12/3 Lecture: “It Comes In Waves: Hope and failure in India’s battle with the novel coronavirus, and with itself” by Rukmini Shrinivasan

Rukmini Shrinivasan is a data journalist. She was a reporter with The Times of India. She was the first Data Editor of an Indian newsroom at The Hindu, India’s third largest newspaper in English. She was also Editor of Data & Innovation at Huffington Post India. Since 2018 she has been writing for The Hindu, India Today, The Guardian, the South China Morning Post among other publications. Since March this year, she has also been producing and hosting a popular podcast about the pandemic called “The Moving Curve.”

The SARS-CoV2 pandemic is what it is – a novel virus spread rapidly and caused widespread sickness and death and upturned the world. In India, where the virus has affected over eight million individuals, killed over a 125,000 and wrecked the economy, there were moments that it felt like it could have been something more – a moment of truly globally shared humanity, a reordering of caste and class positions, a changed political sphere, a new reckoning of the role of the state, a moment to re-evaluate how the modern Indian state administers public goods, a let up to the steady movement of the left and right away from each other. The hope that these radical reimaginations could take place came in waves – and passed. Why has India not been able to translate this historic moment into one of true new beginnings? Where does the virus take India from here, and is there a way to change course, even now?

The zoom link for the event is: https://csulb.zoom.us/j/85056312112