The COVID-19 pandemic has had a serious and unprecedented impact across the economies and society in general, particularly in India. 2021 was different in every aspect and held more than its fair share of challenges. 2021 was a year where India demonstrated that our people come first – when lives depended on ensuring taking all necessary precautions. India implemented numerous initiatives towards ensuring the health, well-being and safety of our people.

India reeled under the new coronavirus pandemic situation that disrupted our collective sense of the normal, and also witnessed a crisis of unprecedented nature and effect. The harsh situation continues to remain serious, and therefore, we should continue to support our people and our communities.

Best of human nature at this time

However, India also saw the best of human nature at this time. India continually witnesses magnificent examples of resilience. India’s collective resolve to stand with communities, to inspire hope and healing. India is determined to come out stronger from this pandemic than we have ever been. As a sustainable and responsible India, everything we do is to inspire by a deep sense of purpose.

Our collective values have held us in good stead at this time, and they are the foundation on which we have built our success and results. It is heartening to see India rise to the challenge and continue to make a positive impact on the lives of people. In India, the pandemic situation continues to remain serious, and therefore, we continue to support our people and our communities.

India proved the solidity of the Covid-19 strategy. This has helped India quickly adapt to new ways of being stronger together and gain greater momentum addressing key challenges. Government responses in the year 2022 continue to stand robust, both economic and in terms of meeting and exceeding people’s expectations.

India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 150.61 Cr on January 8, 2022. India is accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of COVID-19 vaccination throughout the country. The vaccination drive has been ramped up through the availability of enough vaccines, advanced visibility of vaccine availability for enabling better planning and streamlining the vibrant vaccine supply chain.

We need to have put in place multiple task forces for people’s hospitalization, medication and vaccination. We need to expand the scope of our employee benefits from medical and term insurance to provide for the families of employees we lost to this terrible virus. Throughout this challenging period, India responded very quickly to prioritize the health and safety of our people and continued to provide a reliable supply of medicines, vaccination and necessary help to the patients across the country.

Nationwide vaccination drive

As part of the nationwide vaccination drive, India has given COVID Vaccines free of cost to people. In the new phase of the universalization of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, India will procure and supply (free of cost) 75% of the vaccines being produced by the manufacturers in the country to various states.

The Indian business cemented its strength with its persistent effort to enhance profitability by improving upon the overall quality of the business. During the year 2022, India needs to continually launch new initiatives and economic relief to Covid-19 affected people and businesses. While India has performed well in the year 2021, It has started 2022 on an optimistic note.

People, civil society and businesses, who collectively enable India to create value by helping each other, will keep focusing on India’s strategic priorities and leveraging their strengths. Trust, confidence, and support to government efforts toward Covid-19 are key for overcoming challenges. Notwithstanding the challenges of the times, Indian businesses should continue to think from the heart and act with a high head – to care for people, covid-19 patients and communities.

Shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, the unexpected and overwhelming year of 2021 that went by affected every aspect of our lives. In the face of this unprecedented volatility, India made proactive investments in people, processes, operations and technologies that tackle the Covid-19, so that India could deliver strong operational performance throughout the year and into the 2022 and future.

Throughout 2021, India worked hard to strengthen the long-term value of people and business, to emerge stronger coming out of the pandemic. This has been possible due to the hard work, perseverance, and commitment of India’s people. Our priority for the year 2022 will remain to ensure the health and safety of our people. Let’s put in place extensive measures to protect our people and their families, yet sadly we lost several of our valued fellow citizens.

All responsible corporate citizens must continue to extend all forms of support to COVID-19 relief efforts. In a year of turmoil, Indian corporations should be proud and humbled to have been able to serve our communities and needy people. The year 2021 was a year that showed us the true capability that India has, and how much more we can do in 2022. I am very excited about the opportunities ahead for our people and business.

Rusen Kumar

Managing Editor 

INDIA CSR NETWORK

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Bhopal, November 30, 2020: The second edition of the Tagore International Literature & Arts Festival ‘Vishwarang’, which was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has brought into focus a series of issues of current relevance. One such topic is ‘The Post-COVID World: Future of Healthcare’, which was discussed at length in a session and highlighted various critical points regarding the healthcare system of India and the need to revamp it for the welfare of the people, as the healthcare industry will witness a further boom post-COVID.

The speaker of this session was Dr Urvashi Prasad, who is the Public Policy Specialist at NitiAyog. The session was moderated by Mr Ronald Fernandez (CEO, Atal Incubation Center, Rabindranath Tagore University Bhopal).

Speaking about the lessons learnt from the pandemic and how the healthcare system should shape up in the country,Dr Prasad said, “One of the most important learning’s has been that we need to emphasize on public health, health promotion and prevention as much more than curative care or hospital-based care. The best example for this is from a country like the United States. They spend a lot of money on healthcare; nearly 17% of their GDP goes in healthcare, but a lot of it goes into hospital-based care. That is where we need to follow a different path.”

“We need to invest in public health and in prevention because we have many more people and we can see the kind of crisis they are facing today with respect to this pandemic. So, we need to go back to the basics and look at our traditional systems, which promote healthy living and well-being. In India we have a long tradition of Ayurveda and Yoga, the essence of which is to keep disease at bay. So when we look at investing in health, of course we need to increase our investment but it is also important to see what areas we invest in. Those areas have to be public and preventive health as well as promotion of Ayush.”

Various other critical points regarding the relevance of technology in the healthcare system were discussed. Dr Urvashi Prasad said, “We have seen greater adoption of technology across various sectors and healthcare is one of them. Especially during the lockdown period, we saw a massive increase in the adoption of telemedicine. Many more people have now started availing health services and consultations through telemedicine platforms. There is so much more we can do with technology in the health sector, especially in collaboration with the private sector. Recently,the NitiAyog has released a compendium of practices that States and Union Territories have adopted in fighting COVID.

“A number of these practices actually involve some wonderful innovations by startups: right from the use of Robotics, to minimize the exposure of infections to healthcare workers to use of variety of telemedicine applications, to monitoring patients in home quarantine, we have seen a whole host of innovations. We need to take these forward in the post-COVID era as well because we have a huge shortage of health personnel on one side and on the other side we have a huge population to cater to, including rural and remote areas.”

Another major point about healthcare investment during the pandemic was put forward in the discussion. Dr Urvashi Prasad said, “We need to invest in human resources. The Government has taken several steps to bring about changes in medical education and in Ayush education. We are also looking at nursing now, so we really need to build a strong cadre of medical professionals that goes beyond doctors. Of course doctors have a critical role to play but so do nurses and so do Ayush practitioners.

In fact, a lot of these practitioners provide very critical services in remote and rural areas, where you might not find MBBS doctors or specialists. So we must value, develop and nurture these cadres. We need to give them proper skill sets, incentives and career paths. This pandemic has taught us that the Government alone can’t manage a crisis like this. It needs to be a cross sectoral effort involving civil society organizations, private sectors, startups and larger private sector organizations.”

Talking about Ayurveda and Yoga post-COVID, Dr Prasad said, “We want to invest very strongly in research in the field of Ayurveda and Yoga so that we get high quality evidence and forever put an end to this debate: “Is Ayurveda effective? What is it effective for?” We are now going to focus on education and research in these areas, building a strong evidence base and also try to break down these barriers between modern medicines, Ayurveda and Yoga because ultimately a lot of our traditional systems are about being healthy and staying well.”

Organized by Bhopal-based Rabindranath Tagore University (RNTU), in collaboration with the Tagore International Centre for Arts and Culture Bhopal and the AISECT Group of Universities, Vishwarang 2020 aimed to promote Indian literature, art and culture on a global scale via discussions, discourse and more. Other than the session on ‘The Post-COVID World: Future ofHealthcare’, Vishwarang 2020 hosted 72 online sessions over 10 days from 20^th to 29^th November on topics such as ‘The Post-COVID World: Future of Arts & Culture’, ‘The Post-COVID World: Future of Entrepreneurship’, ‘Women in Indian Arts’, ‘Contemporary Concerns in World Literature’ and many more.

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