A National Webinar on ‘Post Pandemic Dynamics of Lives & Livelihood: Towards Effective Coping Strategies’ was organized by the School of Commerce and Economics, KIIT Deemed to be University on virtual platform on 26th December 2020. The webinar featured a panel discussion and two technical sessions, besides inaugural and valedictory sessions.
It was inaugurated by Prof. Binayak Rath, Former Vice Chancellor, Utkal University and was graced by Mr. Raghav Gupta, Managing Director, India & APAC, Coursera; Prof. S. P. Das, Former Professor, XIMB; and Prof. Sasmita Samanta, Pro-Vice Chancellor, KIIT-DU. Welcoming the dignitaries and participants, Prof. J. K. Parida, Director, KIIT School of Commerce & Economics and Organizing Secretary briefed about the post COVID issues and the webinar objectives.
Mr. Raghav Gupta narrated the various dimensions of Post COVID-19 situation on health sector, business & industry, education sectors, and employment & career growth. He emphasized on double disruption on industry, job displacement, core skills, digitization of economy & education with live examples of Coursera.
Prof. Binayak Rath described the coping mechanism during POST COVID world, present scenario of COVID-19 & its impact on health & loss of human life. Prof. Sasmita Samanta, Pro-Vice Chancellor, KIIT & Director of the Webinar discussed various aspects of post COVID issues with some live examples.
The Panel discussion was chaired by Prof. B. K. Mohanty, Professor, IIM Lucknow, who put forth the problems faced by poor villagers, agriculture sector, MSMEs, and education sector and invited the panel for extensive discussion. The panel included Prof. Nawal Kishore, IGNOU, New Delhi, who focused on the problems in health, economic, financial, and social sectors faced during COVID-19 and pointed out different strategies to solve these problems.
Prof. Mitali Chinara, Professor & Head, P G Department of Analytical & Applied Economics, Utkal University emphasized on diverse impact of the pandemic on different countries and sectors, and suggested some measures regarding financial support to small business, tax reliefs, bank capitalization, social safety net and gender specific problems.
Prof. M. K. Singh, Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribag suggested improvement in government plans and policies for health sector, agricultural employees, MSMEs sector, panchayati raj system, and job employment after COVID-19. Prof. Dhananjay Sahu, Banaras Hindu University pinpointed the role of cashless society, development of entrepreneurship, contact less payment system which will help the society at large Post COVID-19.
Prof. B. Ramesh, Goa University suggested less reliance on technology, less job cuts and promoting adoption of vaccines will be helpful for mankind at large. Lastly, Dr. Ashish Dav, Principal, Shree H K Commerce College, Gujarat brought the water scarcity problem into the discussion and suggested a shift towards further development of Ayurvedic treatment to solve many health related problems caused due to COVID-19.
More than 30 research papers in various disciplines were presented by the delegates from across the country during the two technical sessions chaired by Prof. M. K. Singh, VB University, Hazaribag and Prof. Mitali Chinara, Utkal University respectively. The sessions were followed by a question answer round where the presenters and participants offered their valuable and informative input about the topic.
The valedictory session, chaired by Prof. Sasmita Samanta, Pro-Vice Chancellor, KIIT-DU and Prof. J. K. Parida, Director, KSCE, was attended by more than 700 delegates from various parts of the country. At the outset, Prof. Jayanta Kumar Parida delivered the valedictory address.
In her concluding remarks, Prof. Sasmita Samanta extended her sincere gratitude to all the resource persons, keynote speakers, paper presenters and all the participants of the conference. She pointed out the key issues and challenges of COVID-19 and the best possible measures to cope with it.
All the faculty members, students & staff of the School of Commerce and Economics were actively engaged and had put their sincere efforts to make the seminar a grand success.