Sreeram Srinivasan

The title may outrage some but read on...... A pandemic like this is a great chance and as the sayings goes, "great opportunities come not when pianos are playing in the Ballroom but bombs are landing in the harbor". How are we going to prepare ourselves and exploit this great chance - by "Intelligence of Thought" or our "Smartness of Being". This is what I mean by IOT and SOB in the title! In these days of the COVID 19 pandemic, see too many companies and people trying to be "smart" or even "smarting". Hear of companies negotiating hard on IPs of life saving products, understand a large company just announced that they will suspend all payments to suppliers invoking some legalese in the contract. We can stop paying the little guy, we can take advantage of the powerless, we can be hard-nosed even with the Government as it has its back to wall with illness and death on its hands. Similarly, we could constantly tweet sitting at home...

The Coronavirus or Covid-19 crisis has thrown up several possibilities. Am seeing several products and companies that were just about surviving or even dying get a sudden lease of life while the traditional businesses are locked down or sulking silently. Images of the mass migrations back to their villages in spite of a "curfew" by the migrants is also heart wrenching. They are braving not only the elements but possibly the risk of spreading the infection to their families and friends back in the villages. It remains to be seen if these migrants indeed migrate back to the cities post this crisis or simply decide to live on MGNREGA and other doles. If I may hazard a guess, the returns may be just about 60% but may take over a whole year if conditions do return to normal. Others may simply decide to "settle down" in their villages and not fight the inertia that would set in invariably. Herein lies our greatest opportunity and the positive fallout of the crisis as ...