Governance response during COVID-19 and political affirmative action: evidence from local governments in India. (Special Issue: Local governments in pandemic response.)

A great deal of work argues that the entry of women into public spaces can promote political and institutional change. The COVID-19 provides an opportunity to investigate whether and under what conditions women's political representation in rural local governments deliver effective local governance? Drawing from two rounds of data collected in 174 local governments and 1051 households in three Indian states, the paper shows that women Pradhans in the Gram Panchayats had no differential impact on the governance response to COVID-19 compared to the unreserved ones. Analyzing the heterogeneity in these responses suggests that institutional factors like the proportion of women in village council and local entrepreneurship diversity can enhance women Pradhan's capacity to respond to the pandemic. We explore two channels that enable women Pradhan to govern effectively during the pandemic: improving women's participation in the labor force and reducing household's vulnerability to poverty in the pre-COVID period.

In Silico high-throughput virtual screening and molecular dynamics simulation study to identify 3CLpro inhibitor of COVID-19 (preprint)

COVID-19 is an ongoing coronavirus pandemic with more than 260,000 deaths worldwide so far. In the event of no targeted drug and vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, causative agent of COVID-19, finding newer targets becomes indispensable. 3CLpro is a processing enzyme of viral replicase-transcriptase complex, chosen as a potential drug target. 3CLpro of COVID-19 is structurally similar to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV 3CLpro. Here, we built up an in-house inhibitor library for 3CLpro of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. The library revealed 7 non-toxic compounds with 5 compounds showing significant protease and enzyme inhibition activity. Molecular docking of these compounds with 3CLpro shown lower binding energy profile of compounds 1 and 2. The compactness and flexibility analysis of compounds 1 and 2 complexes with 3CLpro showed lower stability profile as compared to unbound 3CLpro. The results cite the potential of compounds 1 and 2 as probable inhibitors of 3CLpro as a prospective therapeutic target for COVID-19.