US Commerce Secretary at the World Economic Summit in India on Thursday said he believed India would be able to sustain a "balancing act" between small retailers and international e-commerce giants like Amazon and Walmart. Union Minister Piyush Goyal said India was not opposed to e-commerce but needed to protect smaller firms, and that the spirit of the Indian law was to protect small retailers, couldn't let them fall.
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3.58 PM: It is important to see how our students apply what they learn, says Deputy PM Heng.
3.55 PM: With regards to Singapore's new law to target fake news and concerns over its impact on free speech, Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance of Singapore, said: "We are entitled to our own opinions, not our own facts. If we want to improve the quality of our discussions we have to base them on facts."
He also noted that citizens need to be digitally educated so they can determine between what is fake and what is not.
3.50 PM: With regards to Singapore's new law to target fake news and concerns over its impact on free speech, Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance of Singapore, said: "We are entitled to our own opinions, not our own facts. If we want to improve the quality of our discussions we have to base them on facts."
3.40 PM: "I think TikTok is an interesting phenomenon," says Nilekani.
3.39 PM: "I am very hopeful that the pace at which it picks up is a question of time. What I worry about is that it's equitable. We don't leave people behind in this revolution," says Premji on the spread of technology in India
3.35 PM: "Will use of tech and AI make people redundant and I thaink that's very negative way of doing it. And I think a lot of backlash you are getting is because of that. It's about amplification of human capability. It's about using technology to amplify people, get their potential going," says Nilekani.
3:29 PM: "Technology can be hugely powerful to enhance the capacity of the teacher to enhance her capacity to deliver better students," says Premji on using technology in education.
3.17 PM: "The IT services industry has evolved dramatically, from being enterprise-focused, to being customer-focused. There's a huge opportunity for these new-age technologies to drive a very strong design-led thinking that is customer-centric," says Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji.
3.15 PM: "Individual Indians will be data rich before they are economically rich," said Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani during the "From Digital Divide to Digital Dividends" session of WEF's India Economic Summit.
1.40 PM: Wilbur L Ross: "We upgraded India in defence, this was a deliberately done. Vietnam is a good example of a country which has picked up certain sectors and they are working on it now. Part of what developing countries can do is to look at certain sectors and work on them to be competitive and to get results."
1.36 PM: Sunil Bharti Mittal, Bharti Airtel Chairman: "Look at India (FB, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat) all are dominate in India now. This means that a lot of money of going to US. These are all large US companies'. Many of us have invested in US, we are warmly treated there. India is not developed we are developing and US by virtue of being a world power needs to understand us more and help us."
1.35 PM: Rubana Huq, Chairperson, Mohammadi Group Ltd: "Vietnam is the country that has benefited a lot from the China-US trade war. Bangladesh doesn't have GSP from the US. Bangladesh has the issue of labour rights, which is more perception driven than anything else. Bangladesh is growing but we need a lot more."
1.30 PM: Piyush Goyal: "Amazon may have over invested earlier that is why they are not cutting on investment in India. But I am reiterating that there isn't any policy change from India's end. We need to make sure Indian consumers have money and jobs before they can go out and invest."
1.20 PM: Wilbur L Ross: "President Trump has gone out of his way to have a good relationship with PM Modi, it has never happened before in US."
1.00 PM: Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said that India's stand on the issue of high tariffs on US products and regulations concerning e-commerce companies was very clear and that the "spirit of Indian law" was to "protect small retailers".