An Ode to year 2020, Good , bad and lessons learnt
As the year 2020 comes to an end, it will be remembered for many reasons. Of course the biggest will be Corona Virus pandemic which has shaken the world on her basic foundations. Along with came the stock market crash as all global indices fell sharply as the corona virus started making impact on fragile economies .
Two very renowned novels that came in 1947 and 1949 were the The Plague ( Albert Camus) and the other Nineteen Eight four ( George Orwell ). The first novel ‘The plague’ was about the city of Oran in France which was gripped by the pandemic while the second novel 1984 is about totalitarian regime. Some how both these novels represented 2020 in one way or other.
Many authoritarian regimes across the world dictated terms in their home constituencies and killed the democratic or humanitarian standards. Countries like Belarus, China, Turkey , Iran etc all tried to impose and strengthen the authoritarian system though some of them are democratic on papers.
Cyber security was in the news and with all the time available, the hackers made the most of it. Most of the organisations individuals have to expose themselves as the world moved to Digital economy. Russian, Chinese , Iran hackers were at the forefront of this cyber hacking.
Another major development of 2020 was the the victory of President elect Joe Biden. After Black life matters and corona virus everything became a bit easy for president Biden. In retrospect one can think that President Trump could have won easily had these two events didnt occur. That also made sure Kamala Harris became first VP of USA.
Many explosion happened around the world and the worst was in the Lebanese capitol Beirut which literally shook this small country and made everyone think what is going behind this beautiful city as terrorist organisations make it as their dens.
As Brexit gets signed there is huge sigh of relief across EU and UK else the trade would have been hampered.
At the domestic front 2020 brought some positive as well as shocking developments. In fact major decisions came in 2020.
Shocking was the deception and aggression of Chinese troops in the Ladakh region. The anti CAA protests and delhi riots were also something the country would like to forget. Farmers protest that has taken cue from these protests is also likely to be solved.
On the positive side abrogation of 370 and the judgement on Ram Mandir were both historic.
The role of media can never be forgotten for her role in 2020 botH nationally and internationally. Further , social media has added more spices to the already discredible Media . It has also lent huge voice to the ordinary citizen who can now freely express his own views and comments against anyone. BUt the darker side of this is the huge fake information that keeps circulation on such platforms.
Conclusion:
We will wind up our post with some final comments. Going by the trend it is obvious that the coming days, months and years are challenging but will also define long term geopolitical situation. Many things are at stake. Religion will also have to come up with more evolved ideas or they will continue to pose dangers to the humanbeing. Media as well as social media need proper regulations so that they cannot be exploited by enemy hands.
Government also have to be careful with protesting citizens. ON the one hand that is the first principle to define democracy but when the whole thing goes into unchartered territtory with unknown , hostile people getting funds form enemy nations and dubious sources it is no more part of democratic set up. Security issues take priority under such conditions.
WE request the government to tread carefully in 2021 and be alert on all fronts. We are moving through a major transition tunnel that will be definig the twenty first century for all of us.
Dr Asheesh Shah
Samanvaya
