INDIA TODAY

On 7 January, APLN Member Shyam Saran published an article in India Today in which he made geopolitical predictions for India in 2022, and argued that the country must participate more actively in regional economic partnerships.

The new normal is anything but ‘normal’. 2022 will be a more unpredictable year than the one we left behind. The Covid-19 virus is mutating all the time and the world is unable to keep up. Just when we thought the worst may be behind us, the more transmissible Omicron variant is spreading across the world. Borders which were being opened tentatively, gingerly are snapping shut again. Airline business, which was limping back to solvency, is likely to face terminal decline and most service industries, such as hotels, restaurants, travel and retail, will further suffer severe blows. The major world economies responded to the health crisis and the acute economic and social disruptions in the wake of the pandemic by expending an estimated $11 trillion (Rs 819 lakh crore) over the past two years. There is not much firepower left in their economic armouries to sustain such massive outlays for another year.

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Illustration by Siddhant Jumde