Recent data projections (as leaked to the The Hindu) for the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) estimate that the city of Mumbai is likely to have more than 42,000 cases by the end of April and more than 650,000 cases by mid-May.
The...
This Express article quotes Resident Senior Fellow Vivek Dehejia. Excerpts:
"Following a mammoth nine-hour meeting with board directors, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced it will work together with the government with a set of new fiscal strategies...
Vivek Dehejia, a...
This article in The Economist quotes Bimal Patel, president of CEPT University in Ahmedabad. Excerpts:
"It is hardly surprising that most Indian cities are so messy, says Bimal Patel, an architect and planner who is president of CEPT University in Ahmedabad. When Europea...
Social media is changing human behaviour. How and why are humans being transformed by algorithms? Molly Crockett joins Vasant Dhar in episode 12 of Brave New World to describe her work at the meeting place of technology and morality. Listen to the episode here.
Useful resources:
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In these polarised times, what should the colleges of tomorrow look like? Michael S Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, joins Vasant Dhar in episode 11 of Brave New World to discuss his vision for liberal education. We should empower individuals, he says, by designing for sere...
Highlights of recent additions in the public domain
Important healthcare data like locations of health facilities should be geotagged and publicly accessible. This encourages reuse of data for innovation, i.e. research, developing new services and tools, or improving evidence-based policies...
Covid was a shock to the global economy. Policy makers have responded with Quantitative Easing. Paul Sheard joins Vasant Dhar in episode 10 of Brave New World to discuss the nuances of QE and its possible impacts. Also discussed: the role of monetary policy in this changing tech landscape, helicopte...
Artificial intelligence can transform healthcare — and the medical profession may be behind the curve. Regina Barzilay joins Vasant Dhar in episode 9 of Brave New World to talk about how doctors, programmers and lawyers need to find a meeting point to make the revolution happen.
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Prioritising vaccines to people who need them the most is very important. There may be limits to vaccine supply due to manufacturing constraints as well as distribution constraints. It is important then to direct the distribution of vaccines towa...
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Financing the COVID-19 vaccination campaign
The Indian COVID Alliance’s (TICA) Financing Track outlines the allocations of funds set aside by the Central Government to detail what percentage of the adult population in India can be successful...
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Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been an excess of information and misinformation in what WHO called an “infodemic”. We have learned the hard way that information alone does not result in tangible behavior change even when the stakes fo...
The internet has changed our lives, mostly for the better. But there is a flip side. Jonathan Haidt joins Vasant Dhar in episode 8 of Brave New World to describe how social media is a threat to democracy and public discourse — and to the mental health of a generation.
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The Madhya Pradesh Police (MPP) launched the Pracademic Action Research Initiative (with) Multidisciplinary Approach Lab (PARIMAL) in March 2021. The Lab is a collaborative initiative under MPP’s DG Research and Policy Cell, with IDFC Institute as a principal partner. ‘Pracademics’ can be refe...
