Piyush Goyal Minister of railways and coal, India attended the EconIndia Summit 2018 in Mumbai. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty 25-10-18, Mumbai)
The India Summit 2018, whose subject this year is “States of the nation”, witnessed politicians cutting across party lines; business leaders and policymakers speak on the role of individual states in driving the national economy and social agenda. The event, which began at 9.30 am at Trident Nariman Point in Mumbai, saw Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman address how the Centre and state governments could coordinate in strengthening the nation’s security parameters.
On the question of an alleged scam in the Rafale deal, Sitharaman said defence procurements are complicated, complex and consuming and they can remain opaque and as a result of it, suspicious. She also said that Congress has been “brazenly” misleading the nation despite being totally aware of the rules in the Rafale deal.
Later during the day, Union Minister for Railway and Coal, Piyush Goyal addressed the event at 4 pm and spoke about different projects undertaken by the Indian Railways. He said that his mission was to electrify the entire network which is one of the largest railway networks in the world by 2023 and to reduce emission. Watch the event LIVE here.
deleting_message
deleting_message
"Any sort of protectionism is not good in the long run. It creates uncertainties. The current tariffs wars, [we hope], will pass. It has already impacted the world GPD by 0.2%" - Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman, Aditya Birla group
Aditya Birla group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla speaks on 'How important are the states in doing business in India'. He is in conversation with The Economist South Asia bureau chief, Max Rodenbeck and this address is the last event for this year's summit.
'An exciting project that I'm working on is the mission to electrify 100% of Indian Railways by 2023. Nearly 40% has already been electrified supporting 65 to 70% of the traffic. In the next 10 years, I hope to make the Indian Railways emission-free, with absolutely zero contribution to the environment causing pollution,' Piyush Goyal on the upcoming mission that he plans to undertake for one of the largest railway networks in the world.
"We have to set aggressive deadlines, challenge ourselves and monitor the work. We can do great things in infrastructure in the country," says Piyush Goyal for infrastructure development.
Piyush Goyal commented on BJP's vision for infrastructural growth in different parts of the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"The Victoria Terminus building in Mumbai will develop in stages- one is the facade of the building and the next is to convert the building into a three-floor museum. The ground floor has already turned into a museum, we are trying to restore the old glory back to the building." -Piyush Goyal on the development work of the Victoria Terminus railway station building.
'My dharma is that I want to live in a world where every child is free and fearless. I will knock every single door to make this happen,' says Kailash Satyarthi, founder, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation at the summit. Casting light on the number of children who do not have access to education, Satyarthi said, 'We live in digital economy/knowledge economy. But 60m do not go to school. 200m could not complete primary education. Education, poverty, child labour makes a vicious circle.'
Next event is a keynote interview with Union Minister Piyush Goyal at 4:00 pm.
"According to World Bank and UNESCO, one additional year of schooling in any developing country gives a return of 0.37% of additional GDP growth. With 10 years of education, the growth would be 4.5%" - Kailash Satyarthi, founder, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation at the event
Kailash Satyarthi Children's foundation founder Kailash Satyarthi who is also a Nobel Prize winner will be seen in a fire chat with The Economist India correspondent, Alex Travelli. The chat is scheduled to start at 3:20 pm.
“The government’s role is to bring in policies. For instance, CSRs moved from the backrooms to boardrooms, once the government mandated it," commented Richa Bajpai, founder Goodera.
V. Ramgopal Rao: People say that our we do not rank among the top 100 educational institutions in the world despite being one of the best in the country. I would like to say that our research impact scores 90 out of 100 in the world. Our electrical engineering course ranks among the top 49 across the world. But we score a zero in when it comes to foreign students, foreign faculties and R&D. The government has given us an opening on the first two fronts, while we will have to more relevant on the R&D.
Watch LIVE here
"Our education system has not kept pace with the industry. Our investment in science and technology has decreased significantly. Only 6% of the engineering graduates are getting the work which could justify their degree."
-CP Gurnani, Managing director and chief executive, Tech Mahindra
Shashi Tharoor: India will only be able to utilise its demographic dividend only if we equip our young population with the right skills.
Watch LIVE here
The upcoming session will be 'Empowering the Young', with Shashi Tharoor, Lok Sabha MP, CP Gurnani, Managing director and chief executive, Tech Mahindra, V. Ramgopal Rao, Director, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Chetna Sinha, Founder and chairperson, Mann Deshi Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation, and Laurel West, Managing director, content solutions, Asia, The Economist Group, being on the panel.
It's lunch time at the summit. The session will resume at 2pm. The next session will be 'Empowering the Young', with Shashi Tharoor, Lok Sabha MP, CP Gurnani, Managing director and chief executive, Tech Mahindra, V. Ramgopal Rao, Director, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Chetna Sinha, Founder and chairperson, Mann Deshi Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation, and Laurel West, Managing director, content solutions, Asia, The Economist Group, being on the panel.
"The kind of work that has been done in the last 3-4 years has not been done since the last 40 years that I have been in service. We have made complete saturation of close to 7 schemes from electrification, education, employment in the most aspirational districts of India and we then ranked them based on around 49 indices. These areas have improved significantly. The questions like nothing has changed on the ground level is generally raised by those intellectuals sitting in the five star hotels of Mumbai and Delhi who do not know the ground reality themselves."
-Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive, Niti Aayog
"The revenue of the state will be higher if they ease the doing business is improved for the investment already made. I believe the exploitation has been done with the investments which were already in place."
Anand Kripalu, Managing director and chief executive, Diageo India
"In the last few years, we have scrapped a number of rules. We have eliminated 1200 laws. We’ve tried to digitize everything."
- Zarin Daruwala, Chief executive, Standard Chartered Bank India
99.3% Indians pay their income tax returns online. GST is all online. Digitisation is cutting away human intervention will make India a more efficient economy.
-Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive, Niti Ayog
Watch LIVE here
The Centre is very encouraging towards the improvement of ease of doing business atmosphere in India. But the implementation comes from the state level which can vary based on their population interests.
"The gap in India is how do you use your youth that is not educated. If we focus on getting the textile, and leather industries moving, we can create jobs for the unskilled workers."
- Zarin Daruwala, Chief executive, Standard Chartered Bank India
"If the eastern part of India starts doing well in the ease of doing business, then India will grow substantially as these are the mineral-rich states," Amitabh Kant, Chief executive, NITI Aayog
Sitharaman: The opposition has been asking questions and we have been answering them. We are not running away from such questions. Reliance was the partner with Dassault during the 2012 MMRCA deal. The deal changed due to their family issues, one brother got some sectors and other got some. It is up to Dassault who it wants to choose as a partner in India. Congress fully knows the rules which were framed during their period. They are misleading the nation brazenly on Rafale.
Watch LIVE here
Nirmala Sitharaman: Defense procurements are complicated, complex and consuming. They can remain opaque and as a result of it, suspicious. Prime Minister’s insistent of keeping everything transparent has changed things.
Sitharaman: We have already applied the integrated command in the security forces in Andaman and Nicobar. We are hoping to move in this direction gradually so that the assets that we have from defence ministry can be better utilised.
Sitharaman: Russia has been an ally of India for over several decades and India has also been procuring equipment from the US from some time as well. India keeps its options for acquiring resources very varied.
Nirmala Sitharaman: I am happy that the Americans are able to understand that India has to be strong. America renamed their Pacific Command as the Indo-Pacific command much before the 2+2 dialogue.
Watch the LIVE here
Union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will address The Economist India Summit 2018 at 11:30 am. In a dialogue with Max Rodenbeck, she will discuss on the topic 'Focus on defence: how the national government, states and territories can work together for the country’s benefit'.
Watch the event LIVE here
The first session has ended. A short question and answer session, 'Ask The Economist: Mr Modi’s reforms—a tentative scorecard', has started.
Watch it LIVE here
Godrej on unemployment: We always look at the industrial sector to improve the employment in the country. Rather we should look at other jobs like those of teachers, lawyers and doctors where there is an acute shortage of people.
Adi Godrej: If you draw a longitudinal line crossing through Kanpur, you bisect the country into two halves. The per capita income of the people in western region would be almost double of the ones on the eastern end. We need to put more attention towards the eastern states to drive the incentive needs of the economy.
Watch LIVE here
Nilanjan Ghosh: This consumption led growth has been very organic in India, much in contrast to China. What has happened in the last 15 years and will happen in the years to follow would be that we won't be needing any central impetus to reach that level of public consumption. We are moving up on the ease of doing business. Services are driving the growth this time.
Adi Godrej Chairman, The Godrej Group, Nilanjan Ghosh Senior fellow and head, economics, Observer Research Foundation attended the EconIndia Summit 2018 in Mumbai. (Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty 25-10-18, Mumbai)
Godrej: We happen to be the fastest major economy in the world now. This government has introduced many free enterprise and growth-oriented policies. Now we have reached a stage whereas income increases, people's consumption of all goods goes up.
Max Rodenbeck, South Asia bureau chief, The Economist, will conduct the first session of the day 'Compete to Grow' along with Adi B. Godrej and Nilanjan Ghosh
The India Summit 2018 summit has started. India correspondent for The Economist Alex Travelli is addressing the event. Watch the event LIVE here