Is Moving Healthcare to Concurrent List a Good Move?

List of Ministries

Background

My blog on healthcare investments in India heatmap 2021 States Heat Map | Kapil Khandelwal (KK) has shown the gaps in healthcare delivery system in the different states of India. Also over the last year, India’s health infrastructure came under considerable strain in 2020, with over 20 million Covid cases and perhaps over a million requiring hospitalisation. We have observed how each of the states of India have responded to the Covid Crisis and the variability of the best practices implemented by each of the states whether it is immunization for Covid Covid Politics | Kapil Khandelwal (KK) or the digital health initiatives Sustainability of Digital Health | Kapil Khandelwal (KK). Moreover, the passage of the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines and the National Digital Health Mission regulations, last year, would require the country needs unified implementation of healthcare policies and programs with minimal leakages and cost of administration at the state level.

Recently, a high level group has recommended the 15th finance commission to bring health under concurrent list and declaring health as a fundamental right. This recommendation would Bringing health into the Concurrent list would give the Centre greater flexibility to enact regulatory changes and reinforce the obligation of all stakeholders towards providing better healthcare. I completely endorse the recommendation. Here are some of my reasons.

Look what’s happening to the Police?

Recent police involvement in extortion and misuse of their powers have clearly shown that States can misuse their political powers in delivering pubic safety and security to their population. We have seen in the past similar political interventions by the States in curbing healthcare for vested political interests. Politicalisation of health would be curbed by this move.

Promote Private Investment in Healthcare

Our recent heatmap on investments in healthcare attractiveness for the States shows that top-10 states would attract over 70% of private healthcare investments. Many high-end tertiary and quarternary care investments have catchments beyond the State and National boundaries. Such investments get stuck in local and state-level politics for regulatory and other approvals. The bottom 12 States have to practically fend for themselves and are on YOYO (you are on your own) effects. High-level Center’s intervention would remove such imbalances.

National Healthcare Emergencies and Pandemics

The last year’s Covid Crisis has clearly paved the way for a concerted National level Program for Healthcare and justifies the move to a Concurrent List for Healthcare in India.

Other Justifications from Experts

Low healthcare spending

India’s government spends only 1% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on health (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare), of which 80% is raised and spent by the states themselves. Achieving a public health expenditure of 2.5 % can be done by bringing health under concurrent list.

Indigenous practices

States do minimum to preserve indigenous healthcare systems and practices. Bringing health under concurrent list would allow Centre to spend in a better way to preserve indigenous systems of medicine, like Ayurveda.

Cooperative federalism

Health Under concurrent list will further the spirit of cooperative federalism. State-level Policy implementation regarding the health sector has underperformed and is plagued by poor quality and corruption. With health as a part of the concurrent list, the government can ensure a better healthcare system by working with states in a better way.

Better policy implementation

With health under concurrent list, the central and state governments would find a way to collaboratively design better policies and better implementation of union government initiatives. For example, a health scheme launched by the centre is implemented by states and funded by them makes its implementation poor.

Promote Universal Health Coverage

The key objective to promote Universal Healthcare Coverage in India are pivoted on the key axis which will be accelerated by this move

Social justice: A fundamental right is justiciable. Once health is made a fundamental right the citizens can approach the courts for its violation. It can prevent poor from being denied basic health services on basis of various factors like race, religion, caste etc.
Unaffordable health system: The large number of people still living below the poverty line in India. Thus the affordability of quality healthcare is a problem and needs to be addressed.
Discrimination: Cultural differences such as social, cultural, and linguistic barriers may prevent patients from accessing care. E.g. minorities may face discrimination in accessing quality health services.
Increasing risks: Environmental challenges, which include unsafe streets, asthma exacerbated by air pollution, leading to unnecessary hospitalisation and minimal or no spaces for physical activity or exercise all add to risk to health of millions of poor.

Accelerating Digital Health Initiatives

The Telemedicine Practice Regulations and the National Digital Health Mission would increase the complexity of regulating Digital Health in India if the current status quo continues. Imagine a situation where the technology infrastructure for digital health is hosted in a certain state, the doctor delivering the virtual health services in another state and the consumer in a third state? Which State will command the hegemony in such a case? Moreover, there are Centrally controlled Ministries which also regulate sectors such as Telecom and IT which will regulate digital health. There would be a barrage of court cases when we would have to adjudicate who has the right to regulate in such circumstances.

The move to move healthcare to the concurrent list is therefore the right move!

India should introduce Repairability Index like France

Repairability index icons

India should introduce Repairability Index like France

Preamble

This year Indians are going to buy over 760 million mobile handsets. Assuming that the life of a mobile phone is 3 years, I am assuming that mobile phones are being upgraded every year! Imagine what happens to the 700 million handsets bought in 2020. Around 225 million handsets are being replaced in India every year. An industry news carried out states that more than 5 million mobile phones have piled up for repair and servicing in India during the first phase of the lockdown enforced to control the spread of the coronavirus in 2020. This itself shows the gap in the handsets which could be avoided replacement due to the fact some of these handsets cannot be repaired. This is particularly in high end handsets. Look at the opportunity cost of replacement of handsets just because these handsets are not repairable. Moreover, this would be applicable to other consumer electronic products. Consumer electronic products take a serious environmental toll, and one of the best ways to mitigate that is to use them for as long as possible before replacing them. But it’s hard to know how long a new gadget will last if you’re unsure how easy it will be to fix. Consumers need additional information regarding the repairability of the product as an additional information to aid in their purchasing decisions. France was the first country in the world to introduce a Repairability Index on 1 January 2021. It is hoped that the momentum of this law will gain EU-wide recognition and move on to other large, well developed markets like US, Japan and China and maybe India.

Why should India not introduce its own Repairability Index?

What is France’s Repairability Index?

Since January 1st 2021, France is the first country in Europe to have implemented a repairability index on 5 categories of electronic devices. The goal is to inform consumers about the repairability of a product. a grade out of 10 will be added to the labels of washing machines, laptops, smartphones, TVs and lawn mowers. the repairability index that is defined by the French government. According to their ruling, all new smartphone sold in French must display the repairability index in the stores and website. The repairability index has a score from 0 to 10 and is defined by 5 criteria which has equal weight. Each criteria has 20 points and all adds up to 100 points which will be divided into 10 for the final score. The five criteria is

Documentation – Available documentation from the manufacturer.
Ease of disassembly – The ease of disassembly of the smartphone.
Spare parts availability – The availability of spare parts from the manufacturer. How easy to get them.
Spare parts price – The relationship between price of most expensive spare part item and price of original product. The bigger the differences, the better the score.
Specific Criterion The quality of information given by the manufacturer such as the information of the update, the ability to reset software and free remote assistance.

While France won’t be enforcing use of the index with fines until next year, some companies have already begun releasing scores for their products.

According to experts, the repairability index represents part of France’s effort to combat planned obsolescence, the intentional creation of products with a finite lifespan that need to be replaced frequently, and transition to a more circular economy where waste is minimized. But it also has global implications. Repair advocates say that the index will serve as a litmus test for other nations weighing similar regulations, help consumers make better choices, and hopefully incentivize companies to manufacture more repairable devices. Eventually, France intends to expand the score to other classes of consumer products. By 2024, the repair index will transition to a “durability index” that not only tells customers how repairable a product is but also describes its overall robustness.

According to the experts, The French Repairability Index has its limitations as they were developed through an intensive stakeholder process that involved input from manufacturers as well as consumer advocacy organizations. For instance laptop and smartphone makers can get a “free point” by providing consumers with information about different types of software updates, such as security updates or system upgrades — information that may not have anything to do with how fixable the device is.

The Case for Repairability Index for India

I believe that the case for a Repairability Index for India is an open-shut case. High-end consumer electronics such as Apple iPhones have become more difficult to fix due to a combination of design choices and software locks that often require proprietary tools to get repair from their authorized service centers. These have given discretionary powers to Apple to charge for the repairs or disallow the repairs providing arbitrary reasons, requiring consumers to forcefully replace their older version of devices to newer ones. Moreover, there is no warranty provided for the repairs or replacement of the parts during repairs offered

RIP Apple!

A blog on how this Repairability Index would impact Apple states:

Apple is known for touting its green credentials. They are using renewables for their operations and has been carbon neutral for years and aims to be carbon neutral in its entire supply chain by 2030. It uses less packaging to reduce carbon footprint. It has remove chargers and headphones from their iPhone offering (much to the chargin’ of their competitors) as an environmental initiative. It has so much renewable energy that it contracts out their excess energy as Apple Energy. Apple recourage users to recycle their iPhones and demos their recycling robots. They wanted all their materials in their devices to be from recycle material instead of mined from the earth.

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro teardown by iFixit 2 — iPhone 12 teardown. Apple recently makes it harder to change the camera module not through hardware means, but software.

That being said, Apple green credentials is not without flaws or critics. Its devices has been criticized as hard to repair. Apple is against the right to repair movement under the guise that the devices are more and more complicated. There has been reports that changing the camera modules in the iPhone 12 made the camera inoperable. The cost of repairing item is significantly higher than other manufacturers since you have to register to be a specialist from Apple. Even then, you might not be able to procure the parts necessary for the repair as shown for other Macs. And their iPhones require specialist tools as they use pentalobe screws which is a non-common tool.

This new repairability label will encourage Apple to rethink their position on repairability. Just like how energy efficiency labels encourage manufacturer to make more efficient devices, Apple will be compelled to make easier to repair phones.

Also see my post on Linkedin Rip Bad Apple! | LinkedIn on getting the repairs or replacement of their faulty products which echoes the same issues.

How can India take the lead here?

India needs to learn from the experience from France’s implementation of the Repairability Index and plug the loopholes in the process of creating its own index. As India embarks on the aggressive Make in India, it would serve well to also introduce the Repairability and Durability Index of the products manufactured in India to ensure that the Made in India products are accepted globally by the consumers and not fall in the trap the image of cheap Chinese manufactured products have attained globally of their poor quality perception.

It’s the right time to think about the Repairability and Durability of Made in India consumer electronics products given the direction EU is moving!

Fake, Fakier and Fakiest – The Fake News Pandemic – The New Normal to Denting Public Reputation?

The Fake, Fakier, and the Fakiest

The Pandemic of Fake News

During the lockdown there has been a marked increase in the incidence of fake news and its viral spread. According to a research falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information. False news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information. Whereas false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise in replies, true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust. Contrary to conventional wisdom, robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate, implying that false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.

As case in point, even a celebrity like Amitabh Bachchan was not spared.

What is Fake News?

Fake or false news can be categorized in following ways:

Fake Article. The entire article is written with the intent of spreading false information.
Embellished Article. A real article or fact is enhanced and embellished to add fake information to it.
Fake Photo/Fake Video. A photo or video is enhanced and modified to add fake information to it.
Older Photo/Video or out of context photo/video. An older photo/video or a photo/video that’s from another country or another context is inserted with the intent of spreading false information.

The common intent of fake news can be:

Communal, news written with the intention of inciting religious and communal passion
Violence, Criminal and sexual.
Integrity and Authenticity
Questionable Practices and Rituals (Occult, Blackmagic)
Bullying and Terrorism
Misinformation (bank shutdown, currency devaluation, economy)
False Health Advisories, we see an uptick in these during the Covid-19 pandemic
Spreading false information about competition
Political misinformation
Satire
Propaganda
Personal Defamation

The Human, Economic and Psychological Damage from Fake News

Some estimates put the damage from Fake news in the range of 80 billion annually.

Fake News Stock Market damage – Fake news has caused losses of billions of dollars in company stocks. The damage last year alone was $39 billion or .05 percent of the markets value [1]. A letter purportedly sent by Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock caused investors to panic and dump coal stocks. [2]
Health scares – fake news promotes the sale of questionable medical supplies and result in medical scares from visits to ER’s.
Destroying government machinery and loss of life – fake news has resulted in loss of confidence in government machinery and in cases of violence that have resulted in rioting and loss of life.
Politics – there have been innumerable news articles and posts on how fake news has resulted in election decision making in favor of the less desirable candidate.
Loss of sales due to fake propaganda, corporate espionage and loss of trust in brands – Fake news has resulted in loss of sales and goodwill. [3] McDonalds has been targeted by multiple instances of fake news and has lost customers each time. In addition they have had to spend money each time on advertising to promote facts.
Personality disorder in humans who read fake news analysis – Companies that manually curate news to figure out real from fake have high attrition. Employees get depressed from the psychological impact of reading fake news day in and day out.

Fake News Pandemic – How do We Tackle it and Mitigate Reputation Risk?

There are various ways social media platforms, law enforcement agencies, Governments, political parties, companies and individuals celebrities combat fake news pandemic. The tools available can be separated into three categories:

an increase in the use of human editors by the social media and publishing platforms. Given the volume of information being disseminated, it is practically inhuman to cover all the material being published
crowdsourcing initiatives being used by various initiative still not a viable solution of the joint forces to combat the evil forces of fake news; and
technological or algorithmic solutions

We would like to discuss on how we use our algos to assist in mitigating the reputation risks for different stakeholders affected by fake news

Common-sense techniques to find instances of fake news

Text Analytics

Subject detection, scan the article to figure out the theme and subject.
Use of provocative keywords, fake news usually contains provocative keywords.
Sense of urgency – Creating a sense of urgency to ask the reader to take action now by clicking on a link.
Spelling and grammar mistakes.
Creator credibility analysis, is this website credible, is this handle a new handle that hasn’t posted before
Links to websites that contain spyware/botware or other paid news
How fake news spreads (not spread by influencers, people with large number of followers), spread by accounts that habitually post controversial content. Truth spreads slower typically.
Does the social media account come across as a Bot. Bots have typical characteristics such as account age, account photo and posting only articles and forwarded content. Bots spread fake news faster than individuals.

Image Analytics

Fake news shows a tendency to contain graphic images that help drive home the point of the article. The following techniques help in analyzing the image and hence determining if the article is real or fake.

Reverse Image search, we search for images using a reverse search. This gives us context on when the image was first posted, what the original image looked like and what were the changes
Image authenticity, an image that diverges significantly from the original or shows signs of doctoring is probably a fake. Minor alterations such as brightening and color correction are acceptable changes to the image.
Image age, if the image is old then its irrelevant and is used to spread fake news
Image geotags, if the geotags on the image differ from the location mentioned in the article then the image is fake and the article is fake.

Video Analytics

Similar to images, articles contain videos that are provocative to drive home the point the article is trying to make. We use the following techniques to analyze videos

Video authenticity, a video that diverges significantly from the original or shows signs of doctoring is probably a fake. Minor alterations such as brightening and color correction are acceptable changes to the video. These videos undergo significant modifications in the post production phase.
TikTok analysis, TikTok is a growing source of modified videos.
Video age, if the video is old then its irrelevant and is used to spread fake news
Video geotags, if the geotags on the video differ from the location mentioned in the article then the video is fake and the article is fake

Article Analytics

A wholistic analysis of the article as a whole gives rich insights into the authenticity of the article. Some analysis that we perform here are

Author check, fake news generally does not provide the author name or comes from unknown authors that lack credibility.
Text to advertising ratio, fake news generally has a higher ratio of advertising or links as compared to text
Article layout, a badly laid out article on a website is a good indicator of the presence of fake news

Be Safe! Spread Genuine!

Footnotes

[1] Fake News Creates Real Losses https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1j2ttw22xf7n6/Fake-News-Creates-Real-Losses

[2] The Fake Larry Fink Letter That Duped Reporters https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1cqj0xmn5ds9t/The-Fake-Larry-Fink-Letter-That-Duped-Reporters

[3] French Fry Grease in McDonald’s Coffee https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mcdonalds-french-fry-grease/

Excerpts of My Keynote Address to Healthcare and Education Start Ups

My Keynote Address to Start Ups

Salutations

Madam Secretary, members on the dais, dignitaries, my mentor friends and budding start up entrepreneurs. I invoke the blessing of his holiness to bestow the positive energies and blessing to one and all.

Delivering Key Note Address

Delivering keynote Address is always a matter of honour and pride on which one stands amongst ones own to share the experience. I remember delivering my first keynote at Arab Health 2003. I was part of the team that set up Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Aramco-John Hopkins in Saudi Arabia, Cornell Medical College in Qatar and Joslin Clinic. It was definitely an honour to stand with the Royal and industry executives but no pride as I was not standing amongst my own. Today, when I am standing in front of you to deliver this keynote address, I feel honored and full of pride. And why not? Since I settled down in Bangalore, in 1998 till I migrated back to Bombay in 2017, this city has provided me with inspiration to do so many initiatives. So I am full of pride to be rightly one amongst you, although I no longer reside in Bangalore, my spirit and heart is still a Bangalorean. However, there is something in the air, water and weather of Bangalore that has motivated me to do so many initiatives. I feel that I am going to share some of my experience and motivations to you to do more than me while you are in Bangalore and deliver to the nation and the world.

In 1998, I worked on PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Task Force on Food and Agri Reforms that set the direction and pace of reforms in Agri and Food Processing Industry right from my office on Airport Road
In 2008, I became world’s first CISO in the Drug Discovery Outsoucing, leveraging my learnings from Wipro as Head of Healthcare
From Bangalore, I was invited to Singapore Government to assist them in their Biotech and healthcare delivery model around Sing Health and Biopolis
In 2009, I hosted the Hon CM Yadurappa to showcase the smart ambulance and health presence while I was CEO of Cisco.
I was one of the member of the Planning Commission’s PPP Committee on Healthcare where we drafted the first PPP regulatory draft under Dr. Ramadoss. Later, I was invited by the Principle Secretary Health for working on the World Bank Karnataka PPP healthcare delivery model
In 2010, India’s first day care surgery chain was conceptualized and rollout by me as one of the early investors with the first 2-day care surgery centers at Koramangala and Sadashiv Nagar. This is now part of Apollo Hospitals now.
My investment in XY Clinic which was an innovation genomic, diagnostics and nutrigenomics. The first India flagship was launched here in Bangalore. The same year, we started Bangalore Angels with my school time buddies who had started Mumbai Angels. As of date over 75 start ups from Bangalore have been funded by Bangalore Angels. We also represented and fought with the Center on the removals of the demonic Angel Tax
This city’s Rotary Club in Bangalore which I was part of worked to make SMS mandatory working with the Planning Commission for eradication of Pulse Polio when there was a strong fake news like the Covid Vaccine amongst the villagers in Hosur District. With the SMS campaign, we saw 99.8% turnout in Bangalore while in Hosur it was less than 80%
As member of the FICCI National Committee nominated by Dr Jairam and my industry associate Rajen Padukone I delivered the country’s first Genomics Roadmap for mainstreaming India.
In 2013, at the behest of Kiran Majumdar Shaw, I took up the lead on Investment Committee of ABLE to deliver the Biotech Ignition Grant (BIG) policy, kicking of the public discussion with the current Principle Secretary right here at BIEC. This was further worked on to deliver the Start Up India Fund under the BJP in their first budget.
This city also kicked off Nasscom’s Product Conclave of which I was part of the committee for the first three editions.
In 2014, my firm completed taking Manipal Hospital to KL, Malaysia and consummate India’s first cross border M&A in hospital sector in India.
It was here from my World Trade Center Office, I conceptualized and launched 2 funds. India’s first healthcare REIT and India’s first offshore quant/algo hedge fund.

Position of Karnataka

Algo we developed from my hedge fund has been successfully predicting healthcare and life sciences investments in India with 95% accuracy since we launched in 2016, except last year. This year we reset out algo as our predictions for 2020 all went haywire. This year, for the first time we have created our heatmap on hottest states to invest in India for healthcare and life sciences. I must say, my pride is further validated for Bangalore and Karnataka as it has emerged on the top emerging states for investment for the sector. Bangalore, is the innovation hub not only for tech but for healthcare and life sciences in India. That attracts investments. I must say that this vibrant ecosystem creates a healthy pipeline for investments for our funds. This year, Karnataka will also delivery two more Unicorns to this nation’s list of unicorns.

My Message to the Start Ups in the New Normal

2020 was a disastrous year for world in terms of employment and investments. I must warn that emerging out of the situation of 2020, please do not profit out of the misery of others and make money out of this situation for your venture and investors. This would be the biggest disservice you would do to yourself and mankind. I will be discussing on the emerging business models and tech in healthcare and life sciences and what would be the lessons learnt and the key opportunities for start ups in the new normal in my other session. All I want to say now is that don’t be guided by the events of 2020 that your venture’s value proposition is narrowly defined. The time of the first-generation cohorts of start ups which were imitating the models of the west is now over. We have witnessed in 2020 that their advancements and innovation in tech could not prevent the catastrophe of 2020. Its now time to innovate for Bharat for the Bharat Stack. Karnataka is one of the best sandbox for rolling out your ideas to the world. Let me assure you that there is no shortage of capital for the right ventures.

My Message to the Government of the Day in Karnataka

Madam, I would like to also leave a message for you today from this podium. While drafting the BIG policy, we analysed all start up in healthcare and life sciences across the world including India. One of the key issues that healthcare and life sciences start ups require is a longer gestational cycle to mature their tech and innovation as there is risk of lives. We discussed at length at the DBT BIG policy back in 2013, how do we mitigate this. I believe that Bharat Biotech is a shining example of how DBT and the state administration collaborated to its success. In the past, Karnataka was diametrically opposite to the political party ruling Delhi. This time round we have alignment both at the Center and State. I would like to emphasise in no uncertain terms that the success of Bharat Biotech in our neighbouring state was not incubation but acceleration and grants for the scientific innovation. Please do consider this when you are drafting policies to support start ups and ventures in healthcare and life sciences. I must also request you to consider developing the infrastructure in Karnataka like the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh has developed in Hyderabad for the Biotech industry.

Healthcare and education are social services and goods. During Covid, I was part of the committee that drafted the Social Stock Exchange. Karnataka has been misfortunate to have divergent governments in State and the Center and hence many of the initiatives could not be encouraged in the state. However, we now have the opportunity to align with the Center. Karnataka has the opportunity to be the first incubator and sandbox for social ventures. I would urge you to reach out to the Principle Secretary Finance and discuss the issues and requirements with the Minister of State for Finance at the Center.

My Message to Mentors to Be Ready for New Technological Disruptions

My message to the mentors is very straight and simple. We are at the cusp of new slew of disruptions in technology. Our neighboring state has already tested 5G and would be rolling out in the state and the country very soon. Please do get ahead of these developments to be able to guide your start ups on what to expect in the future. Also instead of going with the feeling of Never Done Before, it would be better to leverage the technology and platforms already developed and operational to partner. Do not fall into the heady lure of make versus buy just because you have a personal point to prove yourselves. Look at this LG Velvet phone which I am using for testing some of the healthcare solutions and delivering my keynote. This handset is as powerful as my tablet giving a full desktop experience while being so portable and enabling mobility with being 5G ready.

My Message to the Accelerator Operators is to Share and Grow the Ecosystem

I heard some of the positive developments in our journey here in the start up ecosystem. I would urge you to share your templates, learnings, best practices to others who are setting up new accelerators. Good Karma always comes back. Like open source, please be a contributors to the ecosystem and the ecosystem will grow further and stronger.

Finally, the Alchemy of Success

I would like to conclude now that the platform is very strong that is available to you. On one hand you have the encouragement and full endorsement of the ITBP Ministry of Karnataka. One the other hand, you have a solid mentor base. I have had the privilege to work and collaborate with some of the mentors who are associated with you here in your journey. Please leverage their experience to the maximum. Also challenge them with the problems you are solving in your venture so that they are also bringing out their best to you. Finally, you also need to share your experiences with your peers so that you all come out of this experience stronger and positive. From my end, there are a whole lot of resources available on my website www.kapilkhandelwal.com which is available free of cost with no GST to leverage.

I thank you all for a patient hearing and wish you all the very best in your entrepreneurial journey.

KK with ITBP Prinicpal Secretary and MD KBIT

Healthcare and Life Sciences in 2021: Part 2 – State Investments Heat Map

In Part 1 of the Healthcare and Life Sector in 2021, we focused on the heat map on different sub-sectors. 2021 Investment Heat Map | Kapil Khandelwal (KK), we predicted the investment activity for 2021. In Part 2, we focus for the first time State-wise investment Heat Map under Part 2, Hottest States to Invest for Healthcare and Life Sciences. These have been aggregated into our overall Heat Map in Part 1. In India’s federal structure of governance, healthcare is a State subject while some of the other parts of the healthcare and lifesciences value chain are Centre subject. Hence it is very difficult to isolate the impact of governance model on the overall investment activity. Also some States and Union Territories were demerged and hence historical data may be merged with erstwhile states from where the new States demerged.

The meta data from different states and social media feeds have been incorporated to produce India’s first state-wise heat map.

We have taken the following parameters on which we assessed all the States and Union Territories of India

Provisioning For Covid
Promoting Start Up Ecosystem
Participation of Value Chain
Policies and Regulations
Population Dependency
Penetration of Insurance
Preventative Health and Wellness
Penetration of Digital Health
Population Epidemiological Burden
Population Access to Beds Per Km
Point of Care Access to Doctors
Point of Care Access to Other Clinicians
Healthcare Pricing Competitiveness
Healthcare Disparity

States Heatmap 2 — 2021 State-wise Healthcare and Life Sciences Investment Heatmap

Hottest Investment Destinations for 2021

Andhra Pradesh/Telangana
Karnataka
Gujarat
Tamil Nadu

Emerging Investment Destinations for 2021

Kerala
Madhya Pradesh
Rajasthan
Uttar Pradesh
Maharashtra

Hottest Union Territories Destination for 2021

Delhi NCR
Chandigarh
Daman/Diu

Stay Safe and Happy Investing in the rest of 2021!

Bidenomics and Pivoting Indo-US Geopolitics and Investments

Bidenomics

Bidenomics and Pivoting Indo-US Geopolitics and Investments

Trumponomics and Indo-US Geopolitics

During the Trump Era, all the indices have doubled and his mantra of ‘Make America Great Again’ seem to have worked. Sino-US trade and geopolitics seems to be at its rock bottom. Modi-Trump bonhomie through Howdy Modi seems to have worked and also were the defense with the strengthening of the Quad. Trump was the most favourable President at the White House, India ever had. The Indian diaspora in the US were divided between Trump and Biden and expect that the Indo-US relations, trade and investment flows will grow stronger. Will this continue with the Biden presidency?

Bidenomics – The Local Politics – Walking on a Tight Rope

The Democrats have a very slender margin of 10 senators in the House of Representatives. Given the way the US had been divided down in the middle, it would be very difficult for the Biden administration to push for major policy initiatives to attain the administrative goals with the support of the pro-Democrat Republicans. The fiscal stimulus that would be required to push the US economic recovery in the new normal to pass fiscal stimulus or any bills with a simple majority would be a challenge . unless Democrats remaining unified or at least a few Republicans support Biden. The Biden administration has just revealed a USD1.9 trillion fiscal package, which is centred on providing up to an additional USD1,400 in direct payments to targeted income groups, along with state/local support, supplemental unemployment insurance, additional grants for businesses, and funding for testing and vaccine distribution. This would put combined past and potential coronavirus relief near USD5 trillion (or approximately 25% of GDP) when all is said and done. To fund all this, Biden would pivot the Trump Tax Cuts and Job Act to increase the taxes and also work on employment generation. In addition, the Democrats and Biden administration would focus on more strategic initiatives on green energy, infrastructure, education, health care, and broader social safety nets which would be as per the initial budget for these programs to be around around USD 2 trillion.

Bidenomics – The International Trade Relations

Bidenomics would pivot to a multilateral approach to reduce the trade disputes and tensions in the North American neighbours and the EU. Trumponomic “Phase 1” trade deal with China may has not dented Chinese exports to the US in 2020 and the trade surplus with the U.S. reached a five-year high of USD 535 bn in 2020. Agreed-to increases in China’s imports from the U.S. have fallen well below target. A recent further escalation of tensions (e.g. around the listing of Chinese firms in the U.S.) may complicate matters, but Biden’s at the helm should help reassure markets and trade relations globally.

Bidenomics – The Indo-US Relations Pivot

Biden recently announced military spending support to Pakistan to maintain its presence in Afghanistan. This is a major departure from Trump and would be a bone of contention between Indo-US relations and defense spending and relations in the future. Biden has in the past not supported India’s space program which led India to be Atma Nirbhar and develop its own technology to be a leader in the space race. These past Biden hangovers would be difficult to remove for a steady Indo-US relationships. From an investment flows to India, many of the Indo-US think tanks and forums believe that there would be no rolling back to the last few years of Indo-US relations. We are definitely bullish on the Bidenonmics and as the overall markets will still provide returns for equity and risky assets given the improving macroeconomic situation, fueled by significant fiscal impulses and the local political mandate of Biden and Democrats which is very slim.

Wishing Bidenomics to rebuild the New Normal World!

Healthcare and Life Sciences in 2021: Part 1- Sectoral Investments Heat Map

2021 Healthcare and Lifesciences Investment Heatmap

Healthcare and Life Sciences in 2021: Part 1- Sectoral Investments Heat Map

Since 2013 our algos have been accurately predicting the investment heatmap in the healthcare and life sciences in India which were predicting with 95% accuracy on the sectoral investment cycle in India till the end of 2019. Covid Pandemic has completely disrupted and reset the investment cycle in India and we missed out all our prediction accuracy for 2020. We were at cross roads for releasing our Heat Map for 2021. The first was to actually abandon the whole exercise of predicting. The second was to actually relook at India and the world afresh and rebuild out algos and work with lower levels of prediction accuracy like we started back in 2013. We chose the later. While we worked on the Heat Map for 2021, we realized that there were additional variables that would impact investments in 2021 which we have added. These are Human Capital and New Normal Disruptions which would have an impact on how investments and investment activity in healthcare and life sciences in India will pan out in 2021. During 2020, while we were tracking the progress or containment of Covid to an endemic stage in India, we also realized that the execution of the Covid-related measures is in the hands of the States of India given that health is a State subject in our Federal governance structure and different States have demonstrated varying levels of outcomes in healthcare. My blog Sustainability of Digital Health | Kapil Khandelwal (KK) provides this insights. We have taken these into consideration to create for the first time State-wise investment Heat Map under Part 2, Hottest States to Invest for Healthcare and Life Sciences. These have been aggregated into our overall Heat Map here. Please await the release of our Part 2 shortly.

As part of our revised Heat Map for 2020 released in mid-2020, we had predicted a V-shaped recovery for healthcare and lifesciences. March 2020 was the all-time low for the markets and BSE Healthcare Index. By 31 December 2020, the index was at all-time high. With the rapid bounce back of the equity markets, the pricing and returns for healthcare and lifesciences is now not going to be sustainable in 2021, given low cost of debt in India, other supply side challenges, proactive regulations such as Telemedicine Act, National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), PLI Incentives, two leading Covid vaccine candidates.

Vaccine Race and Human Capital to Determine Investment Bounce Back

The investment for the industry for bounce back into the new normal is anywhere estimated to be around INR 120,000 crores a good chunk of this is going to be spent on the vaccination program in India. Our heatmap provides the snapshot of how the investment cycle is gearing up with increased pipeline of deals and investment flows. Markets have already recovered and factored this in their pricing.

2021 India Healthcare and Life Sciences Investment Heat Map

Based on the Heat Map 2021, we have updated our revised Heat Map of 2020 published in June 2020 with the addition of Human Capital and New Normal Disruptions. Let’s relook at the board trends for 2021 in terms investment activity and trends.

Healthcare Financing

Pay cuts, job losses, low interest rates, reduced household saving and speed for digitization accelerates the ‘India Stack’ to reach to the consumer faster with innovative consumer financing products. Innovation into financing products and services for consumer financing of healthcare will see a few more players emerge. Many existing players are reworking their value proposition and plan to provide innovative products and services thus increasing coverage in 2021. However, as new demand accelerates, risk underwriting is equally important to avoid delinquency.

2021 Outlook: Very Hot
What’s going wrong: regulation, maturity to scale, right bite for the consumers, reach and penetration, debt financing costs, slower non-discretionary and elective healthcare spend, delaying of healthcare spend
What’s going right: India stack digitisation, consumer borrowing to spend on non-electives, immediate gratification, reduced household savings supplemented by borrowings

Medical Education

Key shortages of healthcare frontline workers was very apparent during the Covid Crisis and now for the vaccination program. The need for regulatory regime to upskills is still being reworked. Healthcare could be the key job creator. Regulatory reforms are urgently required to push digitization and newer business models for upskilling existing workforce. Many of the debt servicing issues of the sector continue to persist with a few more NCLT/bankruptcy cases. A lot more exits expected and churn in ownership of assets due to consolidation activity.

2021 Outlook: Moderate
What’s going wrong: regulation, corruption, no vision, skill shortages, alignment to new age care, increasing debt burden, new age skills certification, funding dry up
What’s going right: skill demand, NCLT closures, digitisation

Med Tech Innovation and Life Sciences Discovery and Clinical Development

Focus in 2020 for clinical development had completely pivoted towards Covid vaccines and solutions and of global scale. India-Shinning moment with the two vaccines being awarded the emergency approvals has heightened investor interest in India. Investments will be selective in opportunities for Covid related therapeutic solutions. Social innovation would be the way forward. On the human capital, renewed interest of scientists to return back to India like in 2006-07 outsourcing boom.

2021 Outlook: Hot
What’s going wrong: innovation pipeline, IP regulation, regulatory bottlenecks on clinical development, newer skill sets for research and acceleration
What’s going right: Human capital, cost advantage, emerging social innovation models,

Pharma and Therapeutic Solutions

M&A and consolidation activity will spiked up. Digitisation will be a key driver in 2021 and beyond. Some social impact models to counter the bottom of pyramid need gaps are emerging. Will not get mainstream in 2021 as China substitution and supply chain issues need to be resolved urgently inspite of positive policy push.

2021 Outlook: Very Hot
What’s going wrong: price controls, policy log jam, wrong product portfolio, innovation and scale up, global or China-level cost competitiveness
What’s going right: cost advantage, distribution infrastructure, digital business models, Government incentive programs

Healthcare Providers

Funding and liquidity crisis continue after the lock down. Newer delivery models and hospitals of the future with asset-lite strategy emerge as costs build up and prices remain under pressure. Huge churn in asset ownership and consolidation activity. There will be no major action on PPP front. The telemedicine guidelines accelerate digital business models.

2021 Outlook: Hot
What’s going wrong: margin pressures, price controls, GST slabs rationalization on inputs, execution of programs on the ground, PPP in healthcare, supply and demand mismatch in micromarkets, debt financing costs, gun powder churn, operating cash runway, liquidity and working capital crunch
What’s going right: Digital business models augmentation, asset-lite models

Healthcare Insurance

Complete liquidity crisis due to moratorium of renewals till October 2020. Innovative models for healthcare payors emerge in India for the middle bulge of India Stack for the middle 500 million that are paying out of pocket. As loss ratios will further mount, insurance rate will go northwards. Innovative products and pricing still a distant reality with the regulator in India. Many of the digital healthcare insurance players have to scale back and reduce their human capital and now need to rebuild in 2021. Don’t expect any IPOs.

2021 Outlook: Moderate
What’s going wrong: margin pressures, product fit to consumer needs, product approvals, loss ratios, slow pace of innovation, operating cash runway, human capital reduction, consumer offtake and demand
What’s going right: Consumer demand, digitisation

Health Retail

Muted consumer demand and discretionary spending due to reduce disposable income will result in slower growth and GMV pick up. Valuations will be a key issue. Consolidation and acquisitions expected for some to survive and grow. VC and PE interest is still muted and reviving their commitments to those ventures that survived the pandemic situation. Consolidation activity will increase. No serious IPO expected in 2021.

2021 Outlook: Moderate
What’s going wrong: regulation, maturity to scale, slower consumer spending, operating cash runway
What’s going right: Consolidation, newer cross-vertical innovative business models

Wellness

Discretionary consumer spending on wellness to pick up due to fear of Covid. Mass market moderately priced wellness products and business model innovation is still lagging behind. Post lockdown the growth has not be pre-lockdown due to consumer intertia. However, very innovative business models have emerged for the new normal. Investment activity is yet to pick up in 2021 as most of these ventures are in infancy.

2021 Outlook: Moderate
What’s going wrong: regulation, maturity to scale, new mass market business models
What’s going right: newer cross-vertical innovative business models, Fit India

Alternative Therapies

The Babas promoting alternative therapies have been coming up with Covid related products and its controversies. MNCs and local businesses have entered in this segment affecting their market share and position. Consumers adoption to accelerate faster as these products become the only choice. In this sub-sector, we are witnessing some very interesting ideas for disruptions in the New Normal these are very much at the seed or angel investing stage.

2021 Outlook: Hot
What’s going wrong: maturity to scale, consumer education and confidence, clinical research, new product development
What’s going right: discretionary consumer spending, newer cross-vertical innovative business models

Stay Safe and Happy Investing in the rest of 2021!

What’s the Fear of WhatsApp Privacy Policy and your Fearlessness of Your Healthcare Information on Aarogya Setu?

WhatsApp Privacy Policy

The Fear, The Fake and The Facts – The New Pandemic on Chats

Monday morning when I woke up there and switched on my phone, there were hundreds of messages forwards and group chats if we should delete out WhatsApp accounts and either move the group to a new chat platform called Signal. In the fear of not losing out of the connects in my WhatsApp Groups, I also downloaded the Signal App. However two times it crashed and was not able to connect with my contacts. Over the day there were the fake propaganda being floated against WhatsApp. Let’s understand, India is one of the largest cohorts of users for any App and with over 750 million smartphones such negative propaganda to move towards open App platforms so that those who want to propagate their malicious negative agenda to the masses. These could be in the form of the following:

Communal, news written with the intention of inciting religious and communal passion
Violence, Criminal and sexual.
Integrity and Authenticity
Questionable Practices and Rituals (Occult, Blackmagic)
Bullying and Terrorism
Misinformation (bank shutdown, currency devaluation, economy)
False Health Advisories, we see an uptick in these during the Covid-19 pandemic
Spreading false information about competition
Political misinformation
Satire
Propaganda
Personal Defamation

WhatsApp has been working proactively with Governments across the world to curb this and had in fact deployed an army of factcheckers of over 10000 to do so. It is well evident that of the malice that have floated through Facebook and WhatsApp during the recent CAA, Farm Bill, Sushant Singh murder, etc which can be classified in the points above. One pertinent question that I would like to ask. Why is the backlash against WhatsApp privacy policy the peak only in India? There is nothing against WhatsApp in other countries. A point to ponder as to why and who wants to bring WhatsApp down in India just because it has acted wisely and ruthlessly against the cronies. WhatsApp India (and not WhatsApp Inc from the US) made a public statement (its an India centric issue)

WhatsApps Clarifications on the Privacy Policy

WhatsApp issued a statement to clarify their stand. These are:

WhatsApp cannot see your private messages or hear your calls and neither can Facebook
WhatsApp does not keep logs of who everyone is messaging and calling
WhatsApp cannot see your shared location and neither can Facebook
WhatsApp does not share your contacts with Facebook
WhatsApp groups remain private
The user can set their messages to disappear
The user can download their data
The company, in its blog emphasised that this update includes changes related to messaging a business on WhatsApp, which it claims is optional.

WhatsApp’s official Statement shared by The Verge:

“As we announced in October, WhatsApp wants to make it easier for people to both make a purchase and get help from a business directly on WhatsApp. While most people use WhatsApp to chat with friends and family, increasingly people are reaching out to businesses as well. To further increase transparency, we updated the privacy policy to describe that going forward businesses can choose to receive secure hosting services from our parent company Facebook to help manage their communications with their customers on WhatsApp. Though of course, it remains up to the user whether or not they want to message with a business on WhatsApp.

The update does not change WhatsApp’s data sharing practices with Facebook and does not impact how people communicate privately with friends or family wherever they are in the world. WhatsApp remains deeply committed to protecting people’s privacy. We are communicating directly with users through WhatsApp about these changes so they have time to review the new policy over the course of the next month.”

Hence the issue is not for the normal consumer. Let me also voice your concerns around the privacy policy which I have read end to end and accepted should center around the following points which you should consider and then decide if you would like to use the WhatsApp chat platform or not

WhatsApp Message Policy
WhatsApp Encryption
WhatsApp Device and Connection Policy
WhatsApp Location Policy
WhatsApp Data Sharing with Facebook
WhatsApp Ads Policy
WhatsApp Minimum Age
WhatsApp Ban Policy

Those using iOS and Android phones have you not accepted something similar when you activated your newly acquired mobile phones permitting Apple and Google. So what’s the issue with WhatsApp? They are not a phone/device company? So go ahead and read your agreement with iOS and Android/Google on your smartphones once again and compare that with WhatsApp’s Privacy policy.

WhatsApp Privacy Policy on Healthcare Data (if any)

Back in April 2020, we had engaged with WhatsApp India leadership to enable CovidBots for various states on the 108 and 104 helplines to reduce the call volumes on the command centers. We had interacted with the Government Relations, the Legal Head, WhatsApp India MD, Facebook India MD, Head of Partnerships. The first question off the bat from WhatsApp was that every Chief Minister of India was given an approved number to communicate to their citizens of their state on Covid, why a new service. The second issue pointed out by WhatsApp India was is the CovidBot similar to Aarogya Setu App. If yes, WhatsApp India would not permit such a chatbot. Now my question to all in India is, if you can provide your location data and movement to now an officially mandated Government App, WhatsApp was just not interested in allowing any of their partners to collect location data of the people of India through their platform.

The second issue around the healthcare data privacy that WhatsApp was concerned before they approved a CovidBot was protecting the identity and masking healthcare data of the masses and nothing should be allowed to go through their WhatsApp platform. As you may be aware WhatsApp is a US headquartered company and is legally bound by a much more stringent HIPPA Act which our Aarogya Setu would fail if it was implemented in the US.

The third issue with WhatsApp in allowing any healthcare chatbot was that they had to actually write and clear a global policy on healthcare during pandemics and emergency. Their global policy team at their headquarters actually. India was the first country that was approved by WhatsApp to roll out a CovidBot in the world. Then Israel and others followed.

My limited point to all the fear and fake has been that a company like WhatsApp (now Facebook) is equally concerned in allowing what is legally feasible on their chat platform through their WhatsApp for Business and Facebook handles while the local Aarogya Setu does not even meet a basic privacy filter. So why is there so much fear around your privacy?

Let me conclude by saying, when you buy an expensive high-end smartphone on Apple or Android platform, please decline their terms and condition. The expensive toy in your hand will just be a brick. Please throw that expensive brick in your hand to protest for privacy on Aarogya Setu at Shaheen Baug.

Also Read: Coronavirus in India: ‘Facebook, WhatsApp seek more data than Aarogya Setu app’ – Rediff.com India News

Era of Dual Screen Smartphones – Changing the Way We Experience Digital Health

LG Dual Screen Phone

Era of Dual Screen Smartphones – Changing the Way We Experience Digital Health

My Hands-on Experience with Dual Screen Smartphone – LG Dual Screen Phone

Finally, I could lay my hands of on an LG Dual Screen Smartphone to seriously evaluate the digital health experience on one new emerging form factor for smart phones. Here’s my journey and my views on which smartphones stake up the best.

Product Developments and Experience From the Past

In 2008-09, Intel started prototying tablets for medical applications to promote their products for healthcare applications adoption. Intel’s products though ahead of the time, were still meant that the clinicians could only use them in the hospital settings. Fast forward to 2013-14, Apple introduced its new range of iPhones and iPads. One of the start ups that I had invested and mentored used Apple hardware to promote its apps and services to the doctors. The limitations of the Apple ecosystem to allow third party Apps and integrations led us to work around with a concierge model to support our doctors. However poor quality and customer support was the final nail in the coffin for Apple as far as I am concerned in 2016. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rip-bad-apple-kapil-khandelwal

With Apple out of the way, we collaborated with Microsoft and Samsung for our healthcare Apps. The journey has been very positive. Also the collaboration between Microsoft and Samsung affirmed out belief that the future would be driven by these with the launch of Microsoft Surface Duo and Samsung range of dual screen smartphones, the whole experience from the clinician and consumers for digital health would be a shift in the new paradigm. Apple is now practically dead as it has not shown its intent to move with the times and its innovation for which it was known for is lagging behind Microsoft and Samsung. Moreover from the customer point of view the price to features provided by Apple is very high and not affordable for the masses.

We have been working with Microsoft to ship a few of their Surface Duo phones to test the whole clinician and consumer experience on digital health. While we were waiting for this, we tested out the Samsung Galaxy range. Out of the blue comes LG which launched is foldable range of phones. Recently, I got a LG phone and rigorously tested it for such experience. The table below summaries the details and my verdict.

Comparisons

Specifications	Microsoft (Surface)	Samsung Galaxy Foldable Phone	LG Foldable Phone
Display
Size	7.3 inches	6.4 inches	8.1 inches
Resolution	2152 x 1536 pixels, 362 PPI	2340 x 1080 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio, 403 PPI	2700 x 1800 pixels, 3:2 ratio, 401 PPI
Technology	Dynamic AMOLED	OLED	AMOLED
Screen-to-body	85.79 %	83.41 %	71.93 %
Hardware
System chip	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SM8150	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SM8150
Processor	Octa-core, 2840 MHz, Kryo 485, 64-bit, 7 nm	Octa-core, 2840 MHz, Kryo 485, 64-bit, 7 nm	Octa-core, 2840 MHz, Kryo 485, 64-bit, 7 nm
GPU	Adreno 640	Adreno 640	Adreno 640
RAM	6GB LPDDR4	12GB LPDDR4	6GB LPDDR4
Storage	128GB (UFS 3.0), not expandable	512GB (UFS 3.0), available to use: 461.8 GB, not expandable	128GB, available to use: 102.8 GB
OS	Android (10)	Android 10, Samsung One UI	Android 10
Biometrics	Fingerprint (touch)	2D Face unlock, Fingerprint (touch)	In-screen fingerprint
Rear Camera	Single camera, Doubles as a selfie camera	Triple camera	Dual camera
Front Camera (in the fold)	None	10 MP (Dual-Camera, Autofocus)	32 MP
Price to Spec	Very High	High	Low

My Verdict

Given the specifications above there is not much of a difference except Samsung fold has a single screen which is foldable. Dual screens allow for multiple clinical and communication Apps to be opened and hence offers very high ease of use. Given the price point at which LG has launched their foldable smartphones, the high-end clinical experience on digital health is very much affordable for the doctors and consumers alike. Personally, I have been testing my LG Dual Screen Smartphone for various digital health experience and its fabulous. So the race for the foldable smartphones has just become more interesting.

Disclaimers: The views here are personal. Microsoft Surface Duo is based on their product launch videos. Apple has been deliberately not included in the comparison as they have yet to announce the launch of their iPineapple range of foldable smartphones. My personal experience with Apple India Customer Service and Tim Crook in the past has led me to the forgone conclusion that Apple will die soon! I have already retracted all my articles, views and quotes in the media for Apple except the one mentioned here. Your reading my earlier views on Apple is at your own risk.

Estranged 2020 : My Song, My Life, My Way

A Day in the Life of KK

Estranged 2020 : My Song, My Life, My Way

2020: Early Warnings of Devastation

I started 2020 with a very positive outlook. Our investment heatmaps were indicating upswing in investment activity, term sheets in progress for investments, strong investment flows on the back of Sino-US trade blockade. By 15 March, it was clear that some Chinese bug has hit Indian shores and I started out moving back our teams to their home bases, talking to the authorities on the situation. On my birthday, just a day before the first 14-hour lockdown, I was working late in office to mitigate the risk that may be arising out of the business disruption. Then there was the forced lockdown preventing me to work from office. The start of the Financial Year 2020-21 was clearing going to be a devastating one for all due to the Covid pandemic. In the first week of April 2020, all the financial and business outlook turned negative and also I suffered huge financial losses never anticipated in my life as a result. It was a very depressing personal situation for me which I had never faced in my life. It was clear I needed to bouceback. Suffering losses is a temporary situation, letting the frame of mind to continue with being mentally ‘broke’ was just not acceptable to me. Clearly there were four key issues that I observed in Q1

the volatility and pace at which the situations changed
all plans and predictions went for a toss
there was utter chaos and no one had a clear head and view to handle the complexity and solutions to solve it
with more bad news, there was no view when things will bottom out

That’s when I started my journey of My Song, My Life, My Mantra, My Way, My Avatar.

2020: My Song

During my long walks during the first week April, I would listen to Bon Jovi’s hit Estranged, the lyrics of which went like this and my responses (in brackets)…

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Watch this video on YouTube

When you’re talkin’ to yourself (about your situation)

And nobody’s home (although at home with family in the lockdown)

You can fool yourself (that All is Well)

You came in this world alone (I am all alone fending for myself)

So nobody ever told you baby (nobody had a clue)

How it was gonna be (the lockdown and beyond)

So what’ll happen to you baby (rather be strong than helpless)

Guess we’ll have to wait and see (no way)

One, two

The nine minutes song played out the remaining nine months of 2020 of my life.

2020: My Life, My Nine Mantra

There 9 minutes of the song inspired me to write my nine mantras to bounced back and come out a winner in 2020. These were:

1. Love Thy Self: No Self Empathy

Every one in my circle of networks was very scared and required empathy. How would you empathise if you are yourself shallow and lack self-love? The toxic energy in the environment that was flowing around just was not doing good to me. I need not be a victim of this toxicity. That’s when I decided to manifest myself with a new energy and to fight the situation, I need to be stronger physically, mentally, spiritually. I started out with a healthy diet and high-end nutraceuticals, doubled up on my daily walks, increased my heart points by 3 times and started drawing on positive energy. As a result, I was over 10 kgs down in weight, much fitter and well energized positively to empathise with the people

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kapilkhandelwal_festive-covid-lockdown-activity-6734056517827354624-rpJv

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kapilkhandelwal_fitness-googlemaps-activity-6614182548820062209-J_Mn

2. Renewed Vision for My Future Avatar

My mission in life has always been how to make healthcare cheaper, better, faster. Healthcare for All | Kapil Khandelwal (KK). With my interactions and calls with our investors, there was confidence in what we were doing. In fact, we raised even more funds during May-June 2020 for healthcare investments. The critical issue at hand was what investment strategies worked in the past would work in the post-Covid era. It was time to rework and restrategise the vision for my future avatar. With the positive energies, I set fearlessly out my renewed vision with Josh, Jonoon and Jigar. My best is yet to come!

3. Focus, Focus, Focus

With the my Avatar 2.0, it was time to focus. I clearly had 24-hours in a day and many unfinished business and agendas. It was with the renewed focus, that I cut down that was not required through a VED analysis of my work load. Clearly three key agendas for focus emerged out of this which I set forth in my work, declining, regretting and pre-closing many ongoing commitments as a result. This helped me put my time to get the maximum impact and the outcomes that my new Avatar was to emerge out.

4. Build the Safety Net and Resilience

My primary responsibilities during the lockdown was to ensure that my people and their families are not adversely affected. To build confidence in my people, I build a safety net and emergency response for any eventuality due to Covid. At the cost of selling off my personal investments at a loss, I ensured that my people had food on their table and committed to my renewed vision with confidence.

5. Create Impactful Behavior and Environment

To rebuild the economy and our healthcare systems for the future, it was clear that capital and investments would be with empathy and impact along with positive investor returns. One of the unfinished business was to ensure that there was a holistic and inclusive regulatory framework for the Social Stock Exchange (SSE) in India. I had been part of the journey with SEBI from its inception and worked with our team to produce a white paper with several recommendations which is now being on the table for the final regulation.

Social Stock Exchange | Kapil Khandelwal (KK)

6. Network like never before

Other than the usual networking activity virtually during lockdown, being an investor allows you access to world politicians, thought leaders, think tanks, industry bodies, academia and opinion makers across the diaspora. My time was well spent speaking with them and gathering their take on various issues emerging out of this world crisis. Over the last 9 months, I had 1×1 with over 200 folks. I really thank them for taking their time to talk to me.

7. Guides and Mentors

I renergised my circle of guides and mentors and opened up communications where we discussed may of my fears and issues heart to heart. This provided me the inspiration for being a better leader for the emerging new world order.

8. Inspirational Leadership

With the current crisis, the model of leadership that I demonstrated is lead from the front and demonstrating everything is possible with less to do more. The constraints-based parochial leadership was passe for my people whether they were in front of me or virtually.

9. Communication and Feedback with the World

In order to guide my peers and folks in the industry, I launched a podcast series QuoteUnQuote With KK which quickly emerged as India’s leading business podcast globally. QuoteUnquote with KK | Kapil Khandelwal (KK). This platform allowed me a means to communicate to the wider diaspora and also gain feedback from the world on what they were thinking on the issues.

2020: My Way, My Avatar

When I look back what I started alone in 2010 leaving Cisco as the top-200 Executive and compare what I have emerged out of 2020, I see that my way for the last 10 years could have only taken me so far. 2020 pandemic and situation, forced me to estrange my previous avatar and reincarnate into a new avatar that will be strong and durable for the 2020s decade.

The strong motive and motivations for my new avatar will drive me forward in the new normal for the world. I thank all those who have been part of this journey in 2020 to make it possible for me.

Here’s wishing you all a healthy, wealthy 2021!