2022 in Pictures | A look back at key events
The Hindu
As the spectre of COVID-19 receded for most of 2022 only to resurface globally towards the fag end, the year was mostly about winning back the old normal
Offices and schools made a phased transition to hybrid and full physical mode, people stepped out of their homes in masks and then without, and the wheels of economic activity started spinning against the tide of growth pessimism. Chennai even hosted the Chess Olympiad in July, a first for India and in Asia after three decades.
The hustings, a lifeblood of our democracy, regained their vigour in States and local bodies as the Bharatiya Janata Party defended a new citadel in Uttar Pradesh and an old one in Gujarat. As the electoral map shrunk of the principal Opposition party, Congress, its former president and still presumptive leader set out on a nationwide foot march whose political dividends only the future would tell.
The year had its share of tragedies, some the wrath of nature such as cloudbursts in Kashmir and floods in Assam, some a mix of ecological and human factors such as the Bengaluru lake breaches, and the rest purely man-made.
Through it all, what shone through was the resilience of a billion-and-a-half people. The Hindu’s lensmen captured all the high points of a year of cautious recovery.
While residents are worried over deaths due to diarrhoea in Vijayawada, officials still grapple to find the root cause. Contaminated drinking water supplied by VMC officials is the reason, insist people in the affected areas, but officials insist that efforts are on to identify the disease and that those with symptoms other than diarrhoea too are visiting the health camps.