Innehållsförteckning för October 5, 2020 från India Today

Exactly six months ago, India imposed one of the world’s harshest lockdowns to arrest the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. The measure did temporarily stall the growth of the novel coronavirus but triggered an economic crisis that has spread as rapidly as the virus itself. Two business quarters later, we are not just the second-worst-affected country in the world with 5.6 million cases and 90,000 deaths but also the worst hit among the G20 economies. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that India’s growth for the entire fiscal year will be -4.5 per cent. 2020 is clearly annus horribilis, a year unlike any we’ve seen in recent history, with its impact being felt across sectors. Three significant drivers of growth—domestic consumption, government expenditure and private investment—have taken a beating. In…

The gridlock in eastern Ladakh is total, and the border crisis between India and China seems to have hit a cul-de-sac. In analysing the current situation, four critical issues merit attention. To begin with, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has not vacated its areas of intrusions in eastern Ladakh despite the protracted parleys. There is intransigence in the PLA’s attitude, as evident in the latest round of talks held after the foreign ministers had arrived at a consensus to “quickly disengage”. In the absence of any breakthrough in the negotiations, the PLA will make their positions permanent, thereby completing the unilateral alteration to the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Then, there is a clear failure of the existing agreements, protocols and confidence-building measures. A weakening of the agreements was visible…

WHEN A COUNTRY WITH AN ECONOMY AS LARGE AS INDIA’S—Rs 203 LAKH CRORE—goes into one of the world’s most stringent lockdowns, as it did six months ago, a deep negative impact is only to be expected. Exactly how deep was revealed by the numbers the Central Statistics Office released on August 31. The Indian economy contracted a massive 23.9 per cent in the first quarter of FY21—among the worst in the world’s large economies. A majority of the sectors that contribute the most to the country’s wealth and employ millions of people are mired in a financial crisis they are unlikely to recover from this fiscal. Manufacturing, which has a 16 per cent share in GDP, is lagging due to weak demand. This has resulted in a drop in investments…

When Jigar Mehta launched HoneyTwigs in 2015, the idea was to sell honey, sourced from Himachal Pradesh and Bihar and processed at his factory in Delhi, via three avenues—retail sales, institutional sales (to hotels and restaurants) and gifting. Before Covid-19 struck, his company relied on the first two. However, the lockdown crushed institutional sales, with many restaurants and hotels still shut. “Covid has shown people the need for healthier lifestyles, which benefits entrepreneurs like us” Luckily for Mehta, sales spiked overall during the pandemic, as honey is widely considered an excellent immunity booster. He says the lockdowns also led many to turn to cooking and baking as hobbies, which also drove sales. Selling across online avenues, including Amazon and Flipkart, he says his sales have risen 25 to 30 per…

THE REAL ESTATE SECTOR had been struggling well before the arrival of Covid-19. The pandemic has magnified the pain. Realty consultant Anarock says the supply of new homes declined by 56 per cent in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period last year and that the April-June quarter saw new launches decline by 98 per cent over the same period last year. Real estate players say the lockdowns massively disrupted business, with enquiries coming to a virtual halt in this period and construction on hold as well. They add that though matters improved July onward, they are still only receiving about half the enquiries they were before the pandemic set in. Home sales in the top seven cities—the National Capital Region, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Pune, Kolkata,…

Founded in 2011, Byju’s is today the go-to learning app for students in India. It has a strong team behind its K-10, JEE, NEET and UPSC prep offerings. During the pandemic, they launched several initiatives to help students and also made content on the app free for all. Learning programmes for history, civics and geography were launched in major regional languages. Byju’s Classes, a complete after-school learning solution provider, was launched across the country. Divya Gokulnath, co-founder of Byju’s, says, “We were listed on both UNESCO’s curated list of credible educational applications as well as CBSE’s list of online mediums for students.” Since the lockdown, they have seen over 20 million new students join the platform. “The average time spent here has increased from 71 minutes per day to 100…

NEARLY 90 PER CENT OF TOYS IN INDIA are imported and are mostly from China. With increased curbs on imports and a shortage of factory workers, manufacturers say they are running out of stock. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Mann Ki Baat address on August 30, made special mention of the sector, saying: “India should work towards becoming self-reliant in the production of toys.” According to Global market research firm IMARC, the size of India’s toy market is around Rs 10,000 crore. Of this, the organised toy industry is estimated to be around Rs 3,500-4,500 crore. Homegrown toys constitute only 12-13 per cent of this and nearly 88 per cent belongs to international brands like Mattel and Fischer Price. According to a 2017 report on India’s toys sector, commissioned…

THE PHARMA INDUSTRY, it is often said, is recession-proof. In this season of Covid-19, they are on the frontlines of the battle, with a host of Indian companies such as Zydus Cadila, Bharat Biotech, Aurobindo Pharma, Serum Institute, Biological E and Gennova Biopharmaceuticals, engaged in the quest for a vaccine. These vaccines are in various stages of development or clinical trials. India has already made big strides in pharmaceuticals on the world stage, cornering 20 per cent share of the global generics market by volume. It already meets 62 per cent of the global demand for vaccines. In the early days of the pandemic, disruption in API (active pharmaceutical ingredients) imports from China affected pharma production in India. While pharma manufacturing was exempted from the lockdown, the lack of labour…

WHEN INDIA BEGAN TO FEEL THE ECONOMIC pinch of the lockdown, among the first things the Centre decided to get moving was the logistics sector. Soon, trucks were back on the highways to ferry essential items, medicines and health equipment. But with state borders sealed, even truckers carrying essential supplies had to endure long waits. Forty days into the lockdown, market analysis firms projected that the country’s transport and logistics sector might suffer a 15-20 per cent contraction. In the first four months of the fiscal, the railways’ earnings from freight fell by 26.4 per cent to Rs 31,275 crore as against the corresponding period in 2019-20. This was largely due to a sharp drop in the demand for coal and cement, items that move primarily on trains. Top railways…

THE TEXTILES SECTOR IS INDIA’S SECOND-LARGEST EMPLOYER after agriculture, but infrastructural bottlenecks and productivity challenges have hampered its growth even as countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Cambodia have moved in to corner the global market. Covid has inflicted more hardship on the sector. The exodus of migrant labour severely compromised production capacity of textile units to meet overseas demands. Domestic demand, too, crashed, except in segments like lounge wear and essentials. According to ratings agency ICRA, the downturn will contract demand by 25-35 per cent across the yarn, fabric and apparel segments in FY21 when compared to the previous fiscal. Demand growth in the second half of FY21 will depend on the discretionary spending of consumers and measures announced by the government to incentivise exports. Kumar Duraisamy,…

Chandail closed down his Ramgarh Heritage, A WelcomHeritage Hotel, almost immediately after the lockdown was announced. All the bookings for April had to be refunded. Six months on, the property remains closed and Chandail has had to dip into his personal savings for the upkeep of the property. “Covid has wiped out business for half a year as of now,” says Chandail, adding that “hospitality will change completely in the way guests perceive hotels and how hotels will adapt to the new trends of service delivery. He has had to invest in sanitisation SOPs in accordance with the norms set by the Welcome Group, which includes getting cold fogging and baggage spraying machines, and machines to peel and chop vegetables. He is hopeful of opening in October but with limited…

The puratchi thalaivi (revolutionary leader), J. Jayalalithaa, passed away in December 2016, barely seven months after her party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), won the assembly election for the second time in a row in Tamil Nadu. The party and the state went through much turmoil after her death, including Jaya’s friend and confidante V.K. Sasikala’s emergence as a successor, her (some say convenient) incarceration in a decades-old disproportionate assets case, the coming together of the breakaway faction led by O. Panneerselvam and the official Edappadi K. Palaniswami group (some say BJP-engineered), and the latter’s ascent to the chief minister’s chair. But through it all, one thing was clear—‘Amma’, as Jayalalithaa was fondly called, still cast a long shadow even after her death. As another assembly election…

The party came into existence in 2000 when its founder Ram Vilas Paswan broke away from Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) In the Feb. 2005 polls, the party won 29 seats but Paswan Sr, a minister in the UPA-1 cabinet, refused to extend support to anyone, leading to dissolution of the assembly. In fresh polls, the LJP managed to win just 10 seats Ever since the hung verdict of 2005, the Bihar electorate has voted decisively in favour of one of two personalities—Nitish in the state polls, Narendra Modi in the general election Thus the LJP fares poorly when it contests against Nitish in the state polls but does well in the Lok Sabha election, riding piggyback on PM Narendra Modi’s popularity…

THE WOMEN WHO FORGOT TO INVENT FACEBOOK AND OTHER STORIES by Nisha Susan CONTEXT ₹499; 225 pages Like all collections of short stories, Nisha Susan’s The Women Who Forgot to Invent Facebook and Other Stories is a mixed bag. Some of the 12 tales, such as the title story, make you raise your eyebrows and not in a good way. Seriously. Must strong, confident women really be brats to prove they are strong and confident? Some stories make you chuckle, as they are intended to. Some are excellent cures for insomnia, as they probably were not intended to be. And some resonate so deeply with you that you know, years later, they will return in your memory and send you to your bookshelves to seek and read them again. The…

GDP THE ABYSS With Q1 growth contracting sharply, the next two quarters are also likely to be in negative zone IIP IN THE DUMPS Industrial production too suffered because of the lock-down and poor demand CONSUMPTION NO APPETITE With so many jobs lost and incomes down, demand has been on a downswing PMI HEADING SOUTH Both in services and manufacturing, the index foretells a negative outlook JOBS WORKING CRISIS An estimated 21 million salaried jobs were lost during the lockdown NEW INVESTMENT AT A STANDSTILL With sluggish demand, the appetite for investments has also seen a downswing…

THE LOCKDOWN HAD BROUGHT THE manufacturing sector to a grinding halt. The government did broaden the scope of ‘essential services’ to allow certain manufacturing units to reopen, but they struggled due to disruptions in the supply chain and manpower shortage caused by the flight of migrant labour. With cash flows drying up, most firms had a tough time paying salaries and meeting operational expenses, such as mounting power bills. The six-month moratorium on repayment of loans by the RBI came as a temporary relief. When GDP numbers for the first quarter of the fiscal were announced, the data for manufacturing was abysmally poor. The industrial sector, as a whole, saw de-growth of 38 per cent as against a 4.2 per cent growth in the same quarter in the previous fiscal.…

THE RETAIL SECTOR has borne the brunt of the lock-down. From local kiranawalas to those in shopping malls, retailers had an especially tough time in the early days of the lockdown. Though some economic activity resumed when shops selling essential goods were allowed to reopen, these were placed under strict restrictions—such as being allowed to open only on alternate days or only for a few hours each day—which came as quite a dampener to sales. The disruptions in the transport of goods also led to a shortage of products at many places, with high prices as a result. Even today, shopping malls see drastically lower levels of customer footfall, owing to strict social distancing norms and a fear of the virus among the general public. Weekend curfews and partial lockdowns…

THE AIR TRANSPORT SECTOR has been the toast of India’s aviation industry, with four straight years of double-digit passenger growth, averaging 12.9 per cent. In January 2019, a 20-year air passenger forecast by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) suggested that India would overtake the UK to become the third largest market by 2025. The study hadn’t factored in a black swan event. As Covid spread across the world, nations were forced to shut down their airspace and ground passenger aircraft. Civil aviation has been among the hardest hit by the pandemic, with global losses this year pegged at over Rs 6.17 lakh crore. The lockdown in India knocked the bottom out of the sector. Indigo and Spicejet, the two top commercial airlines with 60 per cent and 13 per…

Amit Sundra’s toy shop in Connaught Place in Delhi is an institution. Around since 1935, Ram Chander & Sons, says Sundra, has never witnessed a time like this when hours go by without a single customer walking in. After months of sliding sales, Sundra is exploring other avenues for driving sales and marketing. Though things have picked up since the lockdown was lifted, Sundra is sending out personalised messages and offers on WhatsApp to his regulars. “Every sale counts. There is no time to become lax,” says Sundra. Nearly 60 per cent of his sales now happen online. He is hopeful about the rest of the year, but, overall, 2020 is a year best forgotten, he says.…

Founded in 1996, Thyrocare Technologies is a chain of diagnostic and preventive care laboratories, based in Navi Mumbai. The company has 1,122 outlets and collection centres across India and abroad. When Covid broke out, the company decided to make use of its preexisting PCR machines and trained manpower to steadily add to its Covid testing capacity. From 200 tests a day in April, they are now capable of conducting 20,000 tests per day. “Our growth has almost doubled this year,” says Dr Arokiaswamy Velumani. While Covid hit all other lab services badly in the initial days of the lock-down, around 90 per cent of their demand has been restored as of this month. They have added 20 per cent new jobs in the past six months, the median age of…

With a fleet of 50 trucks, Sanjeev Diwan’s firm is one of the prominent long-distance freight carriers in and around Chandigarh. Diwan primarily deals in the transportation of agricultural commodities, pharmaceutical products and industrial goods in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. Given the scale of operations, Diwan had his hands full managing his truck drivers during the lockdown as many of them were stuck on the highways. He tried to ensure that they did not run out of money for food and other essentials and had temporary accommodation. “Business had almost dried up in the first three months of the lockdown, but we had to continue paying salaries to the drivers and other staff as you cannot afford to lose them. They are not only loyal but a trained workforce,” says…

THE FOOTWEAR AND LEATHER INDUSTRY is slowly coming to terms with the almost wiped out first quarter of this fiscal. The segment is expected to shrink by 8-10 per cent in comparison to business done last year. Still, most manufacturers consider the pandemic to be a temporary disruption. The big players are altering their business model—going slow on brick-and-mortar stores and focusing more on the e-commerce side. The government recently set up a Development Council for Footwear and Leather Industry to support the sector. Most of the players who do contract manufacturing are bootstrapped at this hour; 50 per cent of their stock is still lying in the warehouses. Worse, the demand for formal shoes where margins are higher is minimal, as many people are working from home. On the…

Sharadd Gupta exemplifies what the lockdown has done to textile entrepreneurs. Gupta’s factory, which employs 200 workers, in Haryana’s Faridabad used to produce knitted garments, 90 per cent of which would be exported. The Covid crisis forced him to shut down his unit and outsource orders. The lockdown and the unease of doing business, he says, have exhausted his working capital even as GST refunds remain held up with the government, and banks are not willing to lend. Gupta’s order-book is at 20-30 per cent of what it was a few years ago and he is staring at a bleak future. “I have scaled down my business considerably. At the moment, I have no plans to set up my manufacturing unit again”…

The Karmayogi programme will be delivered through an Integrated Government Online Training (iGOT) Karmayogi platform iGOT-Karmayogi will allow all government servants, from assistant secretary to secretary level, to undergo continuous training, depending on their domain areas Courses from international universities will be available on the platform for all levels of officers to study at any time The platform is expected to evolve into a vibrant and world-class marketplace for content where carefully curated and vetted digital e-learning material will be available Besides capacity-building, service matters like confirmation after probation period, deployment, work assignment and notification of vacancies etc. will eventually be integrated with the competency framework…

There shall be a Governor for each state (Article 153). The executive power of the state shall be vested in the governor and shall be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him in accordance with the Constitution of India (Art. 154) A person to be eligible for appointment as governor should be citizen of India and completed 35 years of age (Art. 157) The governor shall not be a member of the legislature or Parliament; shall not hold any office of profit, shall be entitled to emoluments and allowances (Art. 158) There shall be a council of ministers with the chief minister at the head to aid and advise the governor in the exercise of his functions except in so far as he is by or…

+gold jewellery: 21.28 kgs seized by the police and lying with the Karnataka government treasury IMMOVABLES ₹ 72.09 CRORE Residential ₹44 crore Veda Nilayam, Poes Garden, Chennai Commercial ₹28.13 crore 4 79 Poes Garden, Chennai 4 8-3-1099, building in Srinagar Colony, Hyderabad 4 GH-18,ground floor flat is now a tea shop in Parsn Manere Welfare Society, Chennai 4213-B, 1,500 sq. ft dilapidated building on St Mary’s Road, Mandaveli, Chennai The values, estimated and declared by J. Jayalalithaa, are as on April 25, 2016, some seven months before her death * She excluded current market value of the gold and jewellery as it was not with her…

A reinfection is where the virus enters the body a second time and infects the person. This is different from reactivation, where the virus remains in an inactive state in the body and later becomes active again First proven case of a Covid reinfection was recorded on August 24 in Hong Kong Six healthcare workers reinfected so far in India, two from GIMS, Greater Noida, and four from two Mumbai hospitals 91% of recovered cases have detectable antibodies against the virus that can last up to 3 months…

AZADI Freedom. Fascism. Fiction Arundhati Roy PENGUIN ₹499; 256 pages INTIMATIONS by Zadie Smith PENGUIN ₹299; 96 pages Zadie Smith and Arundhati Roy, both galactic-level celebrities in the world of letters, have released slim essay collections that reflect, in part, on this season of plague. Most of Roy’s essays in the pointedly titled Azadi predate the pandemic, written over the last two years “that in India”, as she writes in the ‘Introduction’, “have felt like two hundred”. Smith’s essays are entirely of the moment, bagatelles that cumulatively are of a density and substance that the brevity and airy elegance of each individual component belies. For both, at the heart of the writerly enterprise is control, the demiurgical ability to impose your will on chaos, to shape the world contained within…

Q. You tweeted that you’re “grateful to get a good role after so long”. Is it hard to find satisfying parts? Tell me, why haven’t you seen me in more roles? I have done some wonderful work, but meaty parts like Dolly don’t come often. I’m grateful that Alankrita Shrivastava and Ekta Kapoor are making and backing this kind of cinema. When you make something that doesn’t follow mainstream conventions, you mostly don’t get money. Q. You describe yourself as a “reckless retweeter”. Your feed reflects your politics and that you’re not afraid of that. I used to be more reckless. Nowadays I think twice about saying things because I find the current atmosphere in the country to be one with little tolerance for differing opinions. Many are scared to…

ALTHOUGH COVID-19 and its associated lockdowns disrupted retail supply chains, e-commerce has thrived in the past six months. This trend looks set to continue: Despite the recent easing of lockdown rules, many shoppers still seem to prefer buying online, possibly to avoid crowds during the ongoing pandemic. E-commerce majors from BigBasket and Grofers to Fresh-ToHome, Amazon and Flipkart have been seizing the moment to improve their home delivery systems and reach. And with Reliance Retail entering the fray with online stores and its JioMart app, the e-commerce battle is set to intensify. Indian retail has seen momentous changes over the past 10 years, with the overall sector achieving a size of $915 billion (Rs 67 lakh crore) in 2019. E-commerce, which accounted for less than $1 billion (Rs 7,350 crore)…

For Joginder Bansal, whose manufacturing unit produces engineering goods, the past six months have been a nightmare. Business dried up in April and May, and just when production began to resume slowly, half of his 25-strong migrant workforce left for their native places. “Locally sourced labour is way more expensive and less productive,” says Bansal. His other problem is that most of his clients, especially those from the automotive sector, are no longer in a position to place orders like before. With mounting overheads—salaries and a power bill of Rs 75,000—Bansal fears that his business, which has an annual turnover of Rs 1 crore, is in peril.…

EVEN BEFORE COVID BROKE OUT, the healthcare sector in India was on its way to success and reports for 2020 were already positive for the industry. The sector was expected to generate 40 million jobs this year, the pharmaceutical sector was expected to supply over 50 per cent of the world’s vaccines demands, telemedicine and medical insurance were also predicted to flourish. Despite Covid negatively impacting medical tourism and non-Covid healthcare services, a report last week by the India Brand Equity Foundation painted a similar rosy picture for the sector. The healthcare market is expected to increase three-fold to Rs 8.6 lakh crore by 2022. The private sector still accounts for 74 per cent of the country’s expenditure and the report predicted that investment will rise for both hard (hospitals)…

Zydus has been at the forefront of the Covid-19 battle, scaling up production of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and Dexamethasone and launching the life-saving drug Remdac, which it claims is the most economical brand of Remdesivir available for the treatment of the virus. The company started its vaccine development programme even before the infection spread to India, says Dr Sharvil Patel, MD. ZyCoV-D is currently in Phase II clinical trials. In collaboration with ICMR, the company also manufactured and supplied Covid Kavach Elisa diagnostic kits. Zydus is hoping to manufacture 100 million doses of ZyCoV-D to start with, at the Zydus Vaccine Technology Centre in Ahmedabad. “The ability to innovate and execute our plans has been our core strength. This shaped our response to the pandemic too,” says Patel.…

THE GEMS AND JEWELLERY SECTOR, WHICH accounts for 15 per cent of India’s merchandise exports and employs 4.8 million people, is in dire straits. At Rs 0.45 lakh crore, gross exports in April-August 2020 slumped to almost half of the Rs 0.80 lakh crore figure in the corresponding period in 2019, says the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). “Gems and jewellery exports in 2019-20 were worth Rs 2.1 lakh crore. This fiscal, exports are likely to be 20-25 per cent down,” says Colin Shah, chairman, GJEPC. Retail sales have fallen to about 20 per cent of the pre-Covid levels. Fashion jewellery and items under Rs 1 lakh have somewhat kept domestic trade afloat. Sanjay Kala, president, Jewellers’ Association-Jaipur, says the wedding season from mid-October is expected to bring…

Mumbai’s Central Plaza theatre, an 84-year-old institution, finally ceased operations on August 8. The decision came after owners were unable to meet the maintenance fees and staff salaries and had no relief from state on property taxes and water and electricity bills. Around 80 employees were let go. “How much can you dig into your own pocket?” says Sharad Doshi, owner. Also vice-president of the Cinema Owners and Exhibitors’ Association of India, Doshi now faces another conundrum. As per the Mumbai Development Control and Promotion Regulations of 2018, if a cinema closes, the new business in its place must accommodate a theatre and retain at least 33 per cent of seats from the old layout. “Neither do they want to help us nor do they want us to go away,”…

PM’S HR COUNCIL Apex body to provide strategic direction to capacity-building reforms CAPACITY-BUILDING COMMISSION Will harmonise training standards, create shared faculty and resources and supervise the central training institutions CABINET SECRETARIAT COORDINATION UNIT Will monitor progress and execution and oversee plans SPECIAL PURPOSE VEHICLE (SPV) Will own and operate the online platform—iGOT Karmayogi. The platform will be self-sustaining, operationalising a robust content ecosystem as well as managing governance data analysis…

• July 2020: Rajasthan governor Kalraj Mishra creates hurdles in summoning the assembly for Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to prove his majority • March 2020: The late Madhya Pradesh governor, Lalji Tandon, gives Congress chief minister Kamal Nath little time to prove his majority in the House after Jyotiraditya Scindia moves to the BJP with 22 MLAs • November 2019: In an early morning operation, Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari swears in the BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as CM even as the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress are working out the details of an alliance • June 2018: Karnataka governor Vajubhai Vala swears in the BJP’s B.S. Yeddyurappa as chief minister when the Congress-JD(S) had staked a claim with a majority • March 2017: Goa governor Mridula Sinha calls a BJPled…

Three days after BJP president J.P. Nadda met Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar in Patna on September 12, apparently to work out a seat-sharing arrangement, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief Chirag Paswan also reached out to Nadda for a “late night meeting” in New Delhi. No one knows what transpired, but Chirag is believed to have asked the BJP chief that LJP be allowed to contest the 42 seats it did in 2015 as part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). With Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) returning to the NDA fold in 2017, Chirag wants to ensure his party is not shortchanged to accommodate the JD(U) in the upcoming election to the 243-member Bihar assembly. Again, on September 20—just two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while…

Of all the performing arts, it is perhaps theatre that needs a live audience the most. With Covid-19 showing no signs of abating, theatre, the world over, is having to embrace the camera to reach out to its audiences. In the six months since lockdowns began, digital has pervaded all aspects of our lives—and theatre is no exception. In Indian theatre, though, groups and organisers are negotiating between performing live online or opting for recording. Aadyam has opted for the latter for the sixth edition of its festival. “It will be very difficult to get audiences to watch theatre till there is some semblance of assurance that they will not catch Covid,” says actress Shernaz Patel, also artistic director of Aadyam. “One person coughs and everyone will be paranoid.” What…