Manoj Kumar, staff at IPH published an article in International Health

India and the world in 2016: a challenging present, an uncertain future

Google’s “See what the world searched for in 2016” says it all: how has the year 2016 been so far for all of us? Four out of five of the top most trending global news searches relate to disasters – until we started talking about the Rio Olympics. I like the quote there, though, “love is out there”, and on a personal note I’d like to add, “Where hope is lost” and if not lost, speedily fading away.

My country is not alien to this context and process. Of late, when the whole world just focused on a single election and individual, predicting “not so happy” consequences and a whole lot of uncertainties, we Indians were not so startled. Yes, being a stable yet very peculiar economy in our region, sensitive to foreign investment, the Indian rupee, market equities, and trade did slide for a moment following the incredible (unexpected) US electoral results. However, we were not as surprised as many others, perhaps because we had other things to be surprised at. ……(Coincidentally the US election results and the demonetization announcement in India happened on the same day)……   I guess, collectively we are now adjusted to ‘uncertainties’- although with positive hopes.

 

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