2022 in Pictures | A look back at key events

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.