19 Opportunities with Covid19

“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.”
― John F. Kennedy


Globally, there is only one thing that all of us are talking about these days and that is - the crisis created by the new novel coronavirus named COVID19.  This is what shows up topmost and for the most part in the newsfeed, on the WhatsApp and other social channels. This is for the right reasons, of course. World Health Organization (WHO) has already called it a pandemic. Countries including China, Korea, Iran, Italy have been widely impacted by the virus and taken drastic steps to control the spread. 

As of date (6th April, 2020) below are the analytics on MoHFW.gov.in and these are super concerning to all.





India, though has seen 109 deaths, things have not spread super widely as yet, compared to other countries. The Indian government has done a phenomenal job in implementing countermeasures to combat the spread. 

Having said that, this is not the first time, the world has seen a crisis. There was Ebola, SARS, Spanish Flu, and this mankind lived through two world wars in the last century.  We WILL leave through this one as well.

Another side of this crisis is a world of opportunities. Yes, opportunities. That is, the opportunities presented to mankind, and to you - someone going through it along with the rest of us. I would also orient my opinion towards India - this is Indyalogy blog after all :).

Here is my list of such opportunities (in no particular order):

1. Medical infrastructure: This is the most obvious one. We need to build more hospitals, have more doctors per 1000 people,  more nurses, more paramedics, more medical supplies, more masks, suits, beds, ICUs, ventilators and so on. The government can help bring a change by ensuring a complete supply chain enablement. citizens can help by respecting these professions more. The bravery of these people in continuing to treat their patients is simply phenomenal.
   
2. Disease Management: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is India's central body for managing everything related to health in India. This is an overloaded ministry and is focused on day to day operations rather than to take care of an epidemic of this magnitude. Such an epidemic requires working with other ministries - finance, external affairs, home, aviation, telecommunication etc.. We need to bring in the same focus as the NDRF (National Disaster Response Force). This body needs to be held accountable for ensuring (or able to ensure) communication, legal checkpoints, supplies etc. if a similar event were to repeat itself. We should obviously extend this to include things like Dengue, Swine flu, bird flu and other diseases of similar magnitude that cut across levels of society and legal jurisdictions.
   
   
3. Hygiene: We should not have to have Covid-19 to teach us to keep a high standard of hygiene. Washing hands is important every day - Corona or not. I have to confess that this has made my life simpler with children in teaching the importance of some of these life skills.
   
4. Basic Life Skills: Everyone in my house, including my teenage daughter and soon to be teen son, is contributing to clean the house, learning to cook basic food recipes, staying indoor due to lockdown.
   
5. Clean the surroundings: I have not seen Delhi and Noida cities so clean. Breathtaking views through the buildings, smokefree sky, no visible pollution. It did not have to be corona to do this but I am glad it happened. How can we continue this? - let 2020 pivot our working lifestyles. Companies should be encouraged to continue liberal WFH, think of penalizing cars, SUVs on the roads if there aren't carpooling. Overall, reduce the burden on our roads and surroundings.
   Historically, we have been a society that stayed close to home, in self-sustaining units. What can we do to bring that lifestyle back - without going back to medieval times.


6. Go Veg: Food is a personal choice. But, such incidents and overall science knowledge provides enough evidence that eating vegetarian is a healthy choice. It is also light on nature. A sage has said something profound in this regard: "You are what you eat". If you eat a loaf of bread, it becomes you. is that not true?
   India is already about 60 to 70% vegetarian. It is anyone's guess that this percentage would go up by another 10 points or so. Is it an opportunity for you? you decide.
   
7. Form a new habit or quit a bad habit: Any bad habit that required you to go outside of the house can indeed be easily broken, thanks to the 21-day lockdown announced by the government. Equally relevant is to pick up a new one, say yoga. The timelines are just right to inculcate a new habit. Let it be something other than binge watching.
   
8. Work from Home: this is my fourth week going working from home. My company was one of the first in the area to ask employees to work from home (Since 9-Mar-2020 onwards). While we have a fairly liberal WFH policy already (on normal days), this is not still anywhere close to the level of some of the torchbearers like IBM, and other US-based companies.
   
   The acceptability of WFH in some of the other companies in India is far lower. WFH is not only about flexibility but a culture of accountability and trust. We lack these attributes in our corporate world. This is a big area of improvement for the corporate mules. Human Resource personnel, managers, and employees can play a critical role in creating a "India Corp 2.0" that trusts employees for delivering work and employees hold themselves accountable for deliverables rather than punching in time. We would see more success in remote working, freeing up the metros, looping in tier II and tier III cities to the corporate world quickly.
   
9. Modernize Schooling: Kids have been a sufferer of Covid 19 in various ways. The lockdown in India started more or less after the examinations got over. This was a good thing but all of the students weren't so lucky. In any case, everyone including the students and teachers is now grounded. We need to innovate and find new ways to create virtual classrooms, run faculity meetings, do parent-teacher meet-ups online. We don't have any infrastructure for this. I am sure something will come up very soon from the private sector on this. it is a phenomenal opportunity for software companies pitching in the education domain. Once in place, the same infrastructure can be used to cater to bring quality education to the schools in tier II and tier III cities, remote areas of India. In that sense, it would be a great equalizer in the education space. Quality of education in our metros today generally exceeds the levels in other cities.
   
10. Manufacturing: WTO favoritism on China during the 80s through the late 90s, as also China's ability to ramp up to the world needs dynamically, led to an over-reliance on China for most of the world's industrial needs. Like any good de-risk strategy, all countries are mulling their options now. India presents by far the best possible alternative. There is Mexico and Brazil but the kind of scale India can provide is unmatched.
    
    Here is where India needs its government to foresee ahead, believe that we would be out of this low situation in a few months, and starting making changes to influence what happens thereafter.
    
    This isn'tt a small stride thing. This has to be a collaborative - all ministries coming together - comprehensive, multi-pronged effort. We have to rationalize our compliance and licensing policies, galvanize the single window clearances processes, bring in better contract laws and its implementation, better law and order situation for offices to continue without any disruption, much better labor laws, less unionism et. al.
    
11. Reverse Migration: Whether it was instigated or somehow self-driven - all of a sudden, hoards of migrant laborer working in and around Delhi started to march back to their homes mostly in UP, Bihar, and Rajasthan. There are also reports from other cities but not as widely reported. Chandigarh also saw this reverse migration to Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal. One can empathize with the migrants deciding to go where they felt they would be safer.
    
    While, this could have been avoided by improving awareness, pro-active action, all-out field support, this does present an opportunity as well. Biggest one is to inject money into such villages, tehsils, districts to create opportunities for employment. The migrants who went back are fairly skilled, have seen high rise skyscrapers, worked in posh colonies, apartments with modern infrastructure, bridges, roads etc. There are aware and open to the possibilities and are perfect candidates to be roped in locally or with some help kick-off a small scale local endevour.
    
12. Overhaul the governance: Times of crisis like this bring out sustainable models of doing things. Getting 1.3 billion in lockdown is no mean task - it is actually quite humongous. Undertaking such a task across a federal-state structure would bring out most of the fissures and weak joints. I am sure government learnt a lot during these times of what works. Did the IAS and the rest of the bureaucracy work the way it was supposed to, were things efficient? Given our Covid19 numbers today, the answer seems to be broadly 'Yes'. But, I am sure many leaks were identified, for which there is enough time to mull over and improve the governance process.
     
13. Fix Internal Security: Why does the National Security Advisor need to travel to a Mosque (Re: Tablighi Jammat in Nizamudin) that is in complete violation of the central's order for complete lockdown? Not only was their a massive gathering, there were videos from the 'Emir' of the jamaat broadcasted on youtube how 'Covid19 was a government's way to scare this religious community, with messages to continue the prayers and gatherings'. Similar issue came to light in Punjab from the a guru who likely spread Covid19 to a few hundreds (Re: Punjab Super Spreader). If this is not a mockery of internal security, then what is.
    
14. Fix External Security: Other cases that came to light were of few people of chinese origin hiding in the mosques of tier 3/tier 4 cities- towns actually. Why were visas to them issued without due verification, why were the members of tablighi jammat preaching in the mosques on travel visa in clear violation of the visa rules. How do we fix our transit points. We also need a plan to enforce biological restrictions on our ports of entry. Currently, that seems to be at the bottom most on the security agencies priority list though - or may be not.
    
15. Information Technology: Imagine a scenario where during this lockdown state, you could not use WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom, Google etc. Life would surely have been much worse.
    
    It makes me wonder why we, in India, have never invested in coming up with any native alternatives despite there being abundant availability of the highly talented IT resources. Beyond a doubt, our IT people are way better than the Chinese. Possibly because we never understood the importance of privacy and the fact that "Data is the new Oil". This has been a colossal oversight or lack of thought leadership by our IT industry . We have been called the 'army of coders'. Sometimes, I feel we deserve that label. But then I look at all the amazing work our people have done for local startups, I know we can create WhatsApp, Zoom, Google etc. in a really short time. Yes, one would need vision, enablement, promotion, selling, regulation etc. to take these to the a credible level.
    
    Some may contest that our energy is well spent in other areas. Like what really? Yes, defence etc too. But I really think the issue is mindset, enablement, resource allocation - we can do all of these given the right ambience.
    
    
16. Election reforms: In the midst of the Covid19 drama, central government and its state unit of Madhya Pradesh was busy toppling the government there. How do we declare prevent such dramas from distractions during such emergencies?
    On a more broader note, we should limit elections to just once an year across India for all Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, and Vidhan Sabha.
    
17. Solidarity: A missing element in the Indian society is the solidarity or comradeship amongst the citizens. This is not to say we do not do anything alongside. But, Covid19 pandemic has definitely brought us together - far closer together. our Prime Minister has taken great steps in this direction with his calls for Janata Curfew, 5 PM clapping on March 19th, Candle/diya lighting on 5th April. All of these were carried out unitedly by the citizens. I am sure there are more to come still.
    
    At a smaller level, it is bringing apartments associations, districts, villages together in the call to protect humans from the virus.
    
18. Financial Contingency Planning: This should be done at various levels - central, state, and at yours and mine level too. The financial implications of this pandemic are going to unfold soon. Many might loose jobs, many companies might be shut down, economic growth is going to get stunted. While the circumstances are extraneous, the need to be able to hold on, wade through, survive for a few months is paramount. An individual loosing job may not be back into the mainstream before a good 3-6 months. How is he going to survive if he does not have the contingent funds. Why should PMCARES fund not be a recurring theme to gather enough for such testing times. Let us all pledge to save for such whether storms in future.
    
19. Social Security: I find the US model of social security kicking in as soon as people see decline in economic growth, lose jobs etc. This prevents the society to collapse altogether, allows everyone to hold on just a bit longer before the tide goes away. It is extremely sad and disheartening that no such provision exists in India today. If a salaried employee loses his job, he is pretty much on his own. He can withdraw from savings, PPF, EPF etc. but that's all he got. Most of the government stimulus is going to go to underprivileged people and businesses in trouble. And rightly so. But, what happens to the large middle class in India that dutifully pays taxes, bears the biggest brunt of the economy. Who do they dial for help?
    
    This goes beyond the reasoning that there are pension schemes and other schemes available for similar situation. However, there isn't anything that comes to the rescue in a situation as bad as Covid19. People do not usually save for doomsday scenario - not at least everyone. A small deduction towards such a social security fund would be of great help in a similar situation in future. Government, then gets a mechanism to provide stimulus to such an organization when times are tough for the middle class.

BONUS- Invest in Stocks:  There can not be a better time to enter the market. Nearly all stocks have taken 50 to 60% dip as of now. This would likely continue for another month or so. But, rather than timing the market for the rock bottom, I would just invest a small portion every month or fortnightly. Of course, let us also make sure that we keep aside enough for contingencies. 

These are indeed trying times for all of us. But remember mankind will continue to exist. Markets will bounce back, things will be back to normal soon. Let us keep the hope alive. 

Stay at home and stay safe!