PM Modi’s Covid-19 crisis management strategy has evolved since his first unilateral announcement of nationwide lockdown. He has been more consultative in recent days. Demonstrating cooperative federalism, he took chief ministers on board before extending the lockdown. By sharing specific details about India’s preparedness, Modi has also addressed critics’ complaints.
Praiseworthy. The government’s foremost task now is to insulate close to 100 million households from absolute want. 2. What India needs for the next three to four months is for three thousand rupees to go into the Jan Dhan accounts of not just farmers – in place of five hundred – but also of landless labourers and all other poor rural and urban households. To be supplemented by rations being issued free of cost for a similar period. That and funding the medical response, where the number of patients could rise substantially, should be the first charge on the government’s revenues, which will shrink dramatically. Beyond that, one cannot visualise what the fiscal stimulus can and should be. 3. Ask the Germans what printing of money leads to. They have been inoculated against it in perpetuity. Their governments behave responsibly, their bonds are the most prized by investors.