2020 Progress or Regress

A Perspective at Covid Year 2020

PSYCHOLOGYENGLISH

Shrey Kothavade

6/1/20242 min read

2020 a year which most of us cannot forget. The whole pandemic situation really got everyone on their edge. 22nd March 2020 gave a big shock when govt declared full lockdown. Suddenly we were not allowed to roam on the roads, only emergency services were allowed. As the lockdown was extended companies started cutting salaries of their employees, daily wage workers started shifting, even some companies started firing their employees, Loss of our brave army men at the indo-china border, death of Bollywood stars, and what not?

But isn’t that just one point of view towards looking at this whole year? Some might disagree with me at the start, but 2020 opened a lot of new opportunities too. At the start of the Pandemic situation, it gave a major setback to everyone, but as time passed, this break flourished many other skills in everyone. Many people started connecting to new persons, contacting their old friends, uniting through online meets. Our education system shifted to online teaching. A new era of online teaching, as well as courses, started. Many people started reading about their favourite topics.

Let’s take a look at some statistics of India, around 65% of our population is under 35. And Reliance Jio one of India’s top companies and a Fortune 500 company brought around $14billion investment in India. This was just one company, many startups and renowned companies brought a huge number of foreign investments in India. The government is encouraging youth about startups by providing various types of schemes. Does this ring any bell? Fortune 500 companies such as Facebook, Google, Apple, Qualcomm, Citibank, HP, IBM, Emaar are investing heavily in India. As the whole world seems to be stopped, the financial world was giving nice returns. Some market analysts stated in the month of February that Indian financial markets are going to crash very badly, yet financial markets showed a very big boom in Sensex and Nifty50.

History has indeed shown us a great leap in the growth of nations when they are broken or about to break. After world war II, Japan paid huge amounts of penalties, dissolved their armed forces, lost their 2 important cities. Still, they are considered as one of the important and strong nations in the Asian continent. Japan is now technically advanced, they have very strong arm forces, they are economically stable yet growing.

No doubt 2020 gave a huge setback, but it also gave a much-needed break to many humans as well as nature. Nature started healing itself. Rare Freshwater dolphins were spotted in the river Ganga. Mountain ranges were visible from a very far distance. Cities like Mumbai, Delhi recorded the lowest AQI for the first time.

Clean Nature, big foreign investments, major youth population all of these are very important factors when we go in 2021. The youth of our country got a huge time to think about their plans in this period. Don’t forget the discovery of gravity by Sir Isaac Newton was done when the whole world was going through a pandemic. All of these constraints give a good perspective at the start of 2021. Be hopeful, Be Active, and Be positive, and most importantly Happy New Year!!!

- Shrey Kothavade