Cover Story
- While large swathes of the economy have been savaged by the pandemic and struggle for survival, some have seen opportunity in the crisis, and latched on to it. An aerial survey of the destruction and the survivors.
- The lockdown put this industry completely out of gear. While freight movement by road has restarted, recovery is a long way off.
- Exports down, the sector looks to the wedding season for reprieve.
- The tourism sector has to rethink its business model to cater to tourists in a post-pandemic world.
- The pandemic has dealt a fatal blow to the single-screen theatres that were already doddering
- The FMCG sector escaped the worst of the lockdown restrictions, but growth is flat, at best.
- While some sales numbers are improving, industry bodies predict a contraction of 25-40 per cent this year.
- Pandemic-related lockdowns have dealt a body blow to the long-suffering real estate sector.
- India’s pharma industry has led the pandemic fightback.
- The first quarter was a washout, but leather goods exports are looking up. Can India scale up in time to take advantage?
- While private schools and institutes struggle to stay afloat, online edu-tech apps are flourishing.
- With the lockdowns paralysing traditional retail, e-commerce took off. Experts expect the sector to grow to $100 billion by 2024.
- The pandemic has been a wake-up call for the import-dependent industry.
- The post-pandemic revival of this key industry is critical for India's overall economic growth.
- With customer footfall at historically low levels, the retail sector has seen a sharp contraction.
- While reports put India's healthcare sector on steady ground, some short-term obstacles do need attention.
- A contraction in demand has pushed textile units to the brink. The sector desperately needs incentives to boost exports.
Short-circuiting parliament
While farmers and Opposition part-ies protested the ‘anti-farmer’ provisions in the bills, the unseemly haste on display in rushing the bills through Parliament, without further reference, discussion or debate, have raised unsettling questions on this government’s commitment to upholding parliamentary democracy.Here's this week's glasshouse. In the absence of any breakthrough in the negotiations, the PLA will make their positions permanent, thereby completing the unilateral alteration to the Line of Actual Control (LAC).If crop prices are not linked to MSP for sales to private parties, small farmers will lose bargaining power, it is feared.With many testing positive for Covid, and elderly actors and crew in the mix, the resumption of work in the entertainment industry has been marked with a shiver of fear.
Now playing online
Theatre companies, which once fiercely clung to their physical spaces, are learning to embrace digital platforms.Konkana Sen Sharma on her new film Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare and the struggle to find satisfying work in Bollywood.Nisha Susan’s stories may draw you out of your comfort zone, but the characters are all too realStylists and polemicists, Arundhati Roy and Zadie Smith face the apocalypse in distinctive registers.
A war of attrition
Partisan governors and their increasingly fraught relationship with the chief ministers are now a regular feature in opposition-ruled states. It is time the gubernatorial role and the criteria of selection are clearly defined.
The second wave
With cases of Covid reinfections surfacing in the country, is India's low case fatality rate (CFR) really any cause for comfort?
From the Editor-in-Chief
India Today Editor-in-Chief Aroon Purie talks about how three significant drivers of growth, domestic consumption, government expenditure and private investment, have taken a beating.
Fractured legacy
The ruling AIADMK and Jayalalithaa's estranged heirs battle for control of the late CM's iconic residence, Veda Nilayam
Reforming babudom
Mission Karmayogi, PM Modi's most ambitious programme yet to reform the bureaucracy, aims to transform it into a future-ready service.