A TIME OF GREAT CHANGE

India began 2021 with a vaccine, hoping to end a pandemic. Just months later, it was in the heart of a brutal second wave of cases. The year ahead brought huge change: a historic cyclone, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and a note of Olympic hope

THE COST OF COMPLACENCY

On April 26, a mass cremation of Covid-19 victims was held at Gurugram’s Madan Puri cremation ground. India’s second wave of Covid cases, which began earlier that month, was devastating. Hospitals were quickly overwhelmed, with shortages of essential medical supplies like oxygen reported across the country

SHOTS IN THE ARM

India officially began its Covid-19 vaccination drive on January 16. Over a series of phases—frontline workers, the at-risk, the 45-60s and so on—a vaccine net was slowly extended across the country. At this time, 586 million Indians have been fully vaccinated (two doses), according to the MoHFW. People queueing to get vaccinated at a drive-through facility in Ahmedabad in May

SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS

On December 6, hundreds of mourners gathered in Nagaland’s Mon district for the funeral of 14 citizens killed by Indian special forces two days prior in a series of botched actions that began with the army mistaking innocent civilians for insurgents

EARLY WARNING

Rough seas off the coast of Mangaluru in the early days of Cyclone Tauktae, one of the strongest tropical cyclones to hit India’s west coast on record. Tauktake began tracking along India’s west coast and gathering strength over May 15 and 16 before making landfall in Gujarat on May 17. Hundreds were killed, with hundred thousands displaced

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