We are glad to see the confidence of the travelling public in our product safety is strong. Revenue trends give us good cause for optimism. Currently, we are flying at 80% of our pre- Covid domestic capacity and hope the government allows us to fly at 100% by early next year. International capacity is a challenge as governments have not been willing to restore scheduled service, so it could lag domestic capacity growth by 8-12 months. Long haul travel may migrate to non-stop from one-stop travel via hubs. US-India traffic is a good example of the trend; many US carriers and Air India now have non-stop flights to and from India. It is critical (for IndiGo) that we are able to deploy our full capacity, without which we are hampered by the liability of carrying unused assets. Thus, removal of restrictions on domestic travel by the Centre and states is critical for the domestic market as is a gradual opening up of international markets.

Our recent customer survey indicates an upward-moving trend in demand.  About 63 percent of our customers would take their next flight by February 2021. The recent news of the coronavirus vaccines to be available has ignited hopes for aviation and travel industries, but a great deal will depend on when a vaccine is made widely available. Travellers are increasingly displaying stronger preference for non-stop travel. Vistara is very well-positioned to offer direct connectivity to long-haul destinations, especially as more wide-body aircraft are expected to join our fleet soon.  We remain upbeat about the possibilities and opportunities in time to come.

2021 will be the year of reckoning and recovery for the airline industry. Some struggling to survive may not make it as arrears and losses are continuing to mount. Survivors will be weakened in the near-term but will eventually emerge stronger after this trial by fire. Demand will come back by midyear as more people get vaccinated, but some demand, especially business travel, will be gone forever. The Indian travel industry and regulators need to ensure that strides made in touchless and paperless travel sustain, and that old inefficient processes such as stamping of boarding passes does not come back.

I feel 2021 will be another year of careful regulation by government to ensure the survival of our Indian airlines. The big thing to watch for will be the manner in which we re-open borders to international airlines and end the “unknown to law” so-called “bubble arrangement”. Earlier, many regulations would follow what the FAA or EASA were doing (this is worldwide practice actually), 2020 and specifically because of the MAX, regulators of other countries including our DGCA, will (and should) carry out their own due diligence instead of blindly relying on the FAA and EASA.

The year 2020 has on one hand presented unprecedented challenges and on the other hand has also been transformational in many ways. Our core focus was on innovation and consumer centricity as we catered to the needs of our discerning consumers with several new launches in a span of nine months including immunity-boosting products. Taking cognizance of consumers’ increased focus towards healthy foods, immunity-boosting and hygiene products, while also seeking trusted brands with superior quality, we aim to continue leveraging our product development & digital capabilities and exploring new avenues for growth in these segments.

As COVID crisis tapers out, hopefully, in 2021, people will usher in a combination of online and offline behaviour, since they have gotten used to making purchases at the touch of a screen. Additionally, health and hygiene will continue to be the top priority for people to boost their immunity levels and ensure they minimise infection risk. People are taking extra precautions to care for their health so they do not have to visit clinics or hospitals unless it’s unavoidable. This means better food & nutrition, health supplements, and immunity boosters will continue to do well. Self-treatment products will do well too, especially for those who suffer from chronic ailments.

Nutrition and Education are two areas we have identified that consumers have become highly conscious about and are not willing to compromise. That is the reason brands like Kellogg’s which offer fortified, grain-based and nutritious breakfast are seeing a growing affinity and this will continue well into 2021.We looked at becoming future-ready by investing in people capabilities such as research, development, innovation, data analytics, digital marketing and supply chain agility. All of this would help us to cater to changing consumer, shopper & customer behaviour.

After a dismal performance in Q2 FMCG industry moves into a positive growth space. Bharat (small towns & rural), north zone & small manufacturers will drive growth. Consumer’s preference for affordable offerings continue. Innovation with new products launches will continue dominated by health & hygiene categories.

India continues to be an under-penetrated country when it comes to life insurance. We hope introduction of a standardized term product will help address this and make insurance more accessible to the masses. We also hope there will be support from government to reduce goods and services tax (GST) on pure term insurance and make it more affordable - this, we believe will help increase pure term cover which will be a social good. The government and regulator have been supportive in terms of leveraging technology (e.g., video KYC) improving customer's experience and we should see such tech-based processes becoming more prevalent

The general Insurance sector faced a lot of uncertainty during the last calendar year with frequent natural calamities coupled with impact of Covid-19. This has brought a lot of learnings for us, which I believe will be the focus areas of the industry going forward. These learnings include being future-ready for the unknown and for customers with relevant offerings to take care of them, strengthen distribution models, simplify claim processes and more importantly work with government to increase penetration of insurance by introducing insurance schemes to cover property, incorporate the missing middle-income group under the ambit of health insurance.

For life insurance, product innovation will be key, as there is need to pivot to more relevant solutions and propositions for unique segments we serve. For protection offerings, I expect industry to not only improve outreach by targeting wider customer base but also serving existing customers using newer platforms. We have been speaking a lot about digital as there has been forced virtualisation of consumer operations. The industry has enabled employees and sales digitally, but now I see acceleration in use of digital to reach customers directly and using data and analytics to fine tune propositions. It’s time to drive penetration deeper through virtual mediums.

The pandemic has increased awareness about health Insurance and its importance across all age, income and geographic segments. We are likely to see a stark increase in adoption of health insurance in 2021 and many years to follow. We expect retail health insurance to be the growth driver of the Indian insurance industry. The coming years will witness a variety of innovative disease-specific plans, out-patient and wellness products. Payment of premiums in instalments will boost the accessibility of insurance to all.

Demand recovery in steel has happened very well. Inventories in JSW Steel are down by 2.5 lakh tons. Overall in the country, steel inventory has reduced by 3 million tons. There is optimism the trend will continue in 2021. Globally, even as production inches up, prices will hold strong and that is because of production unevenness. This year, China's production was higher YoY, but for rest of the world, volumes were lower. The net difference was reduction by 31 million tons. Next year, while rest of the world will increase by 10%, China's will stabilise. Overall, steel production could rise by 4% in 2021.

2020 witnessed unprecedented challenges due to world's biggest health crisis but Indian economy bounced back because of its resilience. Months preceding Q2 GDP results demonstrated that after initial blip activity picked up and has been a relief. Although Q3, Q4 FY2021 are expected to remain negative, they will see steady improvement. Apart from automobile, infrastructure and construction activities are reviving. Automobiles, in particular, have seen positive run in recent months but systemic issues remain. Extension of PLI scheme for automobile will boost investment and production, helping steel industry, as automobile is one of the key segments. For the New Year’s demand push, much will depend on government spending, which has slowed down significantly. Infrastructure projects’ implementation will increase steel demand and attract foreign investment. Private investment needs a fillip

We expect recovery to continue next year, supported by greater consumer confidence due to vaccines, pent-up demand and government investment in infrastructure and construction. De-carbonisation remains key challenge facing our sector and we believe demand for sustainably produced green steel will grow. In fast developing countries like India, steel consumption and production will continue to grow. There is, therefore, urgent need to reinvent steel sector through de-carbonisation. We see massive opportunities to do this through greater recycling, renewable power and breakthrough technologies such as hydrogen. For India, this means developing an effective decarbonisation policy.

The demand for stainless steel is linked to GDP growth, and India is expecting a V-shaped recovery after Covid-induced woes in first quarter. A lower-than-expected contraction in Q2 GDP indicates economic recovery is on track. Going by this momentum, we hope India will resume growth by March 2021. With significance presence in sectors like construction), auto, energy, and applications like razor blades, and coin blanks, demand for stainless steel is evergreen. Upcoming segments like medical & healthcare, defence & aerospace are fuelling demand. Next year will be crucial for Jindal Stainless. We are evaluating organizational re-structuring of group companies to realize greater synergies and maximise shareholder value.

In 2021, we expect to see more growth-oriented ECM activity based on issuers’ capex funding needs, supported by positive market fundamentals, good liquidity and stable investor sentiment. If offshore listing guidelines are put in place, it will be a watershed moment for India ECM and hopefully drive more cross-border listing activity. With valuations and aftermarket performance holding up well this year, we expect a constructive environment for robust deal flow across sectors next year

The sectors likely to see issuances could be healthcare, real estate & FIG. The product mix will see more IPOs as compared to CY2020 which had higher proportion of Blocks / Rights/QIP/OFS. We expect the hunt for yield to continue, and hence instruments like REITs and InvITs from quality issuers will continue to find favour with investors. Subject to anticipated regulatory changes, tech/internet segment firms may tap the market slightly earlier than anticipated.

At least the first half of 2021 should continue to see hectic deal activity in the public equity markets, with continued focus in the consumer, healthcare and chemicals sectors. In the second half, we may see several Indian consumer internet and fintech companies looking at accessing the public markets - there is already news of Zomato moving ahead with its proposed IPO - and we expect several other Indian internet companies to follow suit.

Sectors that continue to gain post pandemic and those beaten down making a correction to evince investor interest such as speciality chemicals, pharma, healthcare, technology and select financials/real estate. Investors could add dividend stocks/InvITs in search of yield. ECM will also have mega listings in the financials and non-traditional tech/consumer internet space as adoption drives profitability. QIPs from sector leaders looking to expand and for inorganic activity as the agile hunt for the fragile

In 2021, one of the key shifts will be learning in-the-flow of work which makes more sense in today’s dynamic digital age. With WFH and workplace learning trends embracing technology on larger scale, emerging technologies are transforming businesses and approach towards learning and development. Live or bootcamp style learning programs will be the answer to skilling and learning continuity for working professionals. With everything settling online and remote, time is now for holistic skilling model from edtech companies that can complement professionals to succeed in burgeoning competitive work environments. Additionally, organizations and professionals will have to focus on building niche skills that would become inevitable for business continuity.

Stakeholders are increasingly focusing on developing the right skills to address the growing skill gap in various sectors in the context of changing industrial landscape defined by new-age technologies and disruptions caused by COVID-19. The focus going ahead will be on having an importance on the learning aspects for skilling with live classes which have been seen to contribute to course completion and smaller batch sizes which contribute to a better level of interaction and learning.

Arrival of the unprecedented pandemic made professionals, organizations, and offline institutes switch gears and accept online as a new viable option to operate, resulting in acceleration of digitization. Such evolving circumstances also created a range of new jobs requiring knowledge of new-age skill-sets, leading employers to look out for talent with domain expertise rather than plain vanilla industry professionals. Therefore, it wouldn't be wrong to say that 2020 has been heavily dominated by technology, and this will continue in 2021. Demand for such industry-driven learning solutions will further propel adoption of e-learning among workforce and students and accelerate overall growth of skilling sector in coming months.

Digital transformation across industries has further been fuelled by the pandemic, shortening the skill shelf-life and transforming how we work and learn. Businesses are building a modern workforce agile enough to learn new technologies in the fast-changing knowledge economy. The workforce is under tremendous pressure to build the skills required for the fourth industrial revolution and is turning to online learning platforms for valuable skilling opportunities. Content in digital and technology skills and hands-on learning such as guided projects continue to have strong demand.