Estimating the impact of news on Indian government decisions to contain the spread of COVID-19 in India

Abstract

Corona-Virus or COVID-19 has adversely affected human life. A large number of human deaths and infected cases were recorded. India has also severely affected and recorded many deaths and infected cases. Understanding the criticality of the situation, the Indian government had taken decisions on lockdown and unlocking of the state to stop spreading of this deadly virus. It is evident from the information theory that more pieces of information eventually help a decision maker to make sound and well-informed decisions. News is considered as an important source of information around the world. This study is an attempt towards finding the impact of news on decisions taken by the Indian government. Sentiment analysis and Chi-square testing methods have been employed in the present investigation. Results obtained from the analysis are in line with the people opinion and the sentiments expressed by news articles towards the decisions made by the Indian government. © 2023 Author(s).