Harish Kumar
The Covid-19 pandemic is wreaking widespread disruption, social and economic. Much more than what the Great Depression and the Second World War together did. Unfolding as humankind’s greatest challenge to date, the pandemic is rapidly altering the world, its politics and economics. In the process, turning upside down established relationships, accepted rules and prevalent norms.Though we cannot foretell with certainty what is in store, we can at least try to decode the telltale signs that are popping up all around us. The Post-Pandemic Planet does precisely that. This futuristic study examines the socio-cultural changes that are in the offing. It peeps through the prism of unfolding events to understand the possibilities that lie ahead.Among others, The Post-Pandemic Planet looks at how coercion-employing territorial states are changing and how the politico-cultural nation states are morphing. It tries to go into the reasons why our social lives are gradually getting colonised and why mysophobia will increasingly dictate the complexion of travel tomorrow.Is Covidisation of a new European Union a possibility? What happens to the concept of common markets now? Will the Marshalls and the Molotovs give way to the Merkels of the world? What colour the world health order is likely to take? How will the dissent-intolerant governments manipulate the privacy laws tomorrow? Why is the World Wide Web in the danger of turning into a World Narrow Web? Will jingoistic data localisation lead to digital dictatorships?These are among a score of questions you will find answered in The Post-Pandemic Planet. As a pandemic-threatened planetarian, you are sure to find them absorbing.
