A SAMEEKSHA TRUST PUBLICATION www.epw.in APRIL 8, 2023 Vol LVIII No 14 `140 EDITORIALS  The Widening Digital Divide  When a Student Drops Out FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK  Education as a Common Good? COMMENTARY  Extending Health Financial Coverage to the Informal Non-poor and Near Poor  Impact of Bancassurance on Banking-Insurance Sector  Ecological Fiscal Transfers and State-level Budgetary Spending  Economic Dependency among the Elderly: Geriatric Financing Policy BOOK REVIEWS  Garments without Guilt? Global Labour Justice and Ethical Codes in Sri Lankan Apparels  The ‘Early Medieval’ Origins of India PERSPECTIVES  Explaining Response Variations to COVID-19 Restrictions in Democratic Europe and Asia SPECIAL ARTICLES  Sustainability and Threshold Value of Public Debt in Tamil Nadu  Bailout for Britain: A Re-examination of Gold Flows in India during the Inter-war Years  Platformisation, Infrastructuring, and Datafication: Regional Variations in the Digitalisation of Indian Cities CURRENT STATISTICS POSTSCRIPT Digitalisation of Indian Cities The “digital turn” of urban governance in India is not a disruption specific to the Smart Cities Mission either in policy or practice, but an outcome of historical institutional pathways of states in implementing e-governance. page 53 Gold Flows and Depression A reclassification of gold flows during the inter-war years shows that India’s gold exports were due to a distress sale of assets by the peasantry in the 1930s and aided Britain’s recovery from the Depression. page 46 Democracy and COVID Restrictions The differences in reactions to COVID-19 restrictions arise out of the political histories and background conditions of democracies and not because of the presence or absence of liberalism. page 31 Geriatric Financing Policy Ensuring income security as well as mitigating the financial costs that arise from a high old-age dependency ratio should be prioritised by the policymakers and implementers. page 23 Disability-themed Children’s Fiction Disability advocacy through fiction should engage with the quiet emergence and discovery through vulnerability rather than triumphant achievement through the overcoming of disability. page 63