At the height of the SARS crisis that hit East Asia in 2003, the Health Minister of Vietnam, Madame Tran Thi Trung Chien, told me, “Mr. Indu, we can catch crabs only during low tide.” Vietnam being largely a coastal country, she had very cogently contextualised Churchill’s famous quote, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

The country — indeed the world at large — is facing the century’s biggest crisis. Countries across the development spectrum are grappling with an unprecedented situation in which a viral illness, COVID-19, has spiralled into a global pandemic in less than 90 days, bringing most of the world to a standstill.