The making of India's COVID-19 disaster: A Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Assemblage analysis.

This article analyses the suite of policies and measures enacted by the Indian Union Government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic through apparatuses of disaster management. We focus on the period from the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, until mid-2021. This holistic review adopts a Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Assemblage conceptual approach to make sense of how the COVID-19 disaster was made possible and importantly how it was responded to, managed, exacerbated, and experienced as it continued to emerge. This approach is grounded in literature from critical disaster studies and geography. The analysis also draws on a wide range of other disciplines, ranging from epidemiology to anthropology and political science, as well as grey literature, newspaper reports, and official policy documents. The article is structured into three sections that investigate in turn and at different junctures the role of governmentality and disaster politics; scientific knowledge and expert advice, and socially and spatially differentiated disaster vulnerabilities in shaping the COVID-19 disaster in India. We put forward two main arguments on the basis of the literature reviewed. One is that both the impacts of the virus spread and the lockdown-responses to it affected already marginalised groups disproportionately. The other is that managing the COVID-19 pandemic through disaster management assemblage/apparatuses served to extend centralised executive authority in India. These two processes are demonstrated to be continuations of pre-pandemic trends. We conclude that evidence of a paradigm shift in India's approach to disaster management remains thin on the ground.

A global mental health opportunity: How can cultural concepts of distress broaden the construct of immobility?

(Im)mobility studies often focus on people on the move, neglecting those who stay, are immobile, or are trapped. The duality of the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis creates a global mental health challenge, impacting the most structurally oppressed, including immobile populations. The construct of immobility is investigated in the context of socio-political variables but lacks examination of the clinical psychological factors that impact immobility. Research is beginning to identify self-reported emotions that immobile populations experience through describing metaphors like feeling trapped. This article identifies links in the literature between Cultural Concepts of Distress drawn from transcultural psychiatry and immobility studies. Feeling trapped is described in mental health research widely. Among (im)mobile people and non-mobility contexts, populations experience various mental health conditions from depression to the cultural syndrome, nervios. The connection of feeling trapped to CCD research lends itself to potential utility in immobility research. The conceptualisation can support broadening and deepening the comprehension of this global mental health challenge - how immobile populations' experience feeling trapped. To broaden the analytical framework of immobility and incorporate CCD, evidence is needed to fill the gaps on the psychological aspects of immobility research.

COVID-19 and business continuity - learning from the private sector and humanitarian actors in Kenya

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to communities and organizations globally. Evidence on the potential role of business continuity for pandemic resilience remains scattered, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. In this case study on COVID-19, based on qualitative interviews with private and humanitarian actors in Kenya, gaps of formal Business Continuity approaches emerged. The actors' continuity was mostly driven by pre-existing conditions and organizational agility, while major differences between humanitarian and private actors' business continuity were observed. This paper's findings highlight the opportunities of a simplified, agile, and accessible business continuity and its potential applicability during future disruptions.

COVID-19 in India: Who are we leaving behind?

The COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered and intensified existing societal inequalities. People on the move and residents of urban slums and informal settlements are among some of the most affected groups in the Global South. Given the current living conditions of migrants, the WHO guidelines on how to prevent COVID-19 (such as handwashing, physical distancing and working from home) are challenging to nearly impossible in informal settlements. We use the case of India to highlight the challenges of migrants and urban slum dwellers during the COVID-19 response, and to provide human rights-based recommendations for immediate action to safeguard these vulnerable populations.

Editorial

Human health and well-being are an integral part of achieving the goals of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR). The SFDRR states “Policies and practices for disaster risk management should be based on an understanding of disaster risk in all its dimensions of vulnerability, capacity, exposure of persons and assets, hazard characteristics and the environment” (UNISDR, 2015, p. 14). In order to “leave no one behind”, it is high time to draw out a plan of action for synergies between different global frameworks (Sendai Framework, The Paris agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals) and beyond national borders to ensure health and well-being and reduce disaster risk.