‘We have come across a reservoir of beautiful stories of inspiration’ – 20 quotes from India’s COVID-19 struggle
In this compilation, we present thought-provoking quotes from the week of December 28–January 4 that frame India’s battle with the coronavirus pandemic.
Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week. This special series of compilations focuses on India’s COVID-19 struggle (see last week’s post here). Share these quotes and excerpts with your networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.
ICT will play a major role in distributing COVID vaccine efficiently and effectively in the year 2021. - V. Sridhar, IIIT Bangalore
The broadening awareness about the importance of health during the COVID era has surfaced with a reflection of our unhealthy habits and initiated much-required dialogues around fitness and mental and physical health. - Asheesh Grewal, MyHealthBuddy
It would make every Indian proud that the two vaccines that have been given emergency use approval are made in India! - Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Continued government support will be crucial to sustain and propel growth momentum — which has picked up. - Arun Singh, Dun and Bradstreet
India has been knocked off course somewhat through the impact of the pandemic. As a result, after overtaking the UK in 2019, the UK overtakes India again in this year's forecast and stays ahead till 2024 before India takes over again. - Centre for Economics and Business Research
While no instruction manual has even been written to handle such a situation, the Indian ecosystem showed agility and resilience both at the start of the pandemic and thereafter. - Pushkar Singh, LetsTransport
It seems important to be prepared and planned when similar outbreaks arise in the future. - Anand Daniel, Accel Partners
A lot has changed during the pandemic, and we should carry forward these changes and not completely reverse to the pre-COVID-19 era. - Harshil Mathur, Razorpay
MSMEs, the backbone of India’s economy, faced severe disruptions, and the pandemic became a call to accelerate reform and growth for them. - Rajneesh Kumar, Flipkart Group
For many startups, the pandemic meant diversifying into other sectors that were bucking the trend with creation of demand pockets. - Padmaja Ruparel, IAN
For pandemic-toughened founders, every customer contract sealed, every new user signed up has taught them that the product and value proposition comes first, everything else later. - Shanti Mohan, LetsVenture
Sectors such as e-health, fintech, edtech, ecommerce, and consumer tech will continue to attract investors. - Harshit Vyas, OYO
Due to the pandemic, we saw a new persona of businesses who are managing their business online. This includes freelancers, home entrepreneurs, private tutors, and many more. - Mabel Chacko, Open Financial Technologies
Factors including an overhaul of the work culture, dependence on digitisation as well as pandemic-led precautions and restrictions contributed to the uptick and downtick in hiring amongst key sectors. Pawan Goyal, Naukri.com
Fintech is one of the most promising and exciting sectors in India and played a major role in keeping the economy ticking during the COVID-19 outbreak. - Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Venture Catalysts
Hybrid events are made for the COVID-19 era, wherein a maximum of 20 or 50 people gather at a single location, depending on the local rules, while thousands of others participate remotely. - Vinay Dora, Crowd Product
Satellite hubs will emerge. Large companies will want turnkey offices in three to four different locations where employees can report for duty. This will open up a market for coworking spaces. - Anup Jain, Orios Venture Partners
Work from home could be, at best, a supplement to the traditional way of working from office and could impact the office market demand by an estimated up to 20 percent in the medium to long-term. - JLL India
WFH is proving to be more productive and a lot of companies are planning to adopt a wider use of this model even after COVID-19. This opens up the market for diverse tech talent. - Siddharth Maheshwari, Newton School
Teams and managers would need to ensure that the energy and morale stay high as remote work will continue well into 2021. - Abhinav Jain, Shop 101
The bottom line is that we should not lose hope and be desolate, but unite with those finding solutions to end this crisis. Some of the world’s best innovations tend to emerge when we’re in crisis. - Ratan Tata
We have come across a reservoir of beautiful stories of inspiration, of fighting back, of generosity, and of kindness. - Puja Marwaha, CRY
YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).
Edited by Teja Lele