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Purpose: The research determines how the COVID-19 pandemic affected India’s burgeoning education technology sector and how the new normal responded to this advancement worldwide.

Need for Study: India’s education sector saw a boom in Ed-Tech funding during the pandemic. The Indian Education industry adopted technology as a partner and succeeded in being called as the Ed-Tech capital of the world. The country has a strategic edge in online education that, if explored and researched upon, can be deployed for market growth at a global level.

Research Methodology: The researcher prioritised rigorous original quantitative and qualitative methods of investigation on technology applications in educational contexts during COVID-19 pandemic and drew its conclusions after conducting a comprehensive literature review and collecting and analysing the data from numerous journals and published expert articles on the sector.

Findings: The study found that despite the global pandemic, the Ed-Tech industry was an expanding marketplace for start-ups in India. After the pandemic, the market expanded rapidly, and by 2025, it is expected to have quadrupled in size, expenditure, and investment. It is expected that the global e-learning business, which the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has bolstered, will grow to over 400 billion US dollars by 2026.

Practical Implications: The study sets forth the various Ed-Tech categories, outlining their user bases, growth projections, and the innovative technologies employed in developing these products. The research’s long-term investment projections are envisioned to aid consultants in positioning themselves for profitable operations in the era of digital Ed-Tech disruption worldwide.

In this chapter, we examine how the media in India constructed the lives, needs, and desires of disabled children in India during the tumultuous pandemic.

Through critical discourse analysis, we address how children's bodies and needs have been explicitly discursively constructed as “excessive,” while implicitly drawing upon neoliberal, ableist logics of loss and productivity.

We foreground how the framing of COVID-19 as a disaster in the Indian context obscures state neglect, suggesting that inequality has been the result of the pandemic rather than the limits of state care under neoliberal ableism. Despite the recognition of gaps in the care received by disabled children, neoliberal, entrepreneurial solutions have emerged as a new, widely touted form of care during the pandemic.

Through our analysis, we highlight how disabled children have been neglected by the state and constructed as burdensome and vulnerable. We argue that this occurs when disabled children's bodyminds do not conform to an ideal of the self-reliant, independent citizen under the logics of neoliberal ableism. Our work demonstrates how children with disabilities are discursively rendered absent from conceptualizations of normate citizenship, unless seen as contributing to current or future aspirations for state productivity and growth.

Prior research studies have discussed the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) during crisis situations in increasing the resilience and sustainability of the companies. There are two basic models of crisis management – reactive and proactive. When a crisis occurs, suddenly firms tend to act reactively and progressively take proactive steps to manage the crisis. CSR can also be reactive and proactive during crisis situations. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to explore whether CSR during the COVID-19 pandemic moved from a reactive to a proactive stance, with specific focus on CSR legislation, corporate CSR response and corporate thinking about CSR.

This paper adopts a mixed methods approach, using both qualitative and quantitative research designs. This study draws upon both primary and secondary data.

The results highlighted the change in the CSR approach from being reactive to being proactive as the pandemic progressed. This was observed through the increase in frequency of CSR legislation, and the shift in the intent of CSR legislation from “prompting to donate” to “prompting to volunteer.” Similarly, the shift in reactive to proactive CSR corporate response was observed through the increased spending on CSR and improved COVID-related CSR reporting.

This study recommends companies to manage crises by becoming more proactive. CSR activities need to be closely aligned with national developmental objectives, and collaborate with various stakeholders to achieve the intended outcomes of the activities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research paper is one of the few to study the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on CSR in India at a time when India went through three waves of the pandemic. This study corroborates with other studies in terms of managing crisis.

With 43.2 million coronavirus cases and 525,000 deaths in 2022, India ranked second worldwide, after the United States (84.6 million cases and 1 million deaths), according to the latest available June 2022 COVID-19 impact data.

Amid people’s growing mistrust in the government, India’s news media enhanced the nation’s distinguished designation as the world’s largest and most populous democracy. India’s news media inform, educate, empower, and entertain a surging population of 1.4 billion people, which is roughly one-sixth of the world’s people.

Drawing upon the media agendamelding theoretical framework, we conducted a case study research into interplay between two prominent democratic institutions, the media and the government, to analyze the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in redefining India’s networked society.

India’s COVID-19 pandemic aggravated internecine tensions between media and government relating to four key freedom issues: (1) world’s largest COVID-19 lockdown affecting 1.3 billion Indians from March 25, 2020 to August 2020 with extensions and five-phased re-openings, to restrict the spread of COVID-19; (2) Internet shutdowns; (3) media censorship during the 1975–1977 “Emergency”; and (4) unabated murders of journalists in India.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic caused deleterious problems debilitating the tensions between the media and the government, India’s journalists thrived by speaking truth to power. This study delineates key aspects of India’s media agendamelding that explicates how the people of India form their media agendas. India’s news audiences meld media messages from newspapers, television, and social media to form a picture of the issues, insights, and ideas that define their lives and times in the 21st century digital age.

The purpose of this paper is to study the experiences of middle-class working mothers from the ITES (Information Technology Enabled Service) sector in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their experiences of work from home are studied in the backdrop of the ideal worker model at work and the adult worker model at home. Further, the study aims to identify the need for sustainable, inclusive practices for working mothers in Indian organizations to break the male breadwinner model in middle-class households.

A qualitative approach to collect data from 39 middle-class mothers working in MNCs in four metro cities in India. The semi-structured, in-depth interviews focused on their experiences of motherhood, care and work before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic made it evident that the ideal worker model in organizations and the adult worker model at home were illusions for working mothers. The results indicate a continued obligation of the “ideal worker culture” at organizations, even during the health crisis. It made the working mothers realize that they were chasing both the (ideal worker and adult worker) norms but could never achieve them. Subsequently, the male breadwinner model was reinforced at home due to the matrix of motherhood, care and work during the pandemic. The study concludes by arguing the reconstruction of the ideal worker image to make workplaces more inclusive for working mothers.

The study is placed in the context of Indian middle-class motherhood during the pandemic, a demography less explored in the literature. The paper puts forth various myths constituting the gendered realities of Indian middle-class motherhood. It also discusses sustainable, inclusive workplace practices for mothers from their future workplaces' standpoint, especially in post-pandemic times.

As a developing country, India initiated several labor measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. This study analyzes the impact of the Covid-19-induced comprehensive labor measures by Indian states on the Case Fatality Ratios and Recovery Rates. Such an analysis will provide deeper insights into the importance of labor measures during a health emergency. It will also be a reality check to the existing National Health Policy.

The study examines the four major aspects of labor measures on migration, social security, state-specific needs and health and human rights. The authors use these to formulate a composite labor measure index to comprehend the Covid-19-induced various labor measures. Additionally, the authors apply pooled ordinary least squares and panel random-effects models with the state-wise monthly data to examine the impact of Covid-19-induced labor measures on the severity of the pandemic.

Covid-19-induced comprehensive labor measures reduce fatalities and increase recovery rates. In particular, the measures on labor migration, state-specific needs and health and human rights adopted by the Indian states successfully reduce the Covid-19 fatalities and improve the recovery rates. However, the measures taken to address social security have been ineffective in reducing the severity of the pandemic. The study results are robust to various other specifications.

The time period covered in this research is very brief and does not account for the qualitative impact of labor measures on the severity of the pandemic. This study specifically addresses the number of Covid-19-induced labor measures and not the resources allocated to their implementations or the number of people who benefited from the measures.

This study emphasizes the need for subnational comprehensive labor measures to reduce the severity of the pandemic in developing countries. The study confirms the need for effective Covid-19-induced social security measures to cope with the pandemic in India. This study also ascertains the beneficial impact of the measures on migration, state-specific needs and health and human rights.

The authors make a composite labor measure index that captures state-level Covid-19-induced labor measures on diverse aspects, namely migration, social security, state-specific need and health and human rights, hitherto unexplored. In addition, the authors analyze the impact of these labor measures on the severity of the pandemic.

The paper aims to study hotel owners’ perception of tourism in the five creative cities of India during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Semi-structured, in-depth interviews (N = 30) and participant observation were the methods used for collecting qualitative data. Data was analysed using content analysis.

The findings reveal the effect of tourism on the psyche of small and medium enterprise hotel owners. Factors contributing to this anxiety are unpreparedness for the crisis, cash flow problems, failure to be flexible in this crisis, inability to leverage hotel’s location and lack of hygiene habits.

The research illustrated a systemic lack of knowledge and training in the unorganized hotel sector in India which if addressed, could assist the hotel owners and staff in building trust toward tourists and a positive attitude toward the crisis.

As the study analyses the unorganized hotel sector in the Indian context, it provides useful insights for the Indian Government and hospitality industry to foster trust and positivity in this sector during the COVID-19 pandemic which could significantly contribute to its revival and psychological recovery of its stakeholders.

The pervasive impact of the COVID-19 virus on the food services sector in India has created conditions for fundamentally altering the structure of the industry. This paper offers a nuanced evaluation of the transfiguration of the market, explaining descriptive views supported by numerous secondary data sources.

This is a self-driven study grounded in secondary data. Qualitative and quantitative assessments are assimilated from credible market research reports of multiple agencies in the Indian context, as well as news developments during the pandemic period.

Digitally pivoted platforms such as cloud kitchens and delivery aggregators will eclipse all other formats due to the potential long-term prevalence of the COVID-19 virus. These formats would rise to a dominant position in the Indian food services sector in the coming decade.

This study is entirely driven by secondary data due to the inherent difficulties of collecting sizeable and good quality primary data as a result of the lengthy and stringent lockdowns imposed across India. Future studies should consider collecting consumer responses to get a better picture of changing dining habits in the post-pandemic scenario.

The dynamic and evolving food services in India, catalyzed by the Internet and digital technologies will help academicians study the long-term implications of this change, and how it would impact society at large. The paper provides a rich body of contemporary data and analysis in the food services sphere.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its long-term persistence would dramatically alter food service consumption across India. This will not only change how the industry is structured, but will reshape how food is consumed into the future.

The study is a holistic examination of the relationship between the coronavirus pandemic and the food services industry in India. The macro perspectives aided by news coverage and industry research would help generate potential research questions on its own merits.

As we know that whole world is facing global pandemic or COVID-19 for past six months including India. It has created many psychosocial problems among the millions of people of the society. Committing suicide is one of them owing to COVID-19, and it is the matter of grave concern for the social psychologists. This study is based on secondary data. The purpose of this paper is to understand the nature of suicides in Indian society during COVID-19 and to explore the factors affecting committing suicides during COVID-19.

The secondary data have been collected for the study of suicide because of COVID-19 through various newspapers and monthly magazines. The cases of suicide because of COVID-19 have been collected between March 2020 and July 2020. The authors have used content analysis method to analyse the cases related to suicide because of COVID-19.

This study finds that the nature of committing suicide is anomic, egoistic and altruistic in the current pandemic. The study also points out that most of individuals have committed suicide in this current pandemic owing to fear of corona infection and economic crises because of nationwide lock down.

This is an original paper which is based on content analysis. Basically, the present paper has examined the nature of suicide in India because of COVID-19 and nationwide lockdown using Durkheim’s perspective of suicide.

This paper presents a cross-sectional study that assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural migrants in Bihar. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the overall impact of the pandemic on migrants and examine their livelihoods, with a focus on identifying measures that can mitigate the economic consequences.

This study used a telephonic survey to collect primary data from 419 respondents. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data, and three indices were constructed: fear and worries, trust and prevention.

The findings provide insights into the psychological well-being of migrant workers and highlight the challenges they face in sustaining their livelihoods amidst the pandemic. This study concludes by suggesting potential measures to alleviate the economic impact and enhance the resilience of this vulnerable population.

This study may be limited by the representativeness of the sample as well as the potential for social desirability bias. The study may also be limited by the reliability and validity of the measures used to capture the fear and worries, trust and prevention indices.

Numerous studies have examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rural migrants. However, there are limited studies that estimate the impact of the proposed study based on the challenges faced by rural migrants in Bihar during the pandemic.