Hope builds on visible signs of the old normal; offices start opening up

Activity picks up in restaurants, shops

A sense of optimism is in the air. The year, which started on a grim note because of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, is now beginning to hold promise. Slowly, hopefully, yet cautiously, the world around us is starting to open up. Offices, restaurants, hotels and shopping centres, all are seeing greater activity – though some more than the others.

The Indian IT sector, which was among the first to adopt the work-from-home (WFH) model and still has close to 96 per cent of its employees working remotely, given the robust tech support, is now chalking out modalities to get