Six young men made their debuts in the recent historic series #INDvAUS (Shardul’s 1 earlier appearance was short-lived due to injury)They’ve made it possible for future generations of youth in India to dream & Explore the Impossible (1/3)
Theirs are true ‘Rise’ stories; overcoming daunting odds in the pursuit of excellence. They serve as an inspiration in all arenas of life. It gives me great personal pleasure to gift each of these debutants an All New THAR SUV on my own account—at no expense to the company. (2/3)
The reason for this gift is to exhort young people to believe in themselves & ‘Take the road less traveled.’ Bravo Mohammed, Shardul, Shubhman,Natarajan,Navdeep & Washington! I now plead with @Mahindra_Auto to get them their THARS on priority. 😊 (3/3)
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Every Sunday, a solitary bamboo flute seller walks by my home trying to attract buyers by playing film music on one of his flutes. Usually, I find that music cheerful. These days, it tears my heart out because I wonder whether anyone would want to buy one & risk infection (1/4)
So every Sunday I buy one of those flutes & discard it immediately. Just a way of soothing my own conscience.But it’s clear that Covid has made his economic model collapse with no sight of early recovery. There must be millions more like him in every community in this land (2/4)
So many more like him who eked out a living, dependent upon a community that was social & interactive. We in large businesses are already speaking of a strong recovery in demand. But will the flute-sellers rise with us? What is our duty to their Eco-system & their survival? (3/4)
The situation would have been even worse without a bountiful monsoon, which has galvanised the rural economy. India is truly fortunate that a majority of its people live in rural areas. But clearly, Covid has done enormous damage to the urban & manufacturing sectors. (1/5)
The ‘unlocking’ will be like a tide going out which will, I fear, starkly highlight the deprivation of daily wage earners, independent service providers & small enterprises. Bank loan portfolios will be in a precarious state & their finances will need shoring up.(2/5)
A huge setback for a country that was successfully battling poverty. So we need a ‘whatever it takes’ approach to rejuvenating growth. Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) hasn’t traditionally been favoured because it supports substantial deficit financing & risks hyperinflation (3/5)
The number of new cases has risen, despite flattening the previous few days. With higher testing, a continuing rise is inevitable given the low absolute number of cases relative to our population & the rest of the world. We shouldn’t expect a swift flattening of the curve.(1/5)
This doesn’t mean the lockdown hasn’t helped. India’s avoided lakhs of potential deaths in its collective fight. India’s death rate per million is currently 1.4 compared to the global average at 35 & the US at 228. We’ve also bought time to enhance medical infrastucture (2/5)
But if the lockdown is extended for much longer, we will be risking economic hara-kiri. A functioning & growing economy is like an immune system for livelihoods. A lockdown weakens that immune system and most hurts the impoverished in our society. mckinsey.com/featured-insig… (3/5)
How do we ensure ‘food security’ for urban areas during a pandemic? Strategic stocks of grains aren’t enough. No variety of nutrition. And disrupted supply chains prevent produce from reaching cities. Cities need a ‘ring’ of organic-hence self contained-farms around them. (1/5)
The @naandi_india foundation led by @manoj_naandi have built a proof-of-concept. The self contained (all inputs, labour, seeds, machines & tools) fully organic #UrbanFarmsCo has been supplying 25 varieties of fresh vegetable
even in these trying times. (2/5
What they’ve created is a self sufficient cluster of organic farms with farmer-entrepreneurs as spokes and #UrbanFarmsCo as the central resource hub.The Model converts local biomass into quality farm inputs, including regenerative soil infused with beneficial microbes (3/5)
Going by various reports from epidemiologists, it is highly likely that India is already in Stage 3 of transmission.
—Cases could rise exponentially with millions of casualties, putting a huge strain on medical infrastructure (1/5)
—A lockdown over the next few weeks will help flatten the curve & moderate the peak pressure on medical care. —However, we need to create scores of temporary hospitals & we have a scarcity of ventilators. (2/5)
—To help in the response to this unprecedented threat, we at the Mahindra Group will immediately begin work on how our manufacturing facilities can make ventilators.
—At Mahindra Holidays, we stand ready to offer our resorts as temporary care facilities. (3/5)
The virus will eventually be conquered, but it will have left behind a global recession. The costs of that are incalculably high at this time. The most fearsome toll will be on small businesses, the self-employed & those whose lives depend on meagre daily wages. (1/4)
Apart from the toll on lives, the legacy of COVID-19 may well be deaths due to stress, loss of livelhoods, a rise in homelessness & in extreme situations, civil unrest. The only global experience that has lessons for us in the current situation is the last world war. (2/4)
In the aftermath of WW2, the U.S came up with the Marshall plan to revive Europe, effectively a giant fiscal pump-priming. In the U.S, the govt. dramatically dismantled regulations & opened up the economy to trade. These actions led to a boom-cycle that stretched to 1975 (3/4)