dichotomous TImes

Never have I seen such a dichotomous situation in the last 20 years!

The COVID situation is getting intense by the day in India, especially in the metros. Anyone you speak to either knows of close family or friends that's been impacted, or are aware of numerous cases in their neighborhood. It's different from last time - the spread is so much more, and so is the fear with the medicines, oxygen and hospital beds being scant.

It's important for us to stay calm to the extent we can, and support those around us - colleagues, friends, family. People come first, and then comes business.

But in the same breadth you hear about hiring at peak levels in most companies related to the IT/ ITES space, digital, Fintech. There is anticipation of light at the end of the narrow tunnel, and lot of service and technology businesses are getting propelled.

My sincere hope is the latter is a correct view, and hopefully we can recover soon! The next 3 weeks will be critical as we march towards the active cases peaking in India and then hopefully a decline. This time though we may need to be more conservative in opening up things, together with a strong momentum on mass vaccination.