BT India@100: Pathways to India's global leadership discussed at star-studded event

India’s road to assuming global leadership in view of the ongoing geopolitical realignments was the key talking point at the second edition of BT’s India@100 summit. The day-long deliberations witnessed a galaxy of speakers comprising lawmakers and subject matter experts debate this critical theme. Nitin Jairam Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport & Highways literally charged up the summit as he unveiled the government plans for the electrification of national highways. “We have just completed a significant amount of work, including a presentation by the Tata group. We propose to install [overhead] electric cables like the ones on a railway line on the Delhi-Jaipur Highway and the Ring Road in Nagpur,” he said in response to a question.

 Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith spoke about the impact of AI on democracies, jobs across the world.

Brad Smith said, “Technology in some ways has made democracy more fragile in the last one decade. A decade ago, we all thought social media will bring democracy to the world and in 2016, we found that social media was being manipulated to spread falsehood in US Presidential elections.”

He emphasised that people creating AI services need to put guardrails in place to try as much as possible to prevent our technology to be used in ways that would undermine democracy further.  

India has the potential to achieve an impressive growth rate of 8 per cent, but to realise that the country must undertake new reforms every year, declared Borge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Highlighting that the stage was set for India to play an increasingly prominent role with its demographic advantages and other potential contributions to the global order, he said, “India has a demographic dividend which is a huge positive for the next 40 years as there will be no shortage of workforce, and if the workforce is digitally connected, and no host to operate, there is a huge opportunity.”

Rise of the Global South

Similarly, the shifting tides of global growth have brought to light a significant trend that 80 per cent of the world’s growth now originates from countries in the Global South, largely attributed to their favourable demographics. Outlining the concept of digital public infrastructure and the movement away from big tech corporations, Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa, observed, “The trend that is taking place is that there is a movement away from the big tech digitally to models which are open-source open API [publicly Available Application Programming Interface] interoperable models which allow for greater innovation and allow the private-public play, which India has demonstrated to identity banking, fast payments, etc.”

Talking about the role to be played by equity markets in achieving $20 trillion economy, Ashishkumar Chauhan, Managing Director & CEO at the National Stock Exchange said there were some issues at the exchange and the markets regulator SEBI had apprehensions but added that the exchange was trying to meet expectations as the number of stock investors looks to double or triple going ahead from the current 7.5 crore mark. “For that, whatever confidence is required by SEBI in terms of NSE processes, procedures, technology and its intentions, the day SEBI becomes more comfortable it will tell us to move forward and we will apply for the NSE listing.”

India will not only demonstrate a rapid transition to cleaner sources of energy but also emerge as a global thought leader in the area, some of the country’s eminent domain experts said during a panel discussion. Praveer Sinha, CEO & Managing Director of India’s largest integrated power player, Tata Power Co. felt that the strong foundation laid by the government had resulted in a lot of initiatives being taken by both the public and private sectors. Kamran Khan, Managing Director & Head of ESG for Asia Pacific at Deutsche Bank Group said that India offered several advantages such as cost-effective technologies, demographics and the ability to produce solutions that help in improving the environment. Vineet Mittal, Chairman of Avaada Group stated that the country not only represented a huge investment potential in green energy but also offered affordable green energy on demand. Deepak Sharma, Managing Director & CEO, Schneider Electric India, felt that besides addressing the supply side challenges, attention must also be paid to how efficiently it is consumed.

With the world at a crossroads, grappling with the dual challenges of poverty and empowerment, the different strategies need to be looked at simultaneously, said, Sven Smit, Chairman and Director at McKinsey Institute. “If you would look at sustainability alone, you could say let’s do that at any cost. But that might impede growth and impede the empowerment of people.”

Describing the rapid growth currently being witnessed in India’s civil aviation industry as ‘monumental’ Jyotiraditya Scindia, Union Minister for Civil Aviation, said that Delhi airport would be climbing up the rankings to be among the top three globally. “Delhi Airport today has a throughput capability of close to 70 million passengers. By the end of this year or early next year, Delhi airport will grow to 109 million passengers,” he said.

Boosting manufacturing

Boosting the country’s manufacturing prowess in key sectors would be the key for India to become a high-income country by 2047, when it celebrates its 100th independence, industry leaders said. Baba Kalyani, Chairman & Managing Director, Bharat Forge said, “India’s goal is to become a high-income country by 2047. To achieve the same, we need to focus on product manufacturing, especially in areas like semiconductors and medicines.” BVR Mohan Reddy, Founder & Chairman of Cyient Ltd felt that while the country had made much progress in IT, the importance of product manufacturing cannot be ignored. “The pace at which changes are happening across the world, the IT industry has to remodel and revitalise itself to cope with it and augment the rapid changes. Reskilling of the 5.6 million odd Indian IT professionals is important.”

Providing a contrarian view of the India growth story, former finance minister P Chidambaram said that India turning into the third largest economy would not make it into a rich economy given the large number of poor people in the country. “It depends on your definition of development. A middle-income country must have $10,000-12,000 per capita income, we are at about $2,500 per capita. By 2047, if we grow at 7.55-8 per cent, we could become a middle-income country,” he said, adding that at the current 5.7 per cent average rate that was unlikely to happen.

The online video gaming industry had bright prospects despite the overhang of 28 per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) on online gaming, particularly, the real-gaming segment, said industry players. The GST announcement had caused layoffs, uncertainties, and much more. But the way ahead lay in understanding how to repivot, said Trivikram Thampy, Co-founder of online gaming unicorn Games24X7. Other panelists including Rajan Navani, CMD of Jetline Group of Companies, and Ankit Mehta, Co-founder, and CEO of ideaForge Technology echoed Thampy’s thoughts and further added that technology would reshape the country in the coming times.

Current challenges, future opportunities

Experts from diverse fields also shared their thoughts on the country’s current state, challenges and potential opportunities. Ambassador (Retd.) Atul Keshap, President, USIBC averred that he preferred talking about G2, i.e., the US and India, then G3 or the US, China and India. “The focus has to be on building India-US relations,” he said, adding if one looked at developments in AI, quantum computing, defence and cybersecurity, it was clear that it was a G2 world. On the other hand, Gautam Chikermane, Vice-President, Observer Research Foundation said, “We should continue to talk about G3 because, despite the fact that China has metamorphosed into a rogue nation, countries are finding it difficult to decouple from it.”

BJP MP Jayant Sinha locked horns with Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi over India's pace of economic growth and why the country must invest substantial efforts to attain developed status by 2047. “India is currently the best-positioned economy globally. We radiate as the shining star within the global economy,” affirmed Sinha. Singhvi grounded the discourse by acknowledging the country’s current categorisation as a lower middle-income country. “At present, we find ourselves ranked 132 out of 191 nations on the Human Development Index. Our journey towards becoming a fully developed nation by 2047 entails overcoming these challenges.”

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The day’s highlight, however, was a session on Chandrayaan-3’s successful Moon landing with Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Science and Technology and a team of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists led by the national space agency’s Chairperson Sreedhara Panicker Somanath. The fact that the exchange happened within hours of Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the ISRO community at their Bengaluru headquarters, made the exchange even more memorable.

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