder like Kangana Renaut, while making each one of us in other industry aware of their battles against groupism, nepotism, favouritism, bullying, cornering, shaming, and compelling a hard-working person like SSR to take this extreme step. I wish he had lived to tell his story.. in a novel.. in a film.. in a blog.. or even in YT video...   

New COVID and readjusting SDGs

COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a standstill with a global lockdown, and up to 113,000 deaths as on April 12, 2020. Little is known about creating physical barriers, boundaries or supposed walls from curtailing spread of the infectious disease from to and further to different geographical territories. At the time the 'Sustainable Development Goals' (SDGs), the highest-level political forum and plan of action for people, planet and prosperity were framed in 2015, a humanitarian disaster of this proportion was not in the offing. This health and human crisis, in future, will call for re-looking at all economic, political, social and global priorities, and re-distributing resources for re-creating public structures for a world where a mass contagion of this effect could be both prevented and cured.    

The novel coronavirus, which started spreading from Wuhan, China early in January, 2020 has a human to human transmission, through tiny droplets discharged during coughing, sneezing or speaking and falling directly, on surfaces, ground or even remaining suspended in air for up to 6 hours or more. With patients remaining asymptomatic for as long as 14 days, while still infecting others, the pandemic has almost been impossible to manage through measures recommended by the World Health Organisation, and countries - both developed and developing have had to strictly enforce guidelines for social distancing, quarantining, curfews and self-isolation through lockdowns.

Due to country-wide lockdowns, many economic activities have come to a standstill. The initial economic projections of growth rates are critically challenged, with agricultural supplies getting wasted due to non-availability of freight transport. Daily wager's lives have been majorly jolted with millions of them out of jobs, heavily impacting the unorganised or service sector, which contributes a large chunk to the national income. Migrant labour from cities started reverse movements during this period to their villages on foot, in the absence of modes of transportation. These testing times, and challenges thereof, call for some visibly robust changes in the way services were being both offered and supplied to people, whose lives would continue to get affected during and after the pandemic.

The purpose of re-looking at SDGs in this blog was to recommend fresh focus areas or merging various SDGs for the pandemic and post-pandemic world. The pandemic falls under SDG 3: Good health and well-being, however, it impacts 15 other SDGs as follows: 

SDG 1: No poverty - there is sufficient evidence that already suggests that the low income countries would only get poor after this pandemic, and it is already impacting the lives of poor people adversely due to lack of medical coverage and inability to abide by the standardised isolation norms. At a time, when the global poverty rates had witnessed great reduction and roles of development banking was been questioned, the pandemic has again created the need for poverty-oriented funding.

SDG 2: Zero Hunger – perishable food is being spoilt due to lockdowns and would adversely impact long-term produce. Due to lack of jobs, people will not be able to afford basic essential food items, unless appropriate provisions are made by the government to ensure food security.

SDG 3: Good health and well-being – this is the most affected of all the goals. Governments, private sector and multilateral agencies have joined hands in sponsoring programs and stimulus packages. Health and frontline workers are facing risk like never before and constitute large numbers of those suffering and perishing from the disease due to lack of appropriate health care equipment.

SDG 4: Quality education – due to lockdowns, schools and instituted of higher education are closed down, and the in-person learning is replaced by individualised web-teaching. Despite not causing a break, this mode has several challenges like issues of web connectivity, social learning etc.

SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation – the pandemic has highlighted the need of washing hands frequently with soap and water. Although, there are no proven concerns of the disease spreading through unclean water, appropriate processing of sanitary waste is extremely crucial, including handling remains of the deceased.

SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth – Employment is directly linked to state of the economy. With slowdown in global economy, lockdown has severely affected the livelihood of not just daily wagers, but those engaged in the unorganised sector as well as non-essential service sector as defined by respective governments.  

SDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure – A number of industries have been directly impacted due the outbreak leading to their non-survival. Airlines, travel and tourism, entertainment, transportation, non-essential retailing, construction etc. are some examples where stimulus packages have been announced by the governments for their revival.

SDG 10: Reduced inequalities – Not just national, but even global disparities are bound to rise due to livelihood shifts and changed style of working. The income levels of businesses and personnel who could meet this shift with preparation would sustain or grow in this era, others will need to adapt or wait patiently.

SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities – The pandemic has shaken the capacity of best healthcare systems in advanced economies in Italy, Spain, China, USA, Japan etc. Despite building model infrastructure facilities, planned cities and empowering communities, the vision for this goal will need to be revisited for future.

SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production – With almost all international and domestic boundaries sealed, consumption is dependent on local supplies. There is also enhanced scepticism of the virus remaining on the surfaces of packages, due to which there is very care purchasing, even of essential commodities. Both production and consumption will need to factor in the aspects post COVID-19.

SDG 13: Climate action – Climate change has not sought the kind of attention it mandates not just on the individual level, but even by certain economies. If a pandemic can cripple the globe for more than a quarter at present, climate issues could be worst, and require stricter focus.

SDG 14 and 15: Life below water and on land – It’s strongly believed that the live animal and seafood market in Wuhan was the starting point for Coronavirus. Non-regulated livestock has been commonly sold for human consumption in these markets, which led to animal-human viral transmission. It’s important for human beings to protect other living species on the planet, and not exploit them as food resources due to infinite and sustainable alternatives already available.

SDG 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions – The pandemic has put to test the robustness of many governments, institutions and even multilateral agencies. Policies of many countries were challenged by the crisis at multiple levels. The World Health Organisation and even the UNSC have been questioned for several decisions, which were not in favour of controlling and containing the disease to particular regions in a timely manner.

SDG 17: Partnerships for the goals – Progress has been made for this goal for managing the pandemic by all financial institutions, regional trade organisations and for capacity-building between countries. However, these efforts came at a time when crisis was at its peak. With different geographies going through different stages of the pandemic, better coordination and cooperation would help in enabling countries to deal with the outbreak through knowledge-sharing.

Payal Dey CV - List of Publications

This list is part of the abridged Resume. Full CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1amktKQdH89vjyQmkjSCyhA0m28xQL7O8/view?usp=sharing

2018

·     Co-authored report for the Asian Development Bank titled: 'Report on Analysis of Select Social Sector Public-Private Partnership Projects (PPP) in India', CUTS Institute for Regulation and Competition, February 2018, ADB (Contract no. 136504).

2017

·       Editorial inputs for the Report: Chanchal et al, ‘Public Policies and Investments for the Welfare of Children in Urban Poverty in India’, Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, supported by Bernard van Leer Foundation, New Delhi, available here.  

2016

·       'Rail Budget 2016: Prabhu signals shifting focus to customers’, staff', www.firstpost.com, February 2016, available here.

·       'Connecting the Dots: An Analysis of Union Budget 2016-17', Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, March 2016, available here.

·       ‘Report of the Task Force on Financial Redress Agency’, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, June 2016, available here.

·       ‘Public-Private Partnership and Fiscal Rules in India’, Young Scholar’s Conference on Government Finance and Public Policy Issues, CBGA, July, 2016.

·       'Diwali: a smog mare for the India capital', LSE South Asia Blog, November, 2016, available here.

2015

·     Payal Dey, 'Regulatory Control of Foreign Direct Investment - A Case of Pharmaceutical Sector in India', Journal of Governance and Public Policy, Volume 5, No. 1, January-June 2015; ISSN 2231-0924, abstract available here.

2014

·     Manu Sharma, Payal Dey and Gunwant Singh Saini, 'Silver and Global Equity Markets', The Journal of Private Equity, Spring 2014, Vol. 17, No. 2: pp. 18-22          

2013

• Eldho Mathews, Biju A Chittuparamban, Sharvari Joshi, and Payal Dey, 'Engaging the Corporate Sector: Narayana Murthy Committee Recommendations and the Future of Indian Higher Education', Economic  and Political Weekly, Vol - XLVIII No. 29, July 20, 2013, abstract available here.   

·     Manu Sharma, Payal Dey and Rajneesh Agarwal, 'Dow Jones Precious Metal Index and Global Markets', Journal of Wealth Management, Summer 2013, Vol. 16, No. 1: pp. 91-96

2012

·     Conference paper for Adviser to Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India, 'PPP in National Highways: Indian Perspective', International Transport Forum, September 28, 2012

·     Conference paper presented as speaker: 'Roadblocks in Roadways and Effectiveness of PPPs in India', Seventh International Conference on Public Policy and Management, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, August 16, 2012.

2011

·     Policy paper for Secretary, DBT and Member, Planning Commission of India, 'White paper on FDIs in the  Indian Pharmaceutical Industry', December, 2011

·     'Foreign Investment Promotion Board Review 2010', Department of Economic Affairs, MoF, Government of India, September 2011, available here.

2008-09

·     Conference paper presented as speaker: 'Banking Consolidation (India): Retrospect and Prospects', IBS Mumbai, December 19, 2008

·     'Safe Drinking Water Project in Rural Areas', project report prepared on behalf of Chandrabimb Foundation, available here, August 9, 2009

·     'BIO-Health Economics^TM', project report jointly prepared on behalf of Chandrabimb Foundation, available here, May 13, 2008

2005-06

·     Report: 'Impact of Fiscal Incentives on Exporters', Commissioned by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India and Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), December 18, 2006

·     Bindu Dey and Payal Dey, 'Clinical Trials – Commerce versus Ethics', May 4, 2005, available here.