Category: General

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General Healthcare Politics

Covid Surge in India

I had written 4 months back about the India’s Covid Vaccine rollout plans. Even to someone who is not in public health, the enormity of the challenge was obvious. At 3 million vaccines a day and assuming children would need to be vaccinated too, I had said it would take over 2 years to get the country vaccinated. It was critical to have plans for managing the pandemic during those 2 years. The surge of cases that has now hit India has shown the inadequacy of the preparation. Indian healthcare system is struggling to cope with the increases in the hospitalizations – lack of Covid beds, ICU beds & Oxygen. In my view, India needs to do the following:

  • Continue to work on the Vaccination roll-out. While India has hit a milestone of 100 million doses, it is still far behind the over 2 billion doses required. India needs to clear any bottlenecks on the supply side. In parallel, India needs to educate the citizens on the need to get vaccinated.
  • As the vaccine roll-out will take more than a year, India needs to plan assuming the worst – that there would be other Covid surges.
    • Increase the medical supply to handle any surges – beds, ventilators, pharmaceuticals for treating patients
    • Continue mask requirements, social distancing and ensure small public gatherings
  • Support the economy – the surges & lockdowns will impact the economy over the next 2 years – the government will need to provide stimulus as required.
  • Support people impacted negatively by the economy – social welfare schemes need to be bolstered.
  • The Central & State governments need to be transparent with the public. This is not the time for politicking and scoring brownie points at the cost of transparency. That will damage the trust of the citizens with the system

As the April 2021 surge has shown, we cannot be complacent with this pandemic – while we should hope for the best, lets prepare for the worst!

Categories
General Politics

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Gandhi was assassinated on Jan 30th, 1948, just one year after he led India to its independence from British rule. On this 73rd death anniversary, some of his messages that I have found most inspiring are listed below:

  • Very transparent life – he has extensively written about his views including his well- known book – ‘My experiments with Truth’. The ‘Collected works of Gandhi’ is close to 100 volumes. He strongly believed in leading by example – he is quoted to have said – “My life is my message”. If one were to imagine Gandhi living today, I am sure he would be extremely active on Facebook, Insta & Twitter.
  • Inter-faith harmony – Gandhi was an absolute believer, that people of all religions need to live together in peace. Gandhi himself was a devout Hindu. However, he was completely opposed to religion becoming a wedge in society. He was extremely disappointed that he couldn’t prevent the partition of the Indian sub-continent into India and Pakistan. During the Hindu-Muslim communal riots, Gandhi was on the front-lines, giving speeches, using all his moral authority & fasting, to stop the riots – his letter to  Vallabhai Patel, had this statement “My going on living depends entirely on complete peace being established in India.”  Unfortunately, the world hasn’t changed too much – there continues to be several conflict zones in the world based on religion & ethnicity –for example, the large scale persecution of Rohingya in Myanmar! The world needs more leaders like Gandhi to put an end to such conflicts.
  • Satyagraha – Gandhi perfected the art of non-violent resistance calling it Satyagraha(Truth force). Several leaders including Martin Luther King were influenced by this philosophy in their social change movements.  Some people mistake Satyagraha as being weak – however this form of resistance needed people to be extremely brave. Gandhi and other freedom fighters in India faced several hardships including spending years as prisoners.
  • Simple Living – One of his famous quotes is “”The world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not everyone’s greed”. Today, as we debate Climate Change, the widening gap between the rich & the poor and the short-comings of capitalism, Gandhi’s message of simple living is extremely topical. Gandhi experimented extensively about living a monastic life. While this kind of lifestyle is not for everyone, we should all reflect about the lifestyles we lead!
Categories
General Politics

Republic Day Reflections

26th January, 2021 is India’s 71st Republic Day. In 1950, this was the day on which the Constitution of India came into effect. The Constitution was written by the Constituent Assembly of India, which had its first meeting on 9th December, 1946. While many of us may be familiar with the Preamble, fundamental rights, directive principles and some of the popular Articles like Article 14(equality before law); it is fascinating that the Indian Constitution has enabled India to become the largest democracy in the world, while several countries who got Independence around the same time, in the 1940s & 1950s have struggled with democracy.

Madhav Khosla’s book – India’s Founding Moment, lays out, that ‘democracy was being instituted in a difficult setting: poor and illiterate; divided by caste, religion, and language; and burdened by centuries of tradition’. It is in these circumstances, that the Constitution was framed. Madhav describes what he calls the ‘founding schema’ of the Constitution in terms of three key aspects:

  • Detailed Codification:  The Indian Constitution, is often referred to as the world’s longest written constitution.  According to Madhav, the Constitution had to play the role of a political teacher to the citizens, because of the circumstances. A striking example of codification is the Directive Principles, that is binding on the government but judicially unenforceable.  Also unlike other constitutions, the Constitution guaranteed certain rights like the right to freedom of speech, but also limited such rights.
  • Choice of a strong centralized state and rejection of localism:  There were a lot of discussion on the nature of the republic – regional autonomy, self-governance at the village level etc. The final decision was for a strong center. It was felt by the framers that localism would prevent individuals to assert their choices as they would be bound by their communities. Though India is technically federal, the power of the center is significantly higher compared to other federal countries.
  • Representation centered on individuals: Universal suffrage was adopted in spite of the magnitude of the task of conducting the world’s largest elections. In the US, women got to vote in 1920 almost 140 years after the establishment of the nation. While there was debate in India, about restricting voting based on literacy and wealth, such discussions were rejected. Communal based representation which was prevalent in British ruled India, was also rejected. Today every individual has a vote irrespective of their identity.

As someone who was not born during the framing of the Constitution, I am deeply grateful to the framers, who gave us a Constitution, that has enabled India to make great strides as democracy. Happy Republic Day!

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Business Digital General

Digital – Acceleration of Demand

I recently attended a talk by Nandan Nilekani, the Chairman of Infosys. Nandan is also well known for being the first Chairman of UIDAI, which developed Aadhar the unique id for every Indian.

In his address, Nandan talked about the importance of scale for a business – especially a business which is B2C.  For a business to scale, it is important to be in a market where the demand is huge & growing. According to Nandan, demand which typically grows organically, can sometimes get accelerated. Some of the ways in which demand for digital services in India has got accelerated are as follows:

  • Demand created by government policies
    • As has been well documented, demonetization in 2016 has caused a huge demand for digital payments in India. UPI which went live in April 2016, is now processing over 2 billion transactions per month.
    • Another example was the implementation in 2017 of GST in India, because of which over 11 million businesses had to go online – this has created huge demand for various products including accounting and tax software.
  • Demand created by technology
    • The launch of Jio, drove down the price of mobile data in India, thereby adding millions of active users of the Internet. India’s average cost per 1 GB of data is 9 cents compared to 8 dollars in the US. This in turn, has led to creation of huge demand for short-form videos.
  • Demand created by the Covid Pandemic
    • Hopefully we will never have a pandemic again. However, the pandemic has changed the consumer behavior in India for various online services:
      • Online learning – millions of children, parents & teachers have got comfortable with learning digitally
      • Telemedicine – while telemedicine pilots have been ongoing in India for several years, the pandemic forced patients and doctors to use teleconsultation as the primary mode for several months.
      • E-commerce – Consumers across age groups as well geography have experienced e-commerce during the pandemic.
    • Push to Pull – Before the pandemic, digital companies in India were ‘pushing’ people to experience online through discounts. The pandemic has changed that to a ‘pull’ thereby bringing down the cost of acquisition of a consumer. This will enable digital businesses to become profitable and sustainable sooner than before.

This is a great time for digital entrepreneurs in India. The demand has scaled dramatically and if entrepreneurs can execute well on the ground, we are likely to see several profitable digital enterprises.

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General Politics

Biden Inaugural

Twenty years back, I had followed with fascination the Bush vs Gore election – I had moved to the US in 1999 and was thoroughly impressed with the way, the campaigning was carried out. I keenly watched the town-hall style campaigning that Gore & Bush were conducting. I distinctly remember a town-hall in Microsoft that Gore had with the employees – it was very engaging. Town-halls & presidential debates were new to me – these were uncommon in elections in India. During that election, the issues that got debated included abortion; immigration, size of the government & tax breaks – however the discourse was civil & the personal attacks were minimal. The election was extremely close and finally the Supreme Court had to step in before Bush was declared the winner. However, though very disappointed, Gore gracefully conceded and being the Vice President at that time, oversaw the formal certification of the electoral college in the   Capitol.

I still find it hard to believe how things have changed in 20 years. I went back to India in 2006 and only in 2019 came back to the US. Several factors including the phenomenal rise of social media, the financial meltdown in 2009 & the loss of manufacturing jobs have exacerbated the political divisions in the US.  The issues debated were similar to the ones 20 years back – role of government, tax breaks, immigration etc – but the debates were shriller. Though the election was not even as close as the 2000 election, millions of people did not believe in the fairness of this election. The incumbent President, Donald Trump, did not concede to the winner Biden and on Jan 6, 2021, there were violent protests at the Capitol during the certification of the electoral college. There was talk of more violence during the Presidential inauguration.

However, by the end of the inauguration day of Joe Biden & Kamala Harris on 20th Jan 2021, I was quite optimistic:

  • The inauguration went off very smoothly – while Trump wasn’t present, there were political leaders across the political spectrum demonstrating a firm belief in the Constitution
  • Biden’s speech was unifying – it was positive and talked about possibilities for all Americans
  • It was gratifying to see Kamala Harris taking oath – the first woman, first black and first Indian origin Vice President
  • Great performances by Lady Gaga, JLo, Bruce Springsteen, John Legend and others

The last 10 months have been very difficult because of the Covid pandemic which resulted in so many deaths and economic hardships. However, the inauguration, seems to be first ray of sunshine after a long night. Only time will tell, how the rest of the Biden term goes. But, quoting Amanda Gorman, who at the inauguration, gave a stupendous rendition of her poem “The Hill we climb” – “But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.”

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General

Inspiring performance by the Indian cricket team in Sydney

The last day, of the five-day Sydney test match between India & Australia, was a treat to watch for an Indian fan like me. By the end of the 4th day, it was clear that Australia had a complete grip on the match.

Australia had over 90 overs on the 5th day, to get eight Indian wickets and win the match. India had two good batsmen who were injured – Rishab Pant and Ravindra Jadega. Another batsman – Vihari, hadn’t done very well in the previous two matches and the first inning of this match. The Australian pace attack was very good and they had a world-class spinner in Nathan Lyon.

After losing Rahane first thing in the morning, I felt it was almost impossible for the Indian team to avoid defeat. However, Pant & Pujara, put on a brilliant partnership of 140 runs in 45 overs, before Pant got out just 3 runs shy of a well-deserved century. Pujari got out a few overs later. At that point, India had to face another 42 overs with five wickets in hand. Vihari had pulled a hamstring and was hobbling. Ashwin known for his fantastic bowling but not necessarily for his batting, had come to bat earlier than Jadeja who was injured.  The Australian bowlers were on fire – the fast bowlers were peppering Ashwin with bouncers which hit his body a few times. The spinner Lyon, seemed like he could get a wicket out of every ball.

The task ahead seemed almost impossible – however, Vihari & Ashwin managed to block the balls and did not lose their wickets. Vihari seemed to be in a trance – defending every ball. He batted for over160 balls and scored only 23 runs. Ashwin, who apparently had a back ache the previous night and took a few blows to his body, batted resolutely – 39 runs in 129 balls. India managed to draw the test by batting out the entire 5th day and still having five wickets in hand. Though it was a draw, for me, it was as good as a win. This last day of the game demonstrated several things:

  • Even in the face of severe adversity, be in a positive mindset as Pant showed
  • Mind over body – as Vihari & Ashwin demonstrated
  • Take incremental steps and not worry about the end – the batsmen were focused on playing out the next ball and the next over!
  • The Indian batsmen – especially Vihari & Ashwin were not at their best, however they showed a lot of “Grit” – a combination of perseverance & passion – described by the psychologist Angela Duckworth,  in her book https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-book/

It was a wonderful test match to watch and I am cheering India on, as they face Australia in the final match of the series in Brisbane!!

Categories
General

Reflections on 2020

For most of humanity, 2020 would rank as the worst year in the last couple of generations. The Covid pandemic has caused misery to millions of people across the world. Many people have lost lives, and many more have lost livelihoods due to the harsh measures taken to fight the pandemic. Life has also been very different for office goers, college students and school kids. With the approval of the 3 vaccines, it is expected that the world would finally be able to see the back of the pandemic by June 2021.

As I look back on 2020, the first thing that comes to my mind is gratitude – to the front-line health workers who fought bravely against the pandemic; the people who worked on delivering groceries and food to our doorsteps when we couldn’t step out & the public/government officials who responded to the pandemic.

I am also deeply grateful to various scientists, public health officials, pharma companies & philanthropists like Bill Gates who ensured we got vaccines in record time – this clearly shows that when the world gets together, seemingly impossible things can get done.

Many of us were lucky & privileged to work in jobs which could get done from home and work in industries where were less impacted by the pandemic – some businesses like the tech sector actually boomed during this time period. But so many others have been deeply impacted – their jobs were lost & companies were shut down. It will be a few more months of deep economic pain, before we see the turnaround, which I am pretty confident will happen once the vaccines are rolled out.

I was forced like many others to live a very different lifestyle – but some good things have emerged – spending more time with immediate family; connecting with more friends on Zoom, more reading & meditation(the not so good was the amount of time on TV).

The last 9 months have shown me that life is precious & momentary & it is important to appreciate every moment in ones life. As we step into a more hopeful 2021, here’s wishing everyone a happy new year.