India is in the thick of the world-wide novel Coronavirus disease—COVID-19, grappling with three crises at the same time. The pandemic itself is causing health crisis, a humanitarian crisis especially for migrant workers and daily wage earners following the lockdown and a very sharp negative macroeconomic shock to both employment and incomes—a steep fall in GDP (-23.9% in Q1 of FY 20-21) and hence also government resources. This is the first economic crisis in recent memory that has been triggered by a non-economic factor—a pandemic. Coronavirus Pandemic: Lessons and Policy Response puts together contributions on the subject covering various aspects of the health crisis, economic crisis and humanitarian crisis in 31 chapters by 23 economists, analysing how health, macroeconomic and financial policies must do the things today that set the stage for V shaped recovery. This calls for thoughtful policy decisions through 2020 and 2021. Contributors Shankar Acharya Bornali Bhandari Vrinda Bhandari Lekha Chakraborty Shaktikanta Das S. Mahendra Dev Sangeeta Ghosh Sourindra M. Ghosh Radhicka Kapoor Harleen Kaur Vijay Kelkar K.P. Krishnan Sudipto Mundle Ameya Paleja Imrana Qadeer Faiza Rahman Indira Rajaraman C. Rangarajan Ajay Shah Snimardeep Singh D.K. Srivastava Siddhartha Srivastava Emmanuel Thomas Contents in Detail Acknowledgements Authors/Contributors Introduction Uma Kapila 1.The Epidemic of 2020: Setting Course for a V-shaped Recovery Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah 2.End Lockdown or Not?: Extending the Lockdown could Lead to more Deaths Shankar Acharya 3.Dressing a Wounded Economy:Monetary Policy and Fiscal Actions C. Rangarajan 4.The Lockdown Hammer Shankar Acharya 5.Lockdown with a Human Face C. Rangarajan 6.The De-lockdown Needs a better Institutional Foundation Ajay Shah 7.Slower Growth and a Tighter Fiscal C. Rangarajan and D.K. Srivastava 8.GDP: Growth vs Levels Shankar Acharya 9.The Contours of Recovery C. Rangarajan and D.K. Srivastava 10.Growth Compulsions, Fiscal Arithmetic: The Policy Challenge is to Minimise the Growth Fall C. Rangarajan and D.K. Srivastava 11.Recovery: A Long Hard Road Shankar Acharya 12.Centre-state Lessons from the Corona Virus Pandemic Indira Rajaraman 13.COVID-19 and the State of India’s Labour Market Radhicka Kapoor 14.COVID-19 and Macroeconomic Uncertainty:Fiscal and Monetary Policy Response Lekha Chakraborty and Emmanuel Thomas 15.Overview: NCAER Quarterly Review of the Economy, 2020: 1Q in Coronavirus Times Sudipto Mundle and Bornali Bhandari 16.A Safety Net, Post Covid C. Rangarajan and S. Mahendra Dev 17.Examining the COVID-19 Relief Package for MSMEs Sangeeta Ghosh 18.Indian Economy at a Crossroad: A View from Financial Stability Angle Shaktikanta Das 19.Monetary Policy in the Pandemic Ajay Shah 20.Look for an Inflatable Model C. Rangarajan 21.It is Time for Banks to Look Deeply within: Reorienting Banking Post-Covid Shaktikanta Das 22.Microfinance: Reaching Out to the Bottom of the Pyramid Snimardeep Singh 23.Covid-19 in India in the Coming Months: The Puzzles Faced by Leaders of Health Care Organisations Ajay Shah 24.The Three Tiers of Government in Public Health K.P. Krishnan 25.Public Good Perspective of Public Health: Evaluating Health Systems Response to COVID-19 Sourindra Mohan Ghosh and Imrana Qadeer 26.Constitutionalism during a Crisis: The Case of Aarogya Setu Vrinda Bhandari and Faiza Rahman 27.Legal and Regulatory Framework for Laboratory Testing in India: A Case Study for Covid-19 Harleen Kaur, Ameya Paleja and Siddhartha Srivastava 28.Are Dynamic Shifts Underway in the Indian Economy? Shaktikanta Das 29.Time to Re-prioritise Firm Resolution Ajay Shah 30.What Forces could Drive the Recovery? Shaktikanta Das 31.Overview: NCAER Quarterly Review of the Economy, 2020: 2Q in Coronavirus Times Sudipto Mundle and Bornali Bhandari