The new year, from anxiety to hope

2021 was indeed an eventful year. A year marked by significant events and experiences on the national and international fronts. We believe that the events of the year will have profound impact on the future of cities and the urban landscape.
The COVID pandemic took us through a series of experiences, initially of concerns and anxieties and later on, of hopes and expectations of a better future. The rapidly spreading virus, the growing number of daily infections, the stretched healthcare system were gradually overcome with the commencement of vaccination against COVID in January 2021. With this, India launched the world’s largest vaccination drive in the country and also acquired global leadership by manufacturing and supplying vaccines to many other countries. Within India, the large and widely dispersed population, many remote locations, the often hostile terrain, the need to maintain the vaccines at specific temperature and mobilizing a large cadre of healthcare workers to administer the vaccine rapidly, all presented a set of unique challenges. These were overcome admirably. During the latter part of the year, the focus was on restoring economic activity with appropriate stimulus and other measures.
The year’s events could serve as a valuable learning experience for the nation as it marches towards a fair, just, and equitable future for all Indians. One is the need for an efficient, effective and caring public healthcare system to meet the requirements of all, especially the needy. While public healthcare has often been viewed with little expectation and some skepticism in the past, the pandemic showed that the system has a big role to play and it is indeed capable of doing so. The system needs to be strengthened with necessary step up in investments (which is already happening) and by beefing up manpower with continued capacity building of its cadres. Yet another revealing aspect was the difficulty faced by migrant labour which was left stranded in cities during the earlier part of the pandemic. There is need for renewed thrust to create a safety net with affordable housing and other amenities for these men and women who migrate from villages and smaller towns to build our cities and metropolises into vibrant efficient spaces. Their contribution came to be recognized as also the need to protect them from such events in the future.
There could be other pandemic-time experiences that hold potential for new learnings.
Climate Change and its possible disastrous outcomes were once again in sharp focus at the COP26 in Glasgow towards the end of the year. The overall feeling was that much still remains to be achieved with respect to the Paris Agreement and there is need for urgent action to cut emissions in a significant, meaningful way. While COP26 could not achieve all that it set out to do, hopefully the building blocks for progress towards accelerated climate action are in place which will enable the world to keep alive the Goal enshrined in the Paris Agreement, namely to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. Cities and citizens must embrace a whole new lifestyle and new approaches that are sustainable and in tune with this goal; because this Goal must be achieved.
On this note I wish all our readers a very happy and prosperous new year.