The business of sustainable development
Human trafficking is gradually moving up on the national and international agenda as regulators, investors and civil society contemplate to take more measures to stop it. It is also partly due to the understanding that the Covid-19 pandemic is increasing human trafficking risks.
Covid-19 is fuelling an interest globally in businesses guided by environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations and making it an imperative for companies to generate evidences for investors.
With the threat of the third wave of the coronavirus increasing by the day, it is becoming equally important to fight not only the Covid-19 pandemic, but also the accompanying infodemic that is contributing to it.
For the first time since adoption in 2015 for a better world, the worldwide progress on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) has shown reversal due to increased poverty and unemployment caused by Covid-19.
The diaspora can consider to volunteer to support some of the SDGs, or may be some targets related to only one goal like the SDG 3 on Good Health and Well-Being.
While the Covid-19 pandemic will be always remembered as probably the biggest catastrophe in our living memory, at the same time the role of civil society, including the Indian diaspora, will keep our hope alive in the power of people to rise to cope with such challenges.
No country in the world can defeat Covid-19 by ramping up its healthcare facilities alone. India is no exception. Preventive measures like vaccination and adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour have to accompany treatment.
While enduring images of the Covid-19 era are of doctors staking their lives to treat patients, some who lost their kith and kin carry privately nightmarish memories of doctors providing just minimal treatment and waiting till the fateful day.
If you really intend to help people hit by Covid-19, you can do more than forward random forwards to them. You can follow Covid-Appropriate Behaviour (CAB) and help them personally and digitally by sharing personally verified information.
It seems the Coronavirus will keep on punishing us till we learn our lessons to fight it right. The jury is still out on the whats, the whys and the hows of the current wave of the Covid-19, but there is a unanimity that the Coronavirus is going to terrorise us for a long time.