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The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need for holistic geriatric health care in rural India. Many older people in Indian villages suffer from chronic ailments without any relief or intervention because of inaccessible and unaffordable health-care services. This paper explores how holistic health care can be assured for older people in Indian villages.

This paper is based on reflections of the authors who have had experiences as caregivers to older persons within their respective families rooted in the Indian villages. Besides, they interacted with 30 older persons (18 males and 12 females in the age group of 60–80 years) living in the villages in three states of India, namely, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to develop a comprehensive viewpoint on the need of geriatric health care in rural India. Relevant reports, newspaper articles and research papers were also reviewed while developing viewpoints on such an important topic.

Geriatric health-care facilities in rural India are abysmal. The older people in the villages cannot leverage health-care facilities that are generally inaccessible, inadequate and unaffordable. Even the government support for medical treatment is minuscule. Furthermore, there is lack of trained health-care professionals at all levels, namely, doctors, nurses and paramedic personnel. Training opportunities in geriatrics are also negligible. The scenario vis-à-vis geriatric health care in rural India can be upturned by increasing public spending on health-care infrastructure, increasing numbers of health-care professionals and expanding training programmes in geriatrics.

This paper is based on the critical reflections of the authors as well as their informal interactions with some of the older people in the Indian villages.

COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an existential crisis amongst the companies, communities, organisations and institutions across the globe. People are facing unusual scenarios characterized by prolonged lockdowns, changes in the work from home compulsions, job losses, disruptions in the supply-chain networks, the slowdown in economies, scarcity of essential commodities and unavailability of medical services due to burgeoning numbers of positive cases with COVID-19. Death rates due to COVID-19 are alarmingly high, which complicate matters all the more. The purpose of this paper is to explore how open innovation can enable the suffering communities overcome the crisis of such magnitude.

This paper is based on general understanding and academic insight emerging out of the millennial crisis like COVID-19 that the author witnessed with close quarters.

The people’s suffering due to COVID-19 pandemic is terrific, almost unparalleled in the history of civilisation. However, the pandemic has also galvanised the people all over the world to come together and work towards collaborative problem solving and open innovation. As such, COVID-19 has presented an unprecedented situation which warrants extra-ordinary responses. The crisis has inadvertently made room for open innovation so that human miseries can be successfully mitigated by leveraging collective wisdom and traditional knowledge of the communities who are more than willing today to collaborate and make a difference in the solutions space in true sense.

This paper provides fresh insights on the rationale and efficacy of open innovations in overcoming the crisis like a pandemic. Companies across the globe have also come forward to work together with anyone, including their competitors, to explore immediate and practical solutions to the problems caused by COVID-19. The paper also provides a framework of developing as well as strengthening an ecosystem for open innovations in the world inflicted by unique civilizational crisis. The only way to get out of the current mess is to join hands for collaborations and collectively find innovative solutions to the issues plaguing humanity today.