‘Scientific discovery is crucial to human flourishing’ – 30 quotes from India’s COVID-19 struggle

Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory Media, 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.

With the pandemic causing worldwide lockdowns, orders worth millions of dollars were cancelled by brands, causing manufacturers to suffer huge losses. - Pawan Gupta, Fashinza

Today, in Odisha, the youth are no longer visible in villages as they have all left to look for work outside. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted them all badly. Entrepreneurship is the only way we can make them self-reliant. - Shishir Sahoo, Swabalambee Foundation

Countless businesses are lining outside fintech corporations for loans and credit services to effectively bail them out of the global economic crisis. - Rohit Garg, SmartCoin

 There is an urgent and pressing need to address the critical, social and environmental challenges that the world is facing. - Benoit Valentin, Temasek Holdings

One of the major impacts of the pandemic has been on the livelihoods of migrant labour, and there has been a focus on creating more rural livelihood opportunities. - Yashveer Singh, Ashoka Young Changemakers

While the road to recovery may be a long one, optimising your goals and strategies can go a long way in accelerating the process. - Niraj Singh, Spinny

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Post COVID-19, it is both a moral, societal and economic imperative to take immediate action to counter the pandemic’s gender-regressive effects. - Jacqueline Fuller, Google.org

While working mothers have been known to do the balancing act, the pandemic threw that delicately maintained balance totally out of gear. - Zahara Kanchwalla, Rite KnowledgeLabs

COVID-19 caused governments, investors, and businesses to turn inward and leave behind millions of underserved women. - Durreen Shahnaz, IIX

Post-COVID revival offers India a golden chance to reset the representation of women in the workforce. - Aparna Gupta, Evolve Digitas

As we prepare for a post-COVID world, it is important that we don’t forget the lessons learned, that we maintain the work-life balance, the agility and continue not taking things for granted. - Namita Thapar, Emcure Pharmaceuticals

Not everyone has a dedicated home office and wants to seek cost-effective and COVID-safe solutions that will work for them. - Vinay Bansal, IPV Capital

The pandemic has removed the hyperlocal element of investing and founder relationships. Investors have become comfortable with video meetings, and not meeting the entire team for due diligence. - Madhu Shalini Iyer, rocketship.vcRocketship.vc

There has been a notable rise in demand for in-home video entertainment solutions since the pandemic began, and TV streaming sticks have become even more widely popular as a result. - Chanakya Gupta, Flipkart

Despite the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, insurance sales are expected to grow between 14-15% and so would complaints and claims. - Deepak Bhuvneshwari Uniyal, Insurance Samadhan

In the post-COVID scenario, customers expect value, convenience, and demand a personalised experience with products and services, while they are shopping. - Phil Pomford, FIS

The pandemic has taught us that it’s always useful to have a strong presence wherever the business is present. - Raj Shamani, Shamani Industries

As physical workplaces across the country start opening up post-pandemic, many corporates as well as mid-sized companies will be looking to rent instead of buying new furniture in large quantities. - Sidhant Lamba, Fabtrento

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Digital technology has become an integral part of the teaching process and the adoption of technology by educators has only accelerated during the pandemic. - Shweta Bhatia, Eight Roads Ventures India

COVID has given a push to online transactions and people are buying into newer categories. We will see more experiments in this segment. - Satish Meena, Forrester

The pre-COVID growth rates of ecommerce were roughly 26-27 percent, but if you look at a post-COVID estimate, it has gone closer to 30 percent. - Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Flipkart

Contactless payments are the future of the payments industry in India. - Sanjeev Moghe, Axis Bank

The pandemic definitely led to a mindset shift towards more processes, increased automation. - Hans Tung, GGV Capital

Adoption of tech in our day-to-day lives, both in enterprises and consumer, changed permanently during the pandemic. Things which were 'good to have’, became ‘must-have’ or ‘mission-critical’. - Anand Prasanna, Iron Pillar

The biggest advantage of online exhibitions is that distance does not matter. - Banani Kundu, Chitra Santhe

Unlike many other sectors, work from home (WFH) was not an option for healthcare providers. Ensuring the safety and morale of doctors, nurses, and technicians have been a key additional challenge for hospitals. - Karthik Rajagopal, Manipal Health Enterprises

There was an increased adoption towards online consultation, e-pharmacy, homecare services, and e-diagnostics. Even hospitals started redesigning their strategy and increased its focus to acquire patients through online channels. - IAMAI-Praxis report

In the post-COVID-19 world, managing our mental health is no longer a medical issue, but a part of everyone’s daily routine. - Moez Kaderali, Google

Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the overall consumer awareness and demand for health insurance and term life insurance have shot up. - Dhirendra Mahyavanshi, Turtlemint

The pandemic brought health and immunity into sharp focus, and this could be one of the critical aspects that determine the innovation in the food startup space. - Mahesh Basavanna, orgTree

India's formidable vaccine production capacity will be expanded with support from Japan, the US, and Australia to assist countries in the Indo-Pacific region. – PM Narendra Modi

The greatest lesson this pandemic has taught everyone, even the sceptics, is that scientific discovery is crucial to human flourishing. - Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Biocon Limited

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).