Take Five and Set the Pace

The Economic Times     25th May 2020     Save    

Context: Recommendations related to five opportunities available with India so that it can shine brightly in a post-pandemic scenario.

  • Healthcare
  • Indigenization of R&D: enhancing manufacturing capabilities, capacities of hospitals, and making India a leader in innovation.
  • Sanitation and public hygiene
  • Changing public behaviour: Masks are already being accepted as a ubiquitous accessory in public places. Investment in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) should be made to include the weakest link.
  • It is contingent upon each individual to maintain a minimum standard of basic hygiene.
  • Broadening Swachch Bharat: investment in large scale, multi-channel campaign leveraging Public Health Centres and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA). 
  • Intra-governmental collaboration
  • Spirit of collaboration: Stronger coordination, cooperation and knowledge-sharing between states and within states, also between leaders of diverse ideologies to strengthen the federal structure and ensure decentralised governance.
  • A Paradigm shift towards Veganism
  • Zoonotic Danger: Largely zoonotic nature of epidemics has fueled the shift towards vegetarian diets. India with its 30% vegetarian population can lead the way.
  • Other Factors: including climate change, animal abuse, etc. also promotes the desired shift.
    • Capitalizing on global value chain diversification:
    • Evolving de-Globalisation: Reduction of dependence on China and diversification of supply chains to other markets. (For e.g. Vietnam took the advantage of US-China trade war by absorbing the flight of manufacturers from China)
    • India’s advantage: of being a democratic nation makes it more attractive than China or Vietnam to the investors. The multi-alignment stance at a global scale makes India a trusted partner worldwide.

      Conclusion: India must view this crisis as an exercise in building institutional and governance capacity by leveraging the 5 opportunities.