2020: The lessons we learnt

Onset of the New Year 2021 amidst the onslaught of Covid-19 pandemic is around the corner. The outgoing year 2020 has left awful experiences in our lives especially due to the corona outbreak. Our perceptions are teemed with rueful memories of people just succumbing in large numbers as days passed by after Covid-19 haplessly hit the world.

An introspection of the lifestyle we have led in this year reveals bittersweet experiences and there are pros and cons of the effect caused by Covid-19 on our lifestyle. The pandemic has unkindly put humanity to trouble in many ways and also taught them a better and principled way of life in true letter and spirit. The havoc caused to humanity in 2020 on account of the calamity that struck a chord is reckoned in terms of life and economy.

The world economic matrix has been badly hit this year leading to recession. Even the advanced nations could not be spared by the severe impact of Covid-19, with highest number of positive cases that have resulted mainly on account of lackadaisical attitude of the citizens and governments that did not ensure to adopt guidelines (as recommended by the WHO) scrupulously providing access to facial masks and social isolation.

In some nations like the USA, due to subdued industrial and economic activity, citizens were driven to poverty and joblessness. In India, the situation has turned still worse after lockdown when it ranked 2nd at the global level in the total number of cases registered.

There was virtual breakdown of industrial, trade and technology progress against the backdrop of corona impediment during lockdown times. Following hampered economic activity in the country during the disease-ridden times, the Indian government had to release two successive whopping economic packages that accounted for an unprecedented drain on exchequer. All sectors, both private and government, have sustained huge losses due to virtual cessation of work and other related activities.

The world passenger connectivity has been disrupted due to cancellation of domestic and international flights which remained off the service until the unlock phase had set in towards the end of the year. The corona effect has impacted the education sector by transforming the conventional classroom education into a virtual mode of teaching that proved to be unpalatable to the interests of a large section of students and their parents. The impact on education had mainly befallen on academic standards and examination system adopted in educational institutions, the latter undergoing either cancellation or postponement till the next year.

The trends have also changed in the employment sector including IT field wherein the professionals have become totally attuned to "work from home" mode in evaluation of their work that is rather undaunted and profitable for certain major IT companies though irksome for the workforce to some extent.

The lockdown phase during the pandemic has rendered the film and sports celebrities inoperative who as a result dispensed away with their normal schedules and kept their fingers crossed over rescheduling of their programmes only after resetting of pre-Covid-19 situation that is of late achieved after the unlock phase has come into play.

Pros and cons of Covid-19 are equally weighed with people becoming more or less health conscious by developing

awareness about cleanliness and righteous civic code of conduct without compunction. A section of economically well-to-do people have set to derive pleasure out of their own resources and lived with pride and pleasure in doing self-help and hard work that kept them in good stead. The unruly and indolent people could learn self-discipline and hard work in crucial times of corona which has elevated their quality of life and inculcated social behaviour and ethos among them.

It is not out of context to mention that in this black year 2020, India had not only fought Covid-19 pandemic, but has also countered inimical aggression from China due to border disputes, thus leading to a double whammy for the nation.

As we enter into the New Year 2021, all our hopes are now pinned on the cusp of getting vaccines developed by various firms across the globe that is plagued by the ill-effects of Covid-19 pandemic from which we currently need a perennial relief.

The New Year resolutions for 2021 should include giving befitting honour to the brave frontline warriors who fought for the cause of human service, pay tributes to millions of those victimised due to the scourge of corona and welcome human efforts that are underway in the production and distribution of vaccine which is the long standing hope of various nations in the interest of freeing humanity from the trouble and turmoil it is undergoing due to Covid-19.

Bh Indu Sekhar, Hyderabad