Reimagining and Reinventing Post Covid India

As SIU celebrates its Golden Jubilee this year, the administration decided that the best way to ring in the golden jubilee year among the currently trying environment was to address how we as a nation will be able to triumph over the uncertainties that we are faced with right now. To this end, on 22^nd July, Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, FRS, National Research Professor delivered the first lecture as a part of the Symbiosis Golden Jubilee Lecture Series on the topic, Reimagining and Reinventing Post Covid India.  The lecture covered a wide array of topics all of them directed at how the world was before COVID-19 and how the outbreak of this pandemic has perhaps changed the way society operates at large; possibly forever.

Some of the key areas Dr. Mashelkar touched upon was the increasing role of WFH, the changing meaning of workplaces as a concept, the rapidity of said change, the similarity between various pandemics and climate change occurrences. We must ponder these topics while moving forward in order to ensure sustainable development.

Dr. Mashelkar, highlighted that it is of utmost importance that we must direct our efforts at recovery but focus on reimagining and reinventing as well. To this end he proposes that there are 5 pillars which a reinvented India must focus on; these pillars are as follows:

1. Buy
2. Make
3. Buy to Make Better
4. Make to Buy Better
5. Make Together

These five pillars all signify the various stages that an economy must go through while working on becoming independent and self-sustaining. While we focus on these pillars it is important that we also must identify the three effort multipliers that allow us to bolster the economy, these multipliers are talent, technology and trust. Effectively applying these multipliers to the 5 pillars will yield incredible results in the form of a confidently self-reliant nation.