This new-year day is significant. It signals not only a beginning — that of another mint-new year — but it also signifies an ending — the end of the first quarter of the 21st century. The last 25 years of the present millennium have, unsurprisingly, witnessed unprecedented changes in the realms of global polity, economy, environment, science and medicine, and culture. For instance, American hegemony is being challenged by a resurgent China. The consequences of this new ‘Cold War’ are being felt in corners of a multipolar world. Another worrying development has been the rise of ‘authoritarian democracies’, with liberalism, challenged by immigration and identity politics, being on the retreat. That force or a triumphant show of force, as opposed to quiet diplomacy, is now seen as integral to international statecraft corresponds to the shrillness of today’s global politics as well as raging conflicts.

Another prominent realm of revolution has been technology. The century that began with the advent of smartphones has now galloped to usher in transformative — and disruptive — technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. The nexus between Big Tech and the State is also causing significant changes not only to the shape of politics and governance but also to the pivots of the labour economy. On the economic front, the world witnessed the ascendancy of the emerging market and development economies — India, one such EMDE, is now the fourth-largest economy in the world — as well as steep crises: the dotcom bust, the global financial meltdown, Covid’s crippling of the world economy as well as festering inequality. The environment, in the meantime, is being pulverised by climate change and the response of the comity of nations to this existential crisis remains shockingly inadequate. The first quarter of the 21st century was also a mixed bag for medicine and science. Gene editing, AI-enabled interventions and immunotherapy are now the new frontiers of treatment even as the world struggles to eradicate itself of older contagions like malaria. The culturescape, too, is now unrecognisable from, say, what it was in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology and personal media consumption have caused paradigmatic shifts in cultural norms and consumption patterns.

A glance at such a wide range of human activities in over two decades throws up, quite naturally, a dizzying array of changes. Nonetheless, a common trait is discernible. The key feature of the last 25 years of the new century has been that of seismic shifts that have challenged and, in most cases, dismantled the old order of things. The task before the world and India in the coming decades is to harmonise these transformations with the civilisational ethos.