‘The road to recovery and growth has led to a shift in the employment model’ – 20 quotes of the week from India’s pandemic struggle

Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous edition here). This special series of compilations focuses on India’s COVID-19 struggle. Share these quotes and excerpts with your networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.

See also our pick of Top Quotes of 2021 on Entrepreneurship, Investment, Digital Transformation, Storytelling, The India Opportunity, Pandemic Resilience, Failure Recovery, Design, and Art.

The COVID-19 pandemic has instilled a certain paranoia among people. It has also helped them wake up to the reality of a constant need to consume healthy and clean food while minimising meat. - Arjun Sethi, Kneed

Studies indicate the usefulness of yoga to reduce anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic period. - Vaibhav Somani, Gravolite

The pandemic caught humanity unawares, and continues to wreak havoc, causing a trail of death and devastation globally. - K Venkatesh, ‘Portrayal of Pandemic Havoc’

The biggest challenge at the start of the pandemic was the uncertainty. No one knew when this was going to end. - Nidhi Kumra, Your-Space

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With the global chip crisis and shipping anomalies, COVID-19 indeed tested the resilience of the pharmaceutical industry and logistics providers. - Prashanth Dharawath, Adapt Ideations

Bridging the huge credit requirement of the MSME sector especially as they rebuild from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is essential to drive economic growth across the country. - Bama Balakrishnan, Northern Arc Capital

The Parliamentary Committee recommends that the repayment period [for ECLGS loans] should be extended up to seven to eight years with at least two years of moratorium on the principal amount. - Parliamentary standing committee

The film exhibition sector has been one of the worst impacted sectors on account of the pandemic and creating scale to achieve efficiencies is critical for the long term survival of the business and fight the onslaught of digital OTT platforms. - Ajay Bijli, PVR

The pandemic has put the student in the driver's seat. So we have to give them the choice of where they want to learn, how they want to learn, how fast they want to learn, and how much they want to learn, with an end goal of improving learning outcomes. - Divya Gokulnath, BYJU'S

During the COVID-19 pandemic there was exponential surge in UPI transactions and the same has put the underlying infrastructure of banks (PSPs), network (NPCI), aggregators and TPAPs (Third Party Application Providers) under tremendous strain. - Mehul Mistry, Wibmo

The COVID-19 pandemic made both the consumers and providers more open towards digitisation. Healthcare workers now realise getting online is not just a good to have, but a must-have for all. - Ajit Narayanan, MFine

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The pandemic showcased an increase in online engagement and spending. Beauty and skincare retailers will need to prioritise digital and social media channels. - Sukhleen Aneja, MyGlamm

The rising OTT market along with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, seem to harm the monopoly of cable television in the country. - Anshuman Das, Muvi

Even though online exhibitions had their own benefits, physical exhibitions have the upper hand since artists can interact with art lovers. Art lovers can connect with art in a much more effective way. - Nivedita Gouda, 'Kala for Vidya'

Online exhibitions were a good means to reach many around the world, with less effort compared to physical ones. - MG Doddamani, 'Kala for Vidya'

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It seems the government wishes to extend the flexibility to the startup companies for appropriate valuation and conversion of the convertible note by additional five years until the startups are able to secure their next round of funding and to save them from the impact of COVID and liquidity issues. - Rudra Kumar Pandey, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas

In the wake of COVID-19, some of the MSMEs even started working from home – which was unheard of. - Winny Patro, Recordent India

It is not only the demand for talent, the road to recovery and growth has led to a shift in the employment model as well. - Sunil C, TeamLease

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).