Building "digital cocoons" for the population
Financial Express Covid-19 highlights the importance of and urgent need to build ‘digital cocoons’ for the whole population The Covid-19 series of lock-downs have brought very different experiences for varied segments of society: the contrast cannot be starker than the social media posts of fancy meals at home compared to the long walks back to hometowns. What explains the difference? Those who have been able to weave a ‘digital cocoon’ have done comparatively better than the real-world migrants. A migrant moves location for economic activity, whether a job, business or studies. In case of a real-world migrant, her presence at the site of the economic activity is sine qua non – there is simply no way that the activity can be performed without the person being there. In the case of a ‘digital migrant’, however, a virtual presence suffices. Juxtapose the move of migrants to their hometowns with the initiatives that many companies are now running to empower their employees to ‘wor