Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic has shaken the higher education sector. Indian academic institutes are well acquainted with the traditional closed book examination; however, the pandemic has forced the institutes to resort to new methods to evaluate the students. Many academic units in India did not take the examination in the light of public health, but in the case of the University of Delhi, it decided to conduct an online open book examination (OBE). Therefore, in the present paper, we aim to evaluate the strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges of conducting online OBE by referring to the vast literature available. We further extended our study by assessing the students’ performance in an OBE and closed book examination. The results unveiled that students tend to score higher marks in the case of an OBE set up compared to closed book examination.

Covid-19 is fiercely hurting the field of academics and education. Millions of learners and teachers and educational institutions have been adversely affected. Educational institutions have scrapped traditional physical classroom teaching during these challenging times and have adopted e-learning models. However, there exist many discrepancies in the process of digitalization of classrooms. Therefore, this present study aims to evaluate the ramifications of the Covid-19 pandemic on the education sector and provide a student-oriented perspective to address the challenges in this process. The study is based on an independent online survey conducted by authors in which 212 undergraduate students of one of India’s prestigious universities, the University of Delhi, have participated. The survey unveiled that many colleges are arranging online classes for students via various technological platforms available such as Google Meet, Zoom, MS Teams, Skype, etc. However, it has been observed that almost half of the students are attending classes irregularly and do not possess requisite study material for self-study. The survey reports that many students face depression and anxiety-related problems during the lockdown period. Other issues include improper internet connectivity and the non-availability of the devices. About three-fourth of students have expressed their concerns that education may become a costly affair for them as their family income dwindles. The study stresses developing more innovative and interactive teaching methods, as online teaching is monotonous and dull. Covid-19 has led to a decline in the students’ family income, making education costly to many students. More innovative teaching practices for better learning experiences and adequate funding of the educational institutes for infrastructural development is the need of the hour.

The present paper determines the repercussions of the coronavirus on the Indian financial markets by taking the eight sectoral indices into account. By taking the sectoral indices into account, the study deduces the impact of virus outbreak on the various sectoral indices of the Indian stock market. Employing Welch's t-test and Non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test, we empirically analysed the daily returns of eight sectoral indices: Nifty Auto, Nifty FMCG, Nifty IT, Nifty Media, Nifty Metal, Nifty Oil and Gas, Nifty Pharma, and Nifty Bank. The results unveiled that pandemic had a negative impact on the automobile, FMCG, pharmaceuticals, and oil and gas sectors in the short run. In the long run, automobile, oil and gas, metals, and the banking sector have suffered enormously. The results further unveiled that no selected indices underperformed the domestic average, except NIFTY Auto.

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