“There’s a silver lining to every cloud”
Although we are still in the middle of a nimbus cloud, we are not far behind to see the ensuing silver lining as far as the pandemic is concerned. Every day we see random Indian channels talking about the covid cases in the country and how it has created havoc in our daily life. Though the news must showcase the positives, we are forced to imbibe only the negative part as the former does not sell. We have seen that all the major catastrophic events in the world are followed by positive changes whether we want it or not. For instance, the Spanish flu of 1918 brought an increase in the life expectancy of the population as their immunity grew 10 folds due to the virus. There was a change in the public health system as far as countries like China were concerned who had not embraced scientific methods till then. It also gave way for alternative medicines which were not explored till then. The great recession of 2008 made way for many successful start-ups like Uber, Airbnb, WhatsApp which has grown gargantuan now.
Let us look at the positive changes the current pandemic will likely to bring to India when it is under control:
1. The public healthcare system will change for good in India as the government has realized that it did not take much time to break it during the initial days of the pandemic.
2. In a country like India where there is scant regard for personal space, this disease has made people realise that it’s a necessity to keep an adequate distance from each other and it’s likely to be ingrained even after the pandemic is over.
3. IT industry has realized that the work can continue as is even without the physical presence of the employees and will likely encourage and trust their employees to work from home which in turn will save their travel time and stress in commuting.
4. Many brick and mortar companies are evolving to serve their customers by harnessing the power of the internet and many of them will likely go online only thereby saving the real estate cost to set up their shops.
5. Many start-ups will come up in India centred around serving the customers keeping the government compliance in mind.
6. The education system will undergo a drastic change and will try to impart the lessons through online thereby increasing the internet penetration in the country.
7. Many people in India who were thinking that Ayurveda was nothing, but a magic trick has now started accepting it as an effective way on par with any other medical system in the world. This will increase the number of ayurvedic doctors in India and the government will support the R&D of alternate medicine financially as well.
8. On an individual level, people have learnt the importance of personal hygiene and keeping their surroundings clean and will likely adopt it as part of their life style in coming days
Though the above points are not exhaustive, the central idea is to evolve as the situation demands and have a hope that this too will pass, and brighter days are ahead of us.
