How To Create A New India

Oct 24,2017

How To Create A New India

24 October, 2017
by BW Online Bureau

The eminent speakers at the India Economic Summit 2017 spoke around various dimensions about shaping a new and better India
When thinkers, leaders and top politicians come together, a plethora of ideas are discussed. And the India Economic Summit 2017, which was held in New Delhi from the October 4-6 and organised by World Economic Forum in association with Confederation of Indian Industry, was no different. Over the course of three days,various informative sessions were held, with panellists which included renowned policymakers, business heads, civil society and various other stakeholders.

BW Businessworld presents highlights of the discussions and talks held during the Summit.
The eminent speakers at the conference spoke around various dimensions about shaping a new and better India
The Need Of The Hour
In a session titled ‘Building Blocks for the New India’, India’s crippled infrastructure and the cost that it imposes on society and the inclusive agenda was discussed with Srivatsan Rajan, Chairman of Bain and Company moderating the session.

Dimensions discussed included defining new means of public-private collaboration, leveraging diverse funding mechanisms and harnessing new technologies and innovation. “It always feels like demand is outstripping supply by a wide margin. How can one gain confidence that there really is forward planning on the what and where of infrastructure decisions?” asked Rajan, to which Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General of the CII, said, “Land clearances have been a cause for delay for many projects, and these delays are the main reasons for the demand supply gap. India being federal in structure, we see state governments having different bunch of rules and clearance processes.”

“Many people have told me that urbanisation in India is slow, but it’s unfair to compare it to the urbanisation in highly developing countries,” said Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (IC) for Housing and Urban Affairs in response to a question by Rajan.

Textile production in India contributes 4 per cent of GDP and 15 per cent of exports and is one of the largest generators of employment, yet Indian textiles lack export competitiveness,” said Daniel Moss, Global Economics Writer, Bloomberg View, the moderator of a session titled ‘Weaving a Better Future’.

Facilitating access to global markets and supply chains, preserving Indian traditions, skilling, reskilling and up-skilling the workforce and innovative solutions to unlock global opportunities for Indian products were discussed here. “Textiles is the second largest employer in the country after agriculture. We have a structure which not only generates employment, but creates entrepreneurs,” said Smriti Zubin Irani, Minister of Textiles.  “I have seen how much of a difference a huge investment in the composite structure makes in a region, which needs it. The ownership of a composite mill can revive culture, generate employment, create entrepreneurs and empower women,” said Irani adding that textiles story is “not a story that can be said in one particular silo, but in various silos. Expansion of textile entails expansion of retail services”. Speaking about India’s cultural heritage, Fabindia’s MD William Bissell, said, “India’s cultural assets are the most underleveraged out of any country in the world. We have tens of thousands of cultural assets in our country. The best place in the world is India for this transformation.”

Optimal Water Use
In another session called ‘Water-Secure India’, issues related to how India can harness emerging innovations to rethink approaches to water, sanitation and hygiene challenges were discussed, with Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog as the moderator. Managing water risks in supply chain, improving trans-boundary water management and scaling urban water and sanitation, were some of the issues discussed in this session. Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary, Drinking Water and Sanitation, said, “Swachh Bharat is one of the biggest behavioural changing campaigns in the world. Water is a security issue. You can look at it from a resource management perspective, and the other from service delivery perspective.”

  “A lot of work done by state governments is a command area sort of work, which is big projects and infrastructure, but somehow it never reaches the farmer,” said Kant. Amarjit Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources of India, said “We are trying to have a national aquifer mapping programme. Let the communities make decisions on how the water is to be managed.”

Environment Is, Indeed, Mainstream
Global climate politics, and India’s potential leadership in the climate change movement were discussed in the session on ‘Leadership in the Paris Agreement’. It was moderated by Nikhil Kumar, New Delhi Bureau Chief, CNN International.

“Who will fill the void in terms of leadership now that the US has withdrawn from the Paris Agreements?” asked Kumar, to which Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water said, “It was clear in 2015 that India is going to be an enabler of the Paris Agreements. I actually find the narrative that there is a leadership vacuum a bit skewed. Paris Agreements showed that there is diffused climate leadership”.

“I think the youth in India would demand a cleaner environment … it is becoming a mainstream issue now,” said Vineet Mittal, Chairman of Avaada Group, adding that “the renewables sector is not only good for the environment, but it also creates millions of direct and indirect jobs.”

The Art Of Spiritual And Mental Well Being
A multitude of sessions took place over the course of three days at the India Economic Summit. The eyeball catching ones that spoke of the mind, its workings, its unravelling and changing life narratives were particularly interesting. Sadhguru, Deepika Padukone and Duke University’s Neuroscientist and Psychiatrist Murali Doraiswamy alluded to mental well-being during their respective sessions

Heal Your Mind

Barkha Dutt’s conversation with Deepika Padukone and famed neuroscientist

Murali Doraiswamy on mental health was timely with World Mental Health around the corner. With 36 per cent of Indians who are or will be depressed at some point in their lives, as many as 1,34,000 killing themselves every year, Dutt spoke of the irony of how many still see mental health issues and depression as some sort of self-indulgence.

Padukone has not kept her battle with depression a secret. It is because of her candor around the subject of her own suffering that there has been a mammoth rise in awareness around mental health issues in India. Through her foundation, Live, Laugh Love, Padukone raises awareness on mental health issues by training doctors, educators and students on mental health issues. It is through sensitisation that future generations won’t be afraid when faced with the beast.

‘Think Collaboratively’
A delightful session with BBC reporter Yalda Hakim in conversation with yogi, mystic, visionary bestselling author and founder of the Isha Foundation, Sadhguru, was by far the most jam-packed session.

The conversation revolved around the fundamental values of openness, collaboration and trust being under threat and how to empower humanity and look forward to a positive future. Central to Sadhguru’s narrative was his belief in the concept of “an Inclusive community.” He urged people to think collaboratively and view people as people and not a marketplace.

On hardening of attitudes and identity politics:

Sadhguru expressed that he had noticed that people are becoming sick of political correctness and hopes that in the future people will vote based on individuality and not on identification with family, community cast creed groups or religion. “Only then democracy will succeed, or it is feudalism in the garb of democracy. And if it is feudalistic then naturally everyone’s position hardens.”

On spirituality:

Spirituality means when your experience of life transcends the limitations of your physical nature. Then, we say you are spiritual in nature. This element of spirituality where we are able to transcend our own boundaries and see ourselves as one and within is what he believes will help businesses as well. It is the “limited identification” problem that leads to problems in leadership.

Deciphering The Brain
In a closed session on Day 3 of the event Murali Doraiswamy, neuroscientist and psychiatrist from Duke University spoke on unravelling the mystery of the mind. Doraiswamy runs a lab that does clinical trials of new discoveries.

According to Doraiswamy, “Unravelling the mystery of the mind is the core of the fourth industrial revolution, which is a cognitive revolution. The better we can know how the brain functions, the better we can translate that into all kinds of skill sets, whether it be early childhood brain development, high school educational pedagogy, corporate leadership skills, development of smarter AI systems. These all, ultimately if left unchecked, translate into some of the most serious and threatening diseases, such as mental health issues like Alzheimers/neurological and other mental health disorders which account for leading causes of disability in the world.”

Doraiswamy considers the unravelling of the mysteries of the brain one of the most under-talked and understated race of our times. Today many countries such as the US, Europe, Switzerland, Japan and China have started mega projects to understand the brain. In fact, Baidu, the Chinese company has heavily invested in the field of neuroscience because they believe in the potential of neuroscience in the field of AI and robotics. India has lagged behind a little bit but there are longitudinal studies, which are underway now.

It was interesting to know that entrepreneurs are taking note. For instance, Elon Musk has started a company called Neuralink where he directly wants the brain to link to the Internet with a mesh. Doraiswamy explained how crucial the fourth industrial revolution developments in neuroscience and neuro-technology are going to be. It seems the more we learn about AI, it is evident that it will spill over into every field.

Doraiswamy spoke of this spillage with dark undertones with “neuro-war” being the next big thing, where we are not going to be killing each other with physical drones, but will be killing each other with brain altering substances or through neuro-weapons.

The Growth Story
Six-hundred and fifty global leaders from business, government, civil society, arts and culture, science and academia, united at a common platform to echo a common sentiment—‘India’s changing narrative’.
The World Economic Forum’s 33rd India Economic Summit, held in the heart of the capital, witnessed strong voices with climate change, India’s cultural renaissance, infrastructure, tourism, skills and economic reforms — including demonetisation and the goods and services tax — featuring high on the agenda.
The forum came at an interesting time, when India’s economic lustre dimmed for the quarter with GDP falling to as low as 5.7 per cent.
While the new schemes and reforms initiated by the government were hailed by the majority of the private industry leaders, the ministry on the other side of the table called for joint participation and patience for the same to reap full benefits.

India Inc. reposed their faith in the India growth story, from Bharti Airtel’s Sunil Mittal to Adi Godrej to Mastercard’s Ajay Banga.  Terming the current slowdown, a short term blip, the fundamentals of the economy remain strong with intact growth potential

Big Bang Reforms
Unusual but real, a session accused government of being too fast in introducing big bang reforms. Referring to the big bang reforms in last one year including demonetisation, introduction of goods and services tax, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant asked private sector to gear up. “People on the other side of fence challenge bureaucracy to accelerate growth and accuse government of being too slow. I think private sector and industry is now unable to cope-up with the speed of reforms while they were the ones asking for them since many years,” he said. The government has a long term vision and the objective is to grow rapidly. “We cannot become a $10 trillion economy with half of the economy has black (economy)…We cannot grow with several layers of taxation…We have made structural changes with the vision of next two to three decades.”

Kant also said that people are fed up of sloth and lethargy and they expect the bureaucracy to speed up reforms even if they cause disruption. “We need to bite the bullet. We need to take tough decisions if we want to grow at 10 to 12 per cent instead of mere 7 per cent,” he said.

At a public dialogue organised by St. Stephen’s College Alumni Association, earlier in the week, Kant said, “We have been growing at 7.6 per cent... There has been a little bit of dip in the economy but we are bouncing back. This month’s figure seems to be good.”

Pick The Ticket That Suits Your Business
The event also discussed the challenges that the Indian economy is facing — one was of valuing Indian products in global arena.
The bigger question posed was what if WhatsApp was an Indian company, would it be able to attract valuation of $19 billion? “Not at all,” the meeting room reverberated. “We are creating far better products with far better technology, but India is facing a perception problem,” said IT and Industries Minister K.T. Rama Rao.
So how do we make things better for India? “Sell better. We need to outsell. We must be able to market our products better. It is no more about making a world class product but also about articulating,” Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of the country’s largest mobile wallet company said. The forum extended an opportunity to entrepreneurs like Sharma to share their journey. Ever since demonetisation put Paytm on the map, the digital payment company has kept itself on the radar.“I feel good to hear that Paytm was the single largest beneficiary due to the move of demonetisation. It was open for everyone, by the way…,” he said with a pinch of sarcasm. After making “Paytm Karo” or “use Paytm” the new buzz words, he feels that businesses should pick the ticket that suits them. Sharma sampled Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali and their way of promoting the brand. “You must know which card your business should pick on. Ramdev picked ‘swadeshi’ card and it worked for them,” he pointed. When asked if the startup culture was all about replicating the models working in the western market? Sharma said, “Maybe or may not be”. He further added, “It is not about cracking a business model but the secret lies in execution.  Replicating a business model from a US-based company may not prove worthy in India. In the US, you target about 20 million to 40 million consumers and in India, you have to deal with the base of 200 million to 300 million users.”

Towards A Stable India
In one of the key sessions, ‘India Economic Outlook’, Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, defended the low growth rate by stating that other long-term reforms were working alongside. “5.7 per cent is still a strong number. All our macro stability numbers have dramatically improved. We are sitting on more than $400 billion worth of foreign exchange reserves, the current account deficit for the last financial year was below 1 per cent, and inflation stands at 2.5 per cent average. Yes, growth has slowed down but we have introduced major long-term reforms for stable growth,” said Sanyal. 
The government is “shifting India fundamentally to a different kind of economy, a rule-based, trust-based economy”, according to Sanyal. He pointed out that the government anticipated that its reforms like GST and demonetisation would have unintended, short-term consequences but the long-term outlook for the economy would be more promising. “Since this is a feedback and policy-based system, the problems created by GST implementation are well understood and the feedback is taken from SMEs, exporters and they are being fixed,” said Sanyal.

Towards A Cashless Society

Demonetisation should have been done differently,” said Sanjiv Bajaj, Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv, India, referring to the “negative mood” that the reforms caused and to lingering questions as to whether it reduced India’s shadow economy. However, Bajaj added that business leaders appreciate the government’s boldness because getting India on course for 9 per cent GDP growth rates could not happen with tiny, incremental reforms.

“I think we should go slow … and let GST take its course,” said Adi B. Godrej, Chairman of The Godrej Group, India. Godrej added that he believes the tax will be beneficial for the economy in the long term and would change the very fundamentals of the Indian economy. 

Moving towards ‘Digital India’, Piyush Goyal has been on the forefront pushing for digital and therefore, a corruption free India. “If we as a country insist on a bill for whatever we purchase, and if this message goes down the line, we will move towards a formal economy and then nobody will hesitate to pay by cash,” said the minister, who also mentioned that ‘persuasion’ works better in India as compared to ‘regulation’, when it comes to transitioning the economy towards digital path. 

Striking a similar note, Ajay Banga, CEO, MasterCard spoke extensively on the wonders of a cashless society. “Declining Cash to GDP is not an emerging market phenomenon. Most of the economies in the world are cash-driven to a level of 80-85 per cent like Germany or Japan, due to various reasons like infrastructure, culture and others. The only countries in the world where cash is smaller is Korea and the Scandinavia due to their enlightening government policies, which India is taking the cue from,” said Banga.

Off The Beaten Track
The event was just not about the business community. For a change, the audience welcomed a session where Bollywood film-maker Karan Johar spoke about business and economy. Johar believes that just as movies speed up after the interval, the Indian economy too should accelerate in the second half of the current fiscal.

The Indian economy may have slowed in last two quarters but it is still growing and so there is no space for pessimism, he said during one of the sessions at the event. “I feel strongly that the interval point in cinema is a great point. We all know that in second half of most cinema things speed up. That’s my feeling for Indian economy,” he said.

“There is a certain glass half-empty, half-full syndrome that we (Indians) suffer from. We need to see both perspectives,” Johar added.

Here there are so many negative and pessimistic voices about the economy,” he said. “In Europe they are hoping… their economic growth is flat and not negative.” The economy, he said, would grow at 6.7 per cent as opposed to previously projected 7.3 per cent, according to RBI. “That’s still not flat, we are still on our way up. And I feel very strongly that just like our films, our narrative is dramatic, sometimes melodramatic.

Ease Of Doing Business

In one of the most powerful panels, the bureaucrats running the most significant sectors of India, came together to deliver the answer to one simple question:  How will the Indian bureaucracy transform itself to translate this vision into action and is the government moving too fast for the bureaucracy to catch up?

“India has crossed its inflection point somewhere in the recent years. There are exploding aspirations and the government has taken charge. Therefore, the pace is justified. The bureaucracy has to do much more with due diligence and so do the private sector,” said Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), India.

Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, Industrial Policy and Promotion, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of India elaborated that the government and bureaucracy need to move even faster to bring radical changes in the country, even if it causes short-term disruptions.

“We need to do much more in order to combat the kind of challenges India faces. We do not have ease of doing business, good tax policies, unskilled workforce. When we talk about government moving too fast, you need to see huge magnitude of work that still needs to be done. We need to go faster.”

Adopt Best Practices Of Skilling
One of the biggest challenges that stare the economies in the world is automation, jobs and re-skilling. Union Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Dharmendra Pradhan admitted to the reality of automation, innovation and mechanisation taking over formal jobs in the next few years but insisted that such challenges have existed in India for centuries.

Pradhan said India needs to adopt best practices of skilling world-over and there has to be some clarity about India’s “education system.”

“We have to create an ecosystem of respective living, which is technology-savvy, transparent, sensitive and responsive,” said Pradhan in an intriguing panel, ‘Collective action towards re-skilling India’ with the top leaders in the country.

Top Leaders Who Attended The Event

Suresh Narayanan, CMD, Nestle; Shobana Kamineni, President, CII, Sanjiv Bajaj, MD, Bajaj Finserv; Ajay S. Banga, President & CEO, Mastercard, USA; Sunil Mathur, CEO & MD, Siemens; S. Gopalakrishnan, Co-Founder & Former CEO, Infosys; and Vijay Shekhar Founder, Paytm