How did the Pandemic change the whole world? | Flashback of 2021 Highlights

Flashback of 2021: Today is the first day of 2022.

And 2021was the year that would be beyond belief for most of us and brought many learnings.

Here we would cover the biggest events of 2021.

1st Jan 2021: Things are starting to look up. The USA has started vaccination & India too will start soon. The number of new cases of covid-19 is falling sharply and the markets have touched all-time highs (Sensex is around 47,000).

12th Jan 2021: Tesla sets up his office in India – some Indians were impatiently looking forward to it.

16th Jan 2021: Vaccination starts in India with frontline workers being the first to be eligible.

25th Jan 2021: News of new variants discovered in South Africa and Brazil is spreading very fast. This is the newer variant of coronavirus that is being discussed and being looked upon as a threat.

27th Jan 2021: Byte dance (parent company of Tik Tok )shuts its India office after the app was banned in 2020.

28th Jan 2021: GameStop short squeeze takes place. Hedge funds are caught off-guard.

1st Feb 2021: Budget is presented in the Parliament. It is generally well-received. Markets close over 4.7% up.

7th Feb 2021: Covid-19 new cases number bottom out at around 8,500 cases. At this point on, the numbers go up for the next few months.

24th Feb 2021: An infrastructure-related glitch leads to a 4-hour halt in trading on NSE. SEBI later identifies the cause & rectifies it as per complaints of many brokerages.

26th Feb 2021: Markets fall almost 4% in a single day as fears of the new covid variant which is spooking everyone.

The markets dipped sharply in the next few weeks due to the same delta variant of coronavirus.

1st March 2021: Vaccination starts for senior citizens in India and for those above 45 years of age.

8th March 2021: Maharashtra and Karnataka government reduce the stamp duty charges to encourage real estate business.

8th March 2021: A critical message delivery failure takes place in the country, and the result is in many important transactional SMS like OTP not reaching the users.

22nd March 2021: The government decided to increase the gap between two doses of Covishield from 4 weeks to 8 weeks.

25th March 2021: The sharply increase cases of coronavirus were reported. It is almost clear that the second wave is on its way in India as WHO said already.

29th March 2021: The ship blocking the Suez Canal is finally free allowing for cargo ship movement to restart.

1st April 2021: The Indian government announced the vaccination for everyone above the age of 45 years starts.

5th April 2021: Single-day of covid -19 cases reported at 1.03 lakh cases – these are the cases higher than the highest 1-day cases which are reported during the 1st wave.

15th April 2021: Citigroup announces that they will shut their banking operations in India.

The second wave of covid -19 occurs in India, the Indian stock markets remain more or less stable with Sensex hovering a little below the 50,000 mark - no major fall observed despite the second wave.

29th April 2021: The fund managers to receive 20% of their pay in the form of units in mutual funds they manage as per SEBI new guidelines.

1st May 2021: The Indian government announces that vaccination for all above the age of 18 opens up. And in the middle of the second wave, there is a severe shortage of vaccines.

6th May 2021: 4.14 lakh of coronavirus cases are reported in a single day. This is the highest single-day case reported ever. The cases start falling down soon after this.

13th May 2021: The vaccine dose gap in the case of Covishield is increased from 8 weeks to 12-16 weeks.

1st June 2021: India Meteorological announces 2021 will see above-average rainfall in the monsoons.

10th June 2021: Around 1 lakh cases of covid-19 are reported in a day - only about 1 month after 4 lakh cases are reported.

1st July 2021: Covishield vaccine gets a green pass for Indians - travel to Europe.

7th July 2021: The central government reshuffles the cabinet and 43 new ministers take the oath.

13th Aug 2021: Highest ever export from India in a month is reported - $35.43 billion in July.

23rd July 2021: Zomato IPO gets listed at 52.63% gain, which is a monuments day as a homegrown tech start-up enters the Indian stock markets.

29th July 2021: The fears about the 3rd wave start doing rounds as nearly 50% of all new cases are reported in Kerala.

5th August 2021: The government of India announces nullifying retrospective taxes - an issue that had deeply affected Vodafone and Cairn.

In the meantime, the demand for cars and bikes had climbed back up sharply but the companies were struggling to meet the demands.

The chip shortage issue that started last year was still not resolved. As of writing this at the end of 2021, it’s still unresolved with orders piling up at carmakers.

9th Sept 2021: Ford India announced that a major restructuring of its India operations which involves stopping car production in India.

13th Sept 2021: Jet Airways announces its plan to restart its operations in the first half of 2022.

5th Oct 2021: Moody’s has upgraded India’s rating to ‘stable’ in the stock market.

8th Oct 2021: Tata wins the bid for Air India.

11th Oct 2021: Akasa Air gets the approval to start the operations.

21st Oct 2021: Indian government announcing administering a total of 1 billion vaccine doses.

3rd Nov 2021: Covaxin, which is the only widely administered vaccine that was developed in India gets approval from WHO.

15th Nov 2021: The first-ever parliamentary level meeting on cryptocurrencies takes place. As the government’s stand on crypto has been unclear and decided to ban all private cryptocurrencies in India.

10th Nov 2021: Nykaa listed on the Indian exchanges with a 79.38% gain. The IPO was oversubscribed 82 times.

18th Nov 2021: Paytm listed on the Indian exchanges with a 9.3% loss. It is the biggest IPO ever after coal India.

Tech IPOs are a relatively new concept in India. With these few IPOs, retail investors are learning about and warming up to the tech start-up scene brewing in India.

29th Nov 2021: The new variant of covid-19 called Omicron is discovered in South Africa and starts spreading alarm as the number of mutations is incredibly high. Also markets the world over the tank in fear.

9th Dec 2021: Inflows into equity mutual funds start reaching higher levels as many investors start feeling confident about investing in the mutual funds.

25th Dec 2021: Prime minister Mr. Narendra Modi announces the booster dose for frontline workers and children above 15 years of age.

UP government has imposed a night curfew (11 pm - 5 am) in the state

30th Dec 2021: The Delhi Government also imposed the night curfew (10pm-5am) in the state.

Sensex started the year at around 48,000. Right now, and it’s around 57,000 - up by around 20%.

Snapdeal has filed preliminary documents for an IPO to raise ₹1,250 crores.

+Over 60% of the eligible population of India has been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, As Union Health Minister Mr. Mansukh Mandaviya mentioned.

Nobody knows what the future holds for everyone.

But looking at how the past unfolded and gives the ideas that help us to prepare for the future and also gives us hope

And the Indian stock markets have proven to be far more flexible than many of us thought. They do make you smile when you least expect from the market.