Sudhir Kumar Rakesh, IAS (Retd.)
Patna : The Coronavirus Crisis has brought even the mightiest of nations and economies on their knees, may be only temporarily. First of all, the crisis has to be faced and the resultant damage has to be controlled. Simultaneously, Think Tanks have to apply themselves to the task of rebuilding and reshaping.
After the Corona crisis is over, there is bound to be an upheaval in the pecking orders – both internationally as well as domestically for almost all nations. Nations which are bold and imaginative are bound to come out on top. Societies which can anticipate and prepare well shall be the ultimate winners.
Planning and not Panic, is the need of the hour. For countries like India and states like Bihar this is a great opportunity. The demographic dividend and the young population – about which we have always talked enthusiastically in the past – is going to be our greatest asset in the immediate future. We must keep in mind that like financial resources, human resource is also a great asset, in fact the human resource is always a far more important asset at such times of crises and at the time of reshaping and rebuilding of the society as well as the economy.
It is very important to keep our self-belief and self-confidence. Since the crisis is one of which no body in the world has any past experience, all nations and societies are going only by their best guesses, aided and assisted by their experts in different fields like Health, Economy, Science, Public Administration and Public Policies. The nations which anticipate correctly, plan intelligently, and execute those plans diligently are bound to emerge winners.
It would be better if we also start believing in ourselves and behaving like leaders as a nation. The tendency to keep looking forward to foreign intellectuals and organisations for ideas as also for authentication of our own ideas by them has to be given up. Look at the way India has tackled the Corona crisis so far. Nations which used to be ranked far above India in terms of Health Infrastructure have not been able to face the crisis as efficiently as India has done. It shows that the Health Infrastructure ratings till now have not been done with greater foresight and precision. Or may be, they had better infrastructure but did not have as good a foresight as we have in India.
Thus, suddenly, India has emerged as a global leader in the fight against the Corona Virus (COVID-19). We do have such expertise and appropriate resources in other fields as well.