COVID 19, Lockdown & Aftermath
| Yajin Bhatt - Independent Journalist, Delhi - 01 May 2020

By Yajin Bhatt

The lockdown as of now has thrown the life out of gear. Everyone is confined to their homes & the wheels of the vehicles are jammed.

A pitiful situation indeed, but what gives me immense pleasure, is to see peacocks dancing & the quail relentlessly cooing as if expressing their gratitude to mother nature, to make we shroud & greedy people to remain indoors.

We are responsible for the destruction of this blissful planet. Imagine the Air Quality Index (AQI) of cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore close to 500 & 600 and today it is not even 55. Imagine the serenity of watching the snow clad Doladar mountain in HP visible from Ludhiana (Punjab).

Even the big cats from mountains felt like inspecting the posh locality of Chandigarh on account of lockdown.

A few years back, farms adjacent to new Delhi used to be filled with Neelgai herds, today are replaced with mushrooming of multi-storeyed buildings.

We encroached into their habitat for the sake of so-called development to create more & more concrete jungles.

The root cause of all the problems as far as our nation is concerned is the westernisation of our mindset and lifestyle.

The definition of great personality is the one having a big car a big bungalow & big degree. In this entire scene is the character building has taken a back seat.

“A country should be defended not by arms but by ethical behaviour.”  Vinoba Bhave. True in the present context.

We can guard the country from its enemies using sophisticated technology and arms, ammunitions but it takes considerable efforts to rein in the minds from straying in the wrong direction.

Looking profoundly into the present social, and economical scenario, a conscious and a sane Indian citizen will certainly get into the state of desperation and frustration.

Earlier there were foreigners like Mongols, Afghans, Britishers and Portuguese who withered and tethered this nation, looted and plundered off its national resources and all the wealth of this country was having.

In recent past nation witnessed sequence of scams, where the Indians themselves especially our politicians and bureaucrats who claimed to be the son of soil, were busy in minting money by hook or by crook, deceiving their country and countrymen.

Today, when we overcome the polity of frightful shamble, unfortunately yet another foreign complimentary gift COVID-19) gripped the whole nation.

All the institutions, organisations, departments, offices & even homes are in dismal array due to nationwide lockdown. The zest for industrial growth, development rather than to serve the nation for its good is at halt.

During the period of early19th century till recently, India, like most of other developing nations, witnessed the brain drain.

This involved the migration of trained & highly specialised brains be that academicians or professionals to the developed countries like USA, Europe, Australia or even Saudi Arabia.

For reasons ranging from high perks, access to advance technology and of course better standard of living. Over the period, however this trend has reversed.

Many of the talented individuals have started returning to us, with their acquired skill knowledge & capital, in order to harness the potential of opportunities in their own country.

Telecommunication First: looking into the communication sector, till 2010 not even a single MNC was willing to provide services in Left-wing Extremism areas of this country but our indigenous operators like BSNL took the initiative & embarked upon various projects in such areas and the picture of such leftover areas is quite different now.

This initiative of bsnl not only connected under privileged people to the world but explored the world class, indigenoustechnologycompanies like Vihaan Network Ltd. & others.

Due to red-tapism, sycophancy towards west & MNC’s such competent enough, indigenous companies are still grappling to get their deserving role in the core technology.

Today, BSNL through its country’s own technology partner like VNL is connecting remote communities.

VNL’s Rural Broadband Solution is a totally solar powered & standalone wireless broadband solution that provides seamless Wi-Fi coverage anywhere.

It needs no shelter, air conditioning, connection to the power grid, generator or diesel fuel, rural wireless telephony & internet access with minimal OPEX and CAPEX to enhance mobile operators and green technology.

It was the same BSNL’s enterprise which not only enabled with due security, our PM Sh. Narendera Modi to address several gram panchayats across the country on Friday and launched a unified e-Gram Swaraj portal and mobile app on National Panchayati Raj Day.

Through video conferencing on this occasion as part of a new initiative aimed at providing Gram Panchayats with a single interface to prepare and implement gram panchayat development plan (GPDP). Comprehending the need to promote our “swadeshi” technology that our PM Modi urged upon the need to be more “self-reliant and self-dependent.”.

Infrastructure is yet another field where in our local players like GMR, are giving a tough fight to their foreign counter parts.

They have and are providing world class services in this field with handling many turnkey projects in Turkey, Maldives, Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia apart from India.

Two major projects completed by this company are Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad, Telangana.

FMCG & Ayurveda Medicines Companies like Patanjali is giving tough competition to its competitors and those age old MNC’s are facing two-fold challenges (quality as well as product prices).

Patanjali soon after the commercial launch is becoming the first choice of not only Indian but global consumers in any product this swadeshi company brings to market.

Indian Software companies or IT companies are globally expanding their wings day by day. Such companies setting benchmarks for their competitors with some amazing and creative ideas.

The growth of software companies reflects directly to the economic growth of our country.In the present time India is considered as the hub for numerous IT companies. Some of the prominent Indian software companies are which includes Infosys, TATA Consultancy services, HCL technologies, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, KPIT and much more.

It is not the foreign brand & Tag that will go a long way in penning down a success story but our own people, our own entrepreneurs, who not only with holistic approach but work zeal & aspiration to see our nation forging ahead in the pool of nations in each & every sector.India has been the land of sages & saints.

These rishis used to sanctify the lives of people with their divine knowledge & the moral values. India was the only destination of Gold, diamond & other precious stones & metals.

This nation was having 35% share in world GDP. India was the only country to introduce & produce cotton, Silk, Muslin, pepper, Ginger. Indian Muslin was the craze among the elite class ladies of Rome. With the influx of people from outside, this culture dwindled and vanished. today is the high time to shed this hip--hop culture which is hallow with no family and moral values.

Napoleon Bonaparte has rightly said, “The world suffers a lot not because of the violence of bad people but because of the silence of the good people.“

Time is now ripe enough for the people of India to stand against everything that is bad or unacceptable. Proper planning and accountability is the need of the hour.

There should be greater transparency and decentralisation of govt. expenditure and for this stronger self-reliable nation.

It is time to unite as unity is strength to fight back all the vices, sins & evils our society is inflicted with. Moreover, govt of India must emphasis on certain incentivise policies to promote & encourage Indigenous, something like Preferential Market Access (PMA).

Reserve budget for R & D labs. With the aim to boost domestic manufacturing along with attracting investment it is equally important to restrict import policies, may be with some higher percentage of duties & taxes etc. Let us inculcate & review those pure & age-old customs & tradition among us and our younger ones to make our lives exemplary for the world to admire.

(Yajin Bhatt is a writer & Social Activist)

Representational File Images Courtesy – Twitter handle of IFPRI - Google / Twitter handle of Kolkata Traffic Police

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Indian Observer Post and Indian Observer Post does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.


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