Horasis India MeetingVirtual Event, June 22, 2020

a Horasis leadership event

Co-host:Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)

Report

© Horasis

2020 –All rights reserved

The publication was prepared in cooperation with IE University, Madrid, Spain.

The statements quoted in the publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions ofHorasis and IE University. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in anyform or by any means.

Inspiring our future

Upcoming Horasis events:

Horasis Extraordinary Meeting Virtual Event, 1 October 2020

Horasis China Meeting Yerevan, Armenia, 25-26 October 2020

Horasis Asia Meeting Kitakyushu, Japan, 29-30 November 2020

Horasis Global Meeting Cascais, Portugal, 5-8 June 2021

Horasis India Meeting Binh Duong, Vietnam, late June 2021 (exact dates tbc)

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Horasis India Meeting Virtual Event, June 22, 2020a Horasis leadership event

Co-host:Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)

Co-chairs:Mukesh Aghi President and CEO, US-India Strategic Partnership Forum, USABinod K. Chaudhary President, Chaudhary Group, NepalAshish Chauhan Chief Executive Officer, Bombay Stock Exchange, IndiaTejpreet S. Chopra President & Chief Executive Officer, BLP Group, IndiaPriyanshi Choubey Co-Founder, InstaCar, IndiaDinesh Dhamija Chairman, Copper Beech Group, United KingdomShea Gopaul IOE Special Representative to the UN, USAKris Gopalakrishnan Chairman, Axilor Ventures, IndiaPrakash Hinduja Chairman Europe, Hinduja Group, SwitzerlandAsha Jadeja Trustee, Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation, USAHemant Kanoria Chairman, Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited, IndiaRajive Kaul Past President AIMA; Chairman, Nicco Group, IndiaSanjay Kirloskar Chairman, Kirloskar Brothers Ltd; President, AIMA, IndiaHank McKinnell Chairman, Moody’s, USASunil Mehta Chairman, YES Bank, IndiaRekha M. Menon Chairman and Senior Managing Director India, Accenture, IndiaRakesh Bharti Mittal Vice Chairman, Bharti Enterprises, IndiaVineet Mittal Chairman, Avaada Energy, IndiaR Mukundan Managing Director, Tata Chemicals, IndiaSunil Kant Munjal Chairman, Hero Corporate Services,IndiaNasser Munjee Chairman, Development Credit Bank, IndiaT V Narendran President-Designate, CII; CEO & Managing Director, Tata Steel Limited, IndiaRajan Navani Vice Chairman, Jetline Group of Companies, IndiaVineet Nayar Co-founder, Sampark Foundation, IndiaHarshvardhan Neotia Chairman, Ambuja Neotia Group, IndiaDilip Piramal Chairman, VIP Industries, IndiaPreetha Reddy Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals, IndiaC K Ranganathan Founder and Chairman, CavinKare, IndiaMurat Seitnepesov Chairman, Caspian Week, SwitzerlandAnish Shah Deputy Managing Director & Group CFO, Mahindra & Mahindra, IndiaHarsh Pati Singhania Vice Chairman and Managing Director, JK Paper, IndiaGunjan Sinha Chairman, MetricStream, USASumant Sinha Founder and Chairman, ReNew Power Ventures, IndiaRon Somers Founder and Chief Executive Officer, India First Group, USADeborah Wince-Smith President, United States Council on Competitiveness, USAFrank G. Wisner Under Secretary of State (ret.), USA

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Horasis India Meeting Virtual Event – 22 June 2020

Strategic Partner:Caspian Week

Co-organizers:All India Management Association (AIMA)

IE University

Oxford Analytica

CII Supporting Partners:Hero Insurance Broking

Mahindra & MahindraTata ChemicalsTata Steel

Supporting Partners:Global Schools FoundationKPMGPublicizeRun The WorldThinking the Unthinkable

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Table of Contents

Foreword 6

Summary 9

Morning sessions

Digital Breakfast Sessions– Social entrepreneurship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9– Frugal innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10– Managing funds post-Covid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10– The new manager’s text book . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12– India’s investment policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12– Bollywood & entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13– Gender inequality in Covid times . . . . . . . . . . . 14– Indian start-ups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15– 5th Industrial Revolution– Sustainable Development Goals

Plenary: Brainstorming with CII– Industry delivering solutions locally and globally . . 16

Plenary:– Managing uncertainties after Covid . . . . . . . . . . 17

Parallel Sessions– The Covid realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17– Boosting India’s Infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19– Rural administrative capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20– Future of Indian banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21– Mobilization of manufacturing to combat Covid . . 22– The wake-up of impact investing . . . . . . . . . . . 22– Changing future of work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24– India’s new normal after lock-down . . . . . . . . . 25– Digitally Elevating India’s Population Dividend . . . 25– Punjab

Plenary– India – Opening again for business . . . . . . . . . . 26Plenary– Vitalizing Global Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27– Karnataka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Plenary– Deepening India’s transformation . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Parallel Sessions– Caring for others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29– Engaging India’s diaspora post-Covid . . . . . . . . 30– Rapid digitalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30– Strengthening international institutions . . . . . . . 31– New leadership in the twenties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32– Relaxing global constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33– Preparing for the next pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . 33– Supply chain evolution post-Covid . . . . . . . . . . 34– Fuelling India’s Conversion into Modernism . . . . 35– Uttar Pradesh

Afternoon sessions

Virtual Lunch Plenary– Climate change commitments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Plenary– India and global economic outlook . . . . . . . . . . 37

Plenary:– Learning from Covid in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Parallel Sessions– India’s inclusive growth strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . 39– Co-developing Asian regions post-Covid . . . . . . 39– Learning from global Covid exposure . . . . . . . . 40– Testing, tracking and treatment of Covid . . . . . . 41– Possible austerity after Covid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43– Supporting cross-boundary entrepreneurship . . . 43– The new role of youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44– Targeting politics post-Covid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45– Envisioning Indian Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45– Maharashtra

Parallel Sessions– Next big issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47– Reforms in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48– Quest for green energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48– Supporting new education ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . 49– Building smart cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50– India’s technological thrust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51– Strengthening VC capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52– Vaccination availability post-Covid . . . . . . . . . . 52– Future of Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54– Repairing Damaged Societal Values

Plenary– Post-Covid: Repositioning Capitalism . . . . . . . . 55

Plenary– Post-Covid – Repositioning Lifestyles . . . . . . . . 56

Closing Plenary– India’s Hope for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Virtual Closing Dinners– India and South Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59– India and Central Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60– India and Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61– Geopolitical Challenges and Opportunities . . . . 62

Virtual Receptions– A Roadmap for India’s Transition– Young Horasis Visionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63– Our World in 2030– Announcing the 2021 Horasis India Meeting

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Foreword

By Frank-Jürgen Richter, Chairman, Horasis, Switzerland

Horasis welcomed everyone in this time ofglobal stress to its first virtual meeting: the12th Horasis India Meeting. This virtualmeeting – held on Horasis’ new ground-breaking digital conferencing platform – washosted by the Confederation of IndianIndustry (CII), together with many otherpartners from India and the world. As forin-person Horasis meetings, the virtualmeeting attracted more than 420 speakerswho were joined by 1,500 additional par -ticipants who registered (digitally) fromaround the world to listen to the sessions.

The past year has become more and moredifficult, not only for India, but for allnations. There were several reasons – butby far the greatest was the unique Covid-19virus against which we do not carry anyanti bodies: there is no specific remedialtreatment and as yet, no vaccine. Also, glo -bally, we had seen protectionism rising thatgreatly affecting interconnected economiesby disrupting supply chains. Currently, theIMF is predicting a negative growth of 6 per -cent in advanced economies through 2020;possibly rising to +4.5 percent in 2021 withemerging economies doing considerablybetter at +6.6 percent.

Personal isolation, either government im -po sed or self-administered has disrupted allhuman activity from agriculture to finance.Many individuals have attempted to workfrom home and may even continue so to do.But mass activity normally requiring closecontact – manufacturing, hospitality, traveland even sports – have all been halted andwe are apprehensive about resuming. As theepidemic falters, governments and commerceare looking to rejuvenating their operations:

and it upon these subjects the meeting con -centrated. Our host, India, discussed how itmanaged its pandemic response – closingdown the nation from March 24th andhalting all transport, with individual Statesreacting differently. This was a special stresson millions of Indians who looked to therailways mass transport to travel to placesof work. Halting trains left workers in thewrong place, as it were: but it was neces sa ryto isolate the nations’ vulnerable. Karnataka,as one instance, formed a 30,000-volunteernetwork mediated by a strong digital pre -sence to support its vulnerable, mitigatesocio-economic distress and to combatfake news. B. S. Yediyurappa, Chief Mi -nister of Karnataka expressed the hope thatthe industrial and economic climate wasbound to improve in the coming months.

Indian Minister of Railways and Commer -ce & Industry Piyush Goyal noted how heenvisages the future of railways as a basicinfrastructure and the need to extend itsperformance. He noted in this meeting howwell India has, until Covid, developed itseconomy, along railways that shifted foodand fuels from fields and ports to factoriesand consumers. The Minister looks for inte -grated growth. In a similar vein V.K. Singh,Minister of State for Road Transport and

Minister Piyush Goyal speaking about how to open India again for business

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Highways, explained that the Government ofIndia will mitigate the effects of lock-downand embrace the best of the opportunitiespre-Covid. He also highlighted India’s in -creasing partnership with Africa in a virtualpanel with Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou,Minister and Special Advisor to the Presi dentof Niger and Lucia Lipumbu, Minister ofIndustrialization and Trade, Namibia.

In the future, as T V Narendran, President-Designate, CII; CEO & Managing Director,Tata Steel Limited noted, India Inc will en -gage more fully with other nations, forgingstronger regional alliances as well as helpingto develop its IT, AgriTech, and healthcaredelivery of pharmaceuticals and vaccines –sectors in which it already has a strongglobal presence.

Amongst the many foreign dignitaries whospoke at the meeting Armenian PresidentArmen Sarkissian’s views attracted par ti -cular attention as he called for a fundamentalrevitalization of global governance. ‘Post-Covid global challenges are increasinglyconnected, but multilateral responses aregrowing more fragmented,’ he said. ‘Weneed more global dialogue. And we need torule globally yet keep local laws local,’ heconcluded.

The 12th Horasis India Meeting, even thoughvirtual, presented vigorous discussions forall to learn about the future positioning toredevelop global growth and equity for all.In the closing Plenary Sunil Mehta, Chair -man, YES Bank, India noted the difficultiesof financial liquidity that was disturbed byCovid, but he expected that several econo -mic sectors would return to viability in thenear term, and which would generally beprepared for the next ‘black swan’ event.Dilip Piramal, Chairman, VIP Industries,India noted how many industries globallywere at risk of bankruptcy further suppor -ting Mr Mehta that firms need to manageliquidity: once out of Covid the future looksbrighter. Prakash Hinduja, ChairmanEurope, Hinduja Group, added that betterhealth in India and globally will engagecommerce, and India will recommence itsgrowth and development pattern. Frank G.Wisner, Under Secretary of State (ret.),USA noted how the relationship betweenthe US and India is one of convergence, butit depends on patient close attention togeopolitical stressors.

Special Address by Armen Sarkissian, President of Armenia, chaired by Frank-Jürgen Richter

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On behalf of Horasis, I would like to thankpersonally all delegates for their efforts incontributing to the constructive dialogueas a cornerstone to inspire our future. TheHorasis India Meeting was a unique ex pe -ri en ce which would not have been possiblewithout the dedication and enthusiasm ofour partners from India and the world.Please find detailed coverage of all the panelsand plenaries in the Summary of the Mee tingwhich was compiled by IE Uni ver sity – itholds many clues to changing the world forthe better, and I hope it inspires you.

I wish that we all can influence decisionmakers to take personal responsibility todrive the future to be more sustainable,better governed, and less divisive. I hopetoo that you will be able to attend the2021 Horasis India Meeting in Vietnam.

Keynote speech by B. S. Yediyurappa, Chief Minister of Karnataka V.K. Singh, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, India

Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways and Minister of Commerce & Industry, India and CB Banerjee, Director General, CII

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Summary

By IE University

Co-hosted by the Confederation of IndianIndustry (CII), The Horasis India Meetingwas held on 22nd June using its new ground-breaking digital conferencing platform,gathering 400 of the most senior membersof the Horasis Visions Community to jointlyinspire India’s future. Horasis India Meetingtook an in-depth look at both the short-termand longer-term impact on the Indianeconomy.

Digital Breakfast Sessions

Social Entrepreneurship: Overcomingthe Negative Impact of COVIDIndia is known for its vibrant social enter -prise sector. Many social entrepreneurs arecontinuing and intensifying their work asCOVID has brought to fore new social chal -lenges, such as increasing social isola tion,migrant workers’ problems, and challengesto the informal sector. The discussion onsocial entrepreneurship mainly focused onthe role and ability of social enterprises toremain sustainable and survive the pandemic.Dhirendra Shukla, a professor fromIIM-Udaipur, mentions how for-profitsocial enterprises have been affected andare struggling to organize their revenuestreams. Organizations with wide scope arebetter able to cope up with the situationthan the ones present in the niche segment.He believes, ‘Whenever such a crisis comes,we will have to learn and innovate very fastto survive, but we also need some institu tio -nal support not only from the governmentbut from the entire community.’ But weneed to think about the possibility of howthe balance between the social and com -mer cial mission of the organization can beim pacted in the pursuit of financial sur -

vival. Moving forward, Manas Satpathy,Member of the Board, Pradan, India,shared some views on how the situation ishindering the collection of donations as wellas the personal interactions with the needyto understand their pain points. However,even with the challenges, the situation hasbrought various stakeholders together andmade them more efficient. Adding to thepoints of previous speakers on financialsustainability, Megha Jain, AssociateDirector, DASRA, India, says, ‘In general,the NGOs are always talking about scalingup, but this is the first time that the pan de -mic is pushing us to think about contractingour programs.’ She also mentions how theCSR funds will eventually be affected due tothe slow economy, but the positive outlookon this is that a lot of philanthropists arerising for common good, and individualsare coming forward to provide some flexiblefundings. Vijay Pratap, Founder, and CEO,Ekgaon Technology, India stresses the pointthat more than the government, social en ter -prises, NGOs, and individuals are the onesthat majorly provided relief in the situation.With such talks on sustainability, SattaiahDeverakonda, CEO & MD, Basix, Indiamentions that it is important to take theemployees in confidence and spread posi -tivity to relieve them of any psychologicalpressures, which are highly possible in suchconditions. Finally, a discussion between thepanelists takes place on how the situationhas affected both the rural and the urbanarea and how it has become important tothink for long-term plans to rebuild Indiaand prepare for a better future. Also, thedifference between the rural and urbanshould subside and development in the ruralarea should increase for the betterment ofthe larger population.

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Frugal Innovation in a Post-Covid IndiaSiddharth Poddar, Managing Partner,StoneBench, India, opened the conversationon Frugal innovation by introducing him -self and the panelist. He facilitated a healthydiscussion starting by asking the panel whatfrugal innovation means to them.According to Gurvinder Ahluwalia,Founder and Chief Executive Officer,Digital Twin Labs, USA, there are 3 mainbiases when it comes to frugal innovation– first one related to people, talent, andmindset. Second, linked to honest appraisalabout oneself and third, risk resources andoutcomes that are in sync with the costsin volved in innovating frugally. SuketSinghal, Group Chief Executive Officer,Secure Meters Limited, India, continued thediscussion by saying and I quote, ‘The mostcritical thing is that the world has changedbut we don’t know how it has changed.Each of our businesses need to change’.

According to Suket Singhal, Group ChiefExecutive Officer, Secure Meters Limited,India it is important to value time as that iskey in investing for this change as well as thecosts involved in bringing about this change.Noel Akpata, Chief Executive Officer,Stratex Pro, Nigeria, said that COVID-19has brought a lot of challenges to the world.Besides the health challenges, we are also

facing economic challenges. Additionally,COVID-19 has instigated fear amongstpeople and this has led to economic un -certainty. Developing countries contributea lot to the bottom of the global economicpyramid and they are the hardest hit by thispandemic. There are opportunities to lookforward to in terms of digital innovationbut at the same time, there is uncertainty.That is when frugal innovators come to play.Clas Neumann, Senior Vice Presi dent,Fast Growth Market Strategy, SAP, China,further added that there are two aspects ofuncertainty – one related to the digital worldand the other related to offline businesses.There are many interesting examples ofdigital businesses who have been flourishingduring this pandemic but at the same time,there are so many businesses suffering hugelosses as well as uncertainty about the future.

Managing Funds in the Post-Covid EraSpeaking on managing funds post-COVID,Prakash Mehta, Partner, Akin GumpStrauss Hauer & Feld, USA opens theconversation saying ‘Carlyle leader hascorrectly said in 2000, sovereign wealthfunds probably represented a trillion dollarsin our industry whereas US state pensionslike the CalPERS in the world representedten trillion and now fast forward 20 years our

Frugal Innovation in a Post-Covid India

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assessment is that sovereign funds whetherthey’ll be from the Middle East or Asia orNorway and Scandinavia that this group ofinvestors would represent to 20 trillion’he also states how emerging markets likeIndia would be a relevant place to invest in a low-interest world like now.

Peter V. Rajsingh, Partner, AlternativeInvestments, states how COVID has been a catalyst for revealing excesses and macroimbalances that have been building up in theglobal economy from the crisis of 2008.He also talks about the geopolitical risksand decoupling of China. He speaks aboutthe Non-performing loan situation in Indiaand how this is a great opportunity as thereis a visibility to turnaround. He points outabout supply chain disruption and how Indiacould take advantage of this opportunitynot in the near future but in the long term.

Ravi Chachra, Chief Investment Officer,Eight Capital, India says that they are cur -rently looking at opportunities where onecan model out a cash flow even in a COVIDenvironment He says ‘Our posture is verydefensive and in general we are looking forshields rather than swords in our portfolio’.Neeraj Bharadwaj, Managing Partner,Carlyle, India, states that for private equityits is a great time to invest as they are suited

for environments where short term volatilityexists as they look at long term growth.He tells us how at this time the number 1initiative is to keep portfolio companies &workers safe and maintain liquidity situa -tions in portfolio companies. He says thatthis year they have invested maximum capitalin India and are being aggressive but at thesame time cognisant of deal structures andsectors. He concludes by saying the volumesof new investments in terms of privateequity will drop significantly up till the yearending March 2021 but the following yearthe investments will double or triple withappropriate caveats.

Sasha Mirchandani, Managing Directorand Founder, Kae Capital, starts his con ver -sation by saying ‘Post march we realizedcash is king. We found that 70 to 75% ofour companies had cash for 18 months andwe needed to get it to 24 months’ He tellsus how most venture capitalist funds arecoming to the edge but not investing. Healso states how they are over-communica -ting with entrepreneurs and LPS. He tells usthat Ed-tech and health tech have opened asbig opportunities in the short term for VCsbut they are also not overlooking othercategories like B2B Commerce.

Gurvinder Ahluwalia, Founder and CEO, Digital Twin LabsNoel Akpata, CEO, Stratex Pro, Nigeria Clas Neumann, Senior Vice President, Fast Growth Market Strategy, SAP

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Not out of the Manager’s Textbook: Coping Post-CovidDuring the Not out of the Manager’sTextbook: Coping Post-COVID discussion,Parag Amin, Chief Mentor and FoundingDirector, iCreate, USA, stated that 30% ofbusinesses are going to vanish by next year,and the remaining 70% will hold the beliefthat, ‘Our employees are going to be farmore valuable assets than just our customers’.Sunil Kanoria, Vice Chairman, SreiInfrastructure Finance Limited, India furtheradded that people must now work at theindividual, organization, and governmentlevels, create new business models, reskillemployees and understand new policies todiscover opportunities. Build a workspaceinfrastructure with suitable technologiesand business models. Working with thegovernment at this stage business can createa lot of job opportunities in the market.

Rajiv Lall, Chairman, IDFC Bank, Indiasaid that maintaining customer’s trust andscaling it through technology is essential.Prashanthi Reddy, Executive Member,Bombay Management Association, India saidorganizations need to look at a way forwardfrom this pandemic. Steps to move ahead isto understand the change in culture at theworkplace, partners, and retain talent.Adopting technology security at the work -

place and business is necessary, and it is abusiness opportunity for various partnersin the ecosystem. Rakesh Murali, Co-founder, Stratonik, India said, organizationshave started to adopt technology in theworkplace in this crisis; this is one of theright things. People began working fromhome, and their productivity is gone up.However, the corporate culture needs to bemaintained. ‘This is a reform situation, keepyour peripheral open for new opportunitiescoming from far away.’

India’s Investment PolicyDiscussing the policies India can make tostrike the balance between protecting Indianindustry while attracting inward investmentand FDI, Hindol Sengupta, Vice Presi -dent, Invest India, during a discussion onIndia’s Investment Policy, stated that thefundamental change occurring in India is‘Transforming into a Digital First country’where the use of digital technology per co -lates into the grassroots such as paymentsystems, agriculture with the state playingonly an enabling role. India needs to build itsMSMEs and that will happen only if we liftsome barriers. He added that ‘Monopolieshave never really worked in India’ and ifmonopolies seep in, then there will also beother partners coming in. He clarified that

Parag Amin, Chief Mentor and Founding Director, iCreate, USA Alan Rosling, Co-founder, ECube Investment Advisors

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Data Protection Law is in progress and willnot be done overnight. Alan Rosling,Chairman, ECube Investment Advisors,suggested that India now has the historicopportunity to attract FDI in manu fac tu ringsince China may lose its market share inview of its economic condition, trade war,virus, etc. The government should take careof the cost disadvantages that it has placed onmanufacturing business and the sectors notaddressed in FDI policy such as insurance,retail, etc. He was concerned about themonopoly enjoyed by companies like Jiowith significant resources and Partnerships.India needs a pro-consumer competitivepolicy. Viren Joshi, Chief Executive Offi -cer, Sigma Electric Manufacturing Corpo ra -tion, USA, added that ‘The world is lookingfor alternate supply chains’ and India is wellpositioned, but the question is ‘Is Indiawilling to take that challenge?’. India needsto sign new FTAs and strengthen the existingones. Impose import substitutions to help theSMEs grow. India should focus on makingthe manufacturing sector lean and com pe -titive. Moon Jerin, Founder, Doctrina,Canada, said that with the new geopolitical

changes, India should focus on Pharma,space exploration and satellite industry.She dis agreed with India taking a protectio -nist policy with MSMEs. Data Protection isa huge thing all over the world and we haveto take it seriously to make India morecompetitive. We have to let the FDIs comeinto India to prepare the next generationfor a different kind of economy instead ofplaying in a very local market.

Bollywood – Entertainment and Community Support The coming of COVID has also affected theentertainment industry across the globe.While talking about the negative headlinessurrounding the Bollywood industry both preand post-covid era, during the discussion onBollywood – Entertainment and CommunitySupport, Priya Samant, Impact Advisor,and Director, Sequoia Technologies USAquoted, ‘‘arts imitates life, and life imitateslife’ when expanding.’ Rajshri Deshpande,actor and activist, pressed about awarenessas the single key to overcoming such chal len -ges. Nitesh Tiwari, a prominent Indianfilm director, talked about his personal ex -perience of film writing during quarantine,and how con-call has become the newnormal. Siddharth Roy Kapur, Founderof Roy Kapur Films, talking about thechallenges with production houses quotedsaying ‘we don’t have all the answers rightnow’. However, the perception of the viewerhas improved for the censor board over thelast few years, mentioning Prasoon Joshi,Chairperson, CBFC. He further quoted bysaying ‘creativity is a vantage point’. Lastlytalking about technology and innovation,Swaneet Singh, CEO, XFinite Ventures,noted that consumption across channels hasincreased with an increase in user pie fromdifferent age groups. The panel concludedfor the Bollywood industry leaving theaudience with ‘Entertainment beingessential or non-essential’, a decision forthem to make.

Bollywood – Entertainment and Community Support

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Gender Inequality in Times of CovidDuring a discussion on gender inequalityin the times of COVID, Babita Bhatt,Professor, Australian National University,mentioned how the global pandemic hasaffected the woman’s progress towardsequality. Susannah Wellford, CEO, andFounder, Running Start based in the USA,started off by confirming that the globalpandemic has absolutely impacted womendisproportionately. Since her job is to trainyoung women to political office and seethemselves as leaders, it highlights theimportance of the division of balancebetween leaders. Everywhere women domore housework. Many women who haveleadership positions normally have a helpor daycare or a nanny to watch over theirchildren. This affects childcare in a negativeway. She mentions data from one of herfavorite articles, that 60% of men arehomeschooled while only 3% of women inthe US are homeschooled. Homelife is goingto be a part of work and we are getting to atime where we will need to normalize home.Ganesh M.P., Professor at Indian Insti tu -te of Technology Hyderabad, India, addedwork from home culture always existed inthe corporate culture, the only differencebeing earlier it was a choice, and now it’smandatory. He enlightens us not only aboutthis culture existing in the formal sector

but also in the informal sector as womenrepresent the productive labor who haveto take care of their families and do thehousework. He talks about the concept of‘Intersectionality’ as women in the ruralclasses are more affected than in urban class.The access to private/personal time andspace is also favored to men than women.The damage exists in multiple areas of theinformal and formal sector as well as accessto space as the stereotype about work existsin the rural and informal sector of the society.Alok Vaypeyi, Director, Population Foun da -tion of India, India, shared similar concernsabout Indian women facing difficulties inmany dimensions such as education, childlabor, child marriage, trafficking etc byconcluding it not only affects women butalso girls and females at all levels, includingabortion of a female child. India reports16.5 million abortions due to lack of con tra -ceptive bills and we can project the trend ofincreased child labor and trafficking in thepost-COVID situation. Many of the womenare a part of self-help groups through whichthe financial and non-financial support isgiven by these women peers. More womenhave to be included in politics. ShwetaShalini, Executive Director, MaharashtraVillage Social Transformation Foundation,India, wrapped up the session by suggestingthat policy cannot be gender agnostic and

Mohini Daljeet Singh, Trustee and Advisor, Max India Foundation C K Ranganathan, Founder and Chairman,CavinKare

Vikram Gandhi, Professor, Harvard Business School, USA

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that COVID has been a good equalizer. Sheemphasized that people who are making thepolicies need to be women as only 32% ofwomen are at beau acratic positions in India.The space for women is large and corpo ra -tes have started realizing this importancegiving a variety of women with disabilities totravel, an opportunity to work from home.

Indian Start-ups post-CovidThe world of startups too has been severelyimpacted due to the Covid-19, and the In -dian startup ecosystem is not immune to it –Indian startups are facing challenges like fun -ding which impacts evaluations, the ex pan sionof the market, and staying in the proximityof the customer. Venkat Matoory, Insti tu -tional Advisor, USA, during a discussion onIndian Start-ups post-COVID stated that thescope of ventures/startups has significantlychanged because of the pandemic, whateverwe have learned so far in the startup eco -system is entirely outdated, and it has to berewired at scale. The world wants to see therebalance in favor of India. Anand S., ChiefExecutive Officer, Gramener, India, definesCovid-19 as a single biggest eco nomic eventafter World War-II. Viraj Phanse, Fellow,Berkeley Angel Network, USA, reminds usthat India has an opportunity for startupsin terms of cheap infrastructure required.

Viraj Phanse mentioned the importance of‘Work from Home’ and ‘Robotics,’ and theirrise will be the hope for people who wish towork remotely. Tim Dyer, Founder, andChief Executive Officer, Resolus Consul -ting, United Kingdom, shares his thoughtsabout the advantage India has in terms ofthe human capital in terms of its size, edu ca -tion and capability. India has an opportunityto lead the regionally and globally. Venky Vembu, Associate Editor, TheHindu BusinessLine, India remarked thatthe chal lenge is immense, but the crisis hasalso offered an opportunity for the genuineinnovation to flourish and with the rightincentive they can get the second wind if they draw on data-driven insights andreloading their strategies to make the bestof the new landscapes that are opening up.

Sidharth Nath Singh, Minister for Export and InvestmentPromotion, Uttar Pradesh

Pieter Perrett, Professor, University of Applied SciencesNorthwestern Switzerland

R Mukundan, Managing Director, Tata Chemicals, one of the co-chairs

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Brainstorming with CII: Industry Delivering Solutions Locally and GloballyThis digital plenary session was hosted byCII to discuss how the Indian industry andcommerce have been disrupted by globaltrade disputes, changes in demand and thesupply of oil, and the lockdown due toCOVID. C.K. Ranganathan, Founder &Chairman, Cavinkare started the discus siontitled Brainstorming with CII: Industry De -livering Solutions Locally and Globally bysaying, ‘The FMCG sector is coming backto normal and should return to an earliersituation similar to what it was in January2020, by the beginning of the third quarter.’He also added, ‘Rural sector has shownresilience however shut down in major citiesand metros is haunting.’ He also mentioned‘some product lines such as shampoos and

those related to hygiene and cleanliness aredoing well but beauty related products andsalons have taken a hit. R Mukundan,Managing Director, Tata Chemicals, Indiamentioned, ‘each country has respondeddifferently to the pandemic. What theylearned in Singapore was immediatelyimplemented in the entire company’. Hestated ‘they followed the approach of sur -viving, revive & renew. In the survive phase,they made sure that no employee got sickand had enough cash. In terms of revival,Plants across the U.S and U.K were runningwith more than 100% capacity howeverIndia had the toughest lockdown. In India,there were some sectors that never reallyshut down however sectors such as autoand real estate had the toughest time’ Hefurther shared ‘in terms of renewing, theyhave taken various decisions on which areasthey want to move forward and which badhabits they need to shed.’ Sumant Sinha,Founder and Chairman, ReNew PowerVentures, India mentioned, ‘India is comingback to normal and there is increased de -mand from the export market’. R.Dinesh,Managing Director, TVS Supply ChainSolutions, India concluded the discussionby mentioning that India is closer to about60% to 70% of operating capacity acrosssectors and this is the right time to look atgrowth with a positive outlook.

Brainstorming session with CII

R Dinesh, Managing Director, TVS Supply Chain Solutions Limited

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Plenary: Managing Uncertainty after CovidIt was not until the outbreak of Covid-19that the world took note – and coherentviews about testing, tracking, and treatmentmodalities have not been consistent acrossall nations. ‘The aftermath of the pandemicand the economic fallout will take years toclear,’ said Pranjal Sharma, ContributingEditor, BusinessWorld, India. During thediscussion on Managing Uncertainty afterCOVID, Shea Gopaul, Founder andformer Executive Director of the GlobalApprenticeship Network share somesaddening statistics on the number of full-time jobs lost, the countries that observedlockdowns and the number of front linersworking in risky environments. But lookingat the positive side, she says that there’s anenormous opportunity in healthcare, utili -ties, manufacturing, and most importantlyin education, once we get past this seriousarea of where the health of the people isour main focus. Moving forward, HarshPati Singhania, Vice Chairman, and Mana -ging Director, JK Paper, India, talks abouthow the reverse migration has affected theeconomy in especially the manufacturingsector, but also thinks that the sector needs tore-think and evaluate ideas where technologylike artificial intelligence, data analytics playan important role. With technology beingthe supporting pillar of the pandemic,

Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Vice Chairman ofthe Bharti Enterprises, says, ‘I complimentthe telecom companies on being 24/7available to cater to the needs of the popu -lation’. He also believes that in the future,there will be a hybrid business model withpeople working from home as well as offices.Though the communication sector saw anincrease in demand, the travel sector wasnegatively impacted. With the lockdown,it was time for companies to innovate.Priyanshi Choubey, Co-Founder,InstaCar, India, shares her experience ofrunning a start-up in the travel industryand how they adapted to the situation andshifted to a point-to-point or rental servicemodel for essential traveling.

Parallel sessions

India’s Society Shaken by Covid RealismThe COVID virus favors no one, but itseffects are intensified by high-density livingand working conditions. Hemali Chhapia,Senior Assistant Editor, The Times of India,questioned panelists about their views on theIndian Education System during a dis cus -sion on India’s Society Shaken by COVIDRealism. Arindam Banik, Professor,International Management Institute, India,

Pranjal Sharma, Contributing Editor, BusinessWorld, chairing the panel Managing Uncertainty after Covid

17

started by saying that earlier the Indian edu -cation system largely focused on memori sa -tion and standardization. Suddenly, this hasbeen transformed due to COVID-19. Theconcept of social distance was unknownuntil now. Currently, what we see is a hugedemand for online education. Access tocomputers all over the country for educationis a major problem. There are increasingopportunities for new entrepreneurs inthe education sector. For example, BYJU.It is important for teachers to get propertraining to teach students online. Teachersused to the traditional teaching method arenot equipped to adapt to a new model.Acquiring a new digital model is challengingbut the focus for now. Sanjoe Jose, ChiefExecutive Officer, Talview, USA, shared hispersonal experience by saying that having arecovery plan for his business was his firstreaction to this pandemic. His companyworks with customers from across theworld including Saudi Arabia, the USA,and India. He mentions that there is a lotof uncertainty regarding hiring in India atthis point. The impact of the COVID-19crisis is expected to last for a longer timein the workforce in India. Upscaling andtraining are the two main focuses of Indianbusinesses currently. Rajiv Khandelwal,Founder and Chief Executive Officer, AceGlobal Ventures, Singapore, talks about

how he has a macro approach to this wholesituation. He said and I quote, ‘This is anunprecedented situation. The world needsto come for the sake of humanity and fightthis pandemic together.’ Urvashi Sahni,Founder President, Study hall EducationalFoundation, India, had a lot to share aboutthe new education system post COVID-19.As an educator herself, she believes inadaptability. She said that all sorts of divideshave come to light during the COVID-19crisis, which is a good thing.

Education has never been spoken about somuch before. Given the situation, every -thing had to be shifted online but the sadpart was that only 12.5% of the studentshad access to the internet in India. Alongwith her team, she reached out to rural areas,disabled and underprivileged students inthe country who were on the wrong sideof the digital world. The teachers in theseareas needed training and leadership skills.30% of the children in city schools hadmigrated to their rural towns due to thelockdown. Teachers used phone calls andshort educational videos to teach childrenremotely. Food and other essential serviceswere also provided to them. They managedto get sponsored smart phones and gave thisto underprivileged girls. This was all a partof their initiative called the ‘Digital Saathi’

Rakesh Bharti Mittal, Vice Chairman, Bharti Enterprises Shea Gopaul, IOE Special Representative to the UN Harsh Pati Singhania, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, JK Paper

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program. This was a huge challenge forUrvashi Sahni and her team since they stillhad to ensure that the schools didn’t shutcompletely due to the pandemic. She hopesthat the government acts upon the dividesthat have become more visible during thistime. She said that we have all sorts ofcurriculum for social justice which needsto be revamped. Re-training should also bechanged. Education has become a communitysubject now. Steven Wilkinson, Director,MacMillan Center for International Studies,Yale University, USA, shared his views aswell. He agreed with what Rajiv mentionedearlier regarding his macro approach. Healso feels that long scale lockdown isprobably not a good idea for a country likeIndia for the following three reasons:

India has a much younger populationcompared to Europe and North America.Hence, the mortality rate is much lower.The healthcare system is insufficient inIndia given the population. If the health -care system is overloaded, it gets tougher.The economic costs and benefits in lower-income countries are very difficult to sus -tain. If people in low income countries likeIndia lose money, they won’t have a bufferto run their life. In the USA, 37% of oldpeople work from home. In developingcountries, it is only 10-20%. Academically,

83% of the population can work from homein the USA. The agriculture and restaurantindustries can afford 10% work from optionopportunities too. However, in India, therehas been a big drop in income across all sec -tors lately. One thing that the governmentreally needs to act upon is the healthcaresystem in India.

Someone from the audience asked a questionto the panelists regarding migrant workers.What can the government do for them?Arindam Banik, Professor, InternationalManagement Institute, India, replied bysaying that when the workers migrate orwant to migrate due to valid reasons, it isthe government’s responsibility to trainthem to be more adaptable wherever theyare and offer them opportunities.

Boosting India’s Infrastructure Further, during the discussion on boostingIndia’s infrastructure, Raghav Kanoria,Founder, Neoleap Business Ventures, India,states that boycotting china will have effectsin the short term by a drop in cash flows.To combat this, we need to increase invest -ment from local LPs and individuals andcreate corporate family divisions that havecertain sector expertise to start investingin early-stage companies. He also states

Raghav Kanoria, Partner, Anchor Group, SwitzerlandPranjal Sharma, Contributing Editor,BusinessWorld

Sumant Sinha, Founder and Chairman, ReNew Power Ventures

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that Chinese vendors are cheaper than Indiaand can implement at scale very fast andprovide high quality. To be competitive, Indiamust look at scaling up their production andenhance skill development, policy predict -a bility, and accountability of entrepreneursas currently there is a massive asset-liabilitymismatch and in a period of time, India canbecome ‘Aatmnirbhar’.

Jitesh Shetty, Founder, Qwiklabs, USAsays that loan books of a lot of fintechcompanies are backed by Chinese and thiswould impact the sector. He believes Chinais a very viable player on the manufacturingside. He believes that for Indian companiesto thrive the government has to focus onproviding very few foundational serviceslike healthcare and education and get out ofway of entrepreneurs, corporate and FDIas currently there is too much complexityat central and state level and ease to dobusiness is low.

Avi Basu, Founder Argolis agrees withJitesh and states that it will be tough forcompanies to suddenly boycott china dueto its great scale and quality. He states‘Digital infrastructure needs to unleash at thebottom of the pyramid’. Vikram Limsay,CEO, Helicon Consulting, India stated thatglobally there is an inorganic push and thiscycle is followed by an organic period wherethere is predictability of laws, but India hasno such cycle. He insists on India developingits own model of education and building arural first model. He says ‘I think thehallmark of any country and its economygrowing is the number of first-generationentrepreneurs.’ He believes that Exchangerate, money supply and interest rates are 3 things that the government will have tolook at very closely.

Shashi Kiran Shetty, Chairman, AllcargoLogistics Limited, India, states, ‘We needto learn to live with China and we have tolive with the new normal post-Covid and

the digital disruptions.’ He suggests thatIndia must restart its special economic zonepolicy and maintain policy predictability. Hestates ‘Vivad se vishvas’ is the way forward.He reiterates that the government shouldpurely act as a facilitator and get out of theway of entrepreneurs and allow them todo business without interference. He alsobelieves that there must be strict enforce -ment of law where entrepreneurs cannottake advantage by defaulting on payments.

Developing Administrative Capacityin Rural EnclavesDigital technology needs to enable farmersto access markets, schools, education, learnto program, hone skills and access toolswhere they can eliminate all the middleman.Solomon Darwin, Executive Director,Garwood Center Corporate Innovation, USA,started with the discussion on DevelopingAdministrative Capacity in Rural Enclavesby stating that we are living in an excitingtime, and we cannot forget the rural infra -structure that keeps all of us. The digitaltechnology needs to enable the farmers toaccess markets, schools, education, learn toprogram, upskilling themselves, accessingtools where they can eliminate all themiddleman. Dipak Gyawali, former Mi -nister of Water Resources, Nepal added that

Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, Minister of Sports & Youth Affairs, Government of Punjab

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Nepal is more successful in experimentingwith institutional innovations throughcommunalization on forestry, water supply,and electricity. He said that villages musttake advantage of the market. In the longterm, to come out from this pandemic, thesmall microcredit financial systems willempower the weak landless group in therural area. Providing good drinking waterwill reduce 70% of health issues. Healthcare programs need to be introduced inrural areas to protect people’s health, atleast during this pandemic.

Dnyaneshwar Mulay, Member, Natio nalHuman Rights Commission, India stated thatwe are still far from artificial intelligence andthe latest technologies used in rural areas.Everybody has a smartphone that has acertain level of AI, but that is not sufficient.Problems are always not to be technological;they can be human issues. It is essential toknow where to use technology and whereto use human solutions.

Shaping the Future of Indian BanksThe outbreak of COVID, like every othersector, has also impacted the Indian BankingSector. Ameya Prabhu, Managing Director,Nafa Capital, India, during a discussing onShaping the Future of Indian Banks said that

currently the bankers are scared of givingcredit in the light of crisis and at the sametime good credit is not coming in. The creditdoes not reach the last mile and tier 2/3suppliers. Banking system needs four pillars– Technology, Reduce Government share -holding to below 50%, Create bad banks andextend the term of loans, Agency to probefinancial crimes. Suman Bose, Principaland Co-founder, GoFar Advisory and In -vest ments, Singapore added ‘Real projectfinance does not exist in India’. The role ofthe banks has changed over the years andthey have to start participating in thesmaller business.

Vijay Mehta, Chairman, Mefcom CapitalMarkets, India stated that there are fourmajor problems with the Indian banks –Size, Reach, NPAs, Mindset. We don’t haveany kind of development bank in India andthe banks are not concerned with the genuineproblems faced by entrepreneurs duringcrises. The development banks should befunded adequately. There are different re gu -la tors to regulate the lending business inIndia. In spite of that not many banks inIndia are unable to meet the capitalisationstandard of the banks around the world.Sachindra Nath, Executive Chairman,Ugro Capital, India added that for theIndian PSBs the risk appetite is not drivenby a systematic and analytic understandingof risk. Indian banks continue to beoverweight and rely on the ownership ofpromoters behind the business rather thanunderstanding the risks behind business.77% of Indian banking systems are held byPSBs, 20% are held by Private Sector banksand 1.5% by foreign banks. So, we need aquality governance in the PSBs which definethe risk appetite and take a prompt call.Angela Alvarez, Founder and Chairman,Aglaia Capital, Spain emphasized that forthe recapitalisation, apart from monetarypolicy increasing the efficiency and pro -ductivity of the Banks is important. Beingone of the most populous countries, it is a

Soumitra Dutta, Professor, SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University

21

great opportunity for India to capture thevalue of the big market by investing inemerging technologies.

Rapid Mobilization of India’sManufacturing to Combat Covid-19During a discussion on mobilization ofIndia’s manufacturing to combat covid-19,Amit Sharma, MD & CEO, Tata Consul -ting Engineers, said ‘we need a balance insustainable supply chains, and in Indianleadership thought process’ when talkingabout sustainable development goals, andthe road ahead for India in the next 18 and24 months. Girish Bhagat, FoundingPartner, KnowGenix Global TechnologyPartners, focusing on PM’s agenda ofopportunity, self-reliance, and dominantsupply chains quoted ‘agriculture sectorshould be the main focus with two sub-sectors to be noted – cold chain and foodprocessing’. Niraj Sharan, Chairman &CEO, Aura, USA, was optimistic aboutpost-COVID India and was quoted saying‘everything has been accelerated, thanks tothis pandemic’. Talking about the future, thepanel agreed on entrepreneurs being theway forward for the country.

The Impact of Investing ActivityAbha Maryada Banerjee, Founder,Success India, who is working on SDGs 5 goals, highlighted on the fact that theSustainable Development Goals (SDG) set bythe United Nations and General Assemblyact as a guiding beacon and investors arenow looking to fulfill these goals in thisglobalized and hyperconnected world. Thediscussion on impact investing was mainlyfocused on ESG (Environmental, Sustaina -bility, and Governance) as it’s impossible tooverlook these areas even if your business isnot anyhow related to them. Till now, ESGhad always been a government concern andnot investors’ or private groups’ concern.But with the rise of social entrepreneur -ship impacted investment in areas such asimproving quality of life which has takenon in a very dynamic way. According toeconomists, private sector investment is thekey to economic growth and there lies a hugepotential for private sector investment inSDG in India. India’s economy had beenprojected to grow at 7.1% for the fiscalyear 2020. Covid has turned it upside downas we were supposed to turn to piggybackon the consumption and the FDIs. Most ofthe investors would be ruminating abouttheir plans for 2020. Parag Agarwal,CEO, and founder of JanaJal, safe water

Niraj Sharan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Aura Subhash Desai, Minister for Industries,Government of Maharashtra

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sector, opened stating that as he speaks asan investee/implementer, there will be only2 types of spending that will galvanize themission of social causes, investors imple men -ting through their respective corporates andthrough sovereign spending. As CSR is veryconcentrated spending for companies thatimpact any kind of social activity, goingforward, every board will soon have a newposition- director of the conscience aseveryone has experienced the impact ofthe hit of the planet. Pravin Khatau,Chairman, Londinium Asset Management,Monaco, gives us an investor’s perspectiveas he sees this as ‘a hit’ to your perfor man cein society and environment as investmentsare more profitable if you look at them fromeconomic added value. He gives an exampleof his current Agricultural project in Africa,telling us about how to first approach andmake the rural villages aware of the bene -fits by educating the local community.Deepak Pareekh, CEO and Co-Founder,Digi Agri India, shares his idea on theoutlook of famers, to ensure the farmersof the world are sustainable to keep servingquality food on our table. It was surprisingto know from him that till now farmerswere the ones who were subsidizing usbecause we cap their output of sellingignoring their input of crops. Investors now

need to focus on sustainable investing whichprovides farmers to pay their dues. RaviSewak, India Country Director, Safe WaterNetwork, his 2 decades of experience ininvesting says that any investor is back in2-3 years with the thought of saving globalwarming. He reminds us that what demone ti -zation couldn’t do in so many years, COVIDdid it (Idea of digitalization) in 2 months.There is a need to bring a kind of consciencethat can be brought to the table as investorsfor investing in a right and effective way.As investment occurs with an opportunity toforesee and reap the benefits of the policy,a combination of policies needs to bebrought in to benefit everyone on the way.India needs to understand that agricultureis going through tremendous stress and if wedon’t take care of it, it might be a matterof national security in the future. The mainissue which lies here is that we try to makea poor system very efficient. The govern -ment needs to distance itself and make aless dominant Agri ecosystem. Do not makeit more formal by rules and regulations andbalance the input and output in the taxingsystem. The way to look at it will be even -tually demand-driven. Abha wraps up bystating that the impact of investing has offlate captured the attention of the world.

Parag Agarwal, Chairman, Janajal, IndiaGunjan Sinha, Chairman, MetricStream, USA

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The Changing Future of WorkCovid-19 has changed the way in which wedo things in the world economically, sociallyas well as it has changed our mindset and theskillset, and the way we look at the world.Peter Lazou, Founding Member, OtherdotsFoundation, United Kingdom, opened thediscussion on changing future of work bystating that we are beginning a new journeyas global pandemic forced a new norm – Itoffers a new opportunity for countries tothink about the resilience in the supplychain, the domestic production capacity andinnovation around it, and to do that one hasto ‘think the unthinkable.’ Peter also men -tioned that the future of work is entre pre -neurial, as the complexity of doing businessis increasing, and entrepreneurs are great atproblem-solving. Arvind Uppal, Chair -man, Whirlpool India brought up the factthat the area of workspace is changingconstantly - the world is gradually evolvingand led by women in the future. Work fromhome is an opportunity for many womenin India who are educated but not part ofthe workforce. They are much capable ofmultitasking, and they will be part of theworkforce. Lene Søvold, Clinical Psycho -logist, Norway, mentioned that we are clearlyfacing the challenge with the mental healthand wellbeing of the workforce due to the

Covid-19 pandemic. Organizations shouldcommit to focus on reducing the stigmaabout mental health and promote theculture of openness and support. MurièleSolange Bolay, Founder, MSB & Partners,Switzerland, recollected that the repeatedwork would be replaced by the techno lo gy,sooner or later, and people will have to thinkabout what they would do as a work for thefuture. One must choose a work that givesfreedom, fulfillment, and holistic success.To conclude, the world has far moved aheadfrom linear thinking; one should be a multi -tasker and a creative thinker to succeed inthe changing future of work.

Mohan Das Pai, Chairman, Manipal Global Education

Has India been successful in handling the spread of corona

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Post lock-down: Inventing a New Normal for IndiaWhile discussing inventing a new normalfor India Rajesh Kalra, Chief Editor,Times Internet Limited, too mentionedhow COVID has changed the entire worldin the last three months. Ajay Nanavati,President, Grey Gurus Management Advisorsstated ‘COVID-19 has acted as a trigger toaccelerate the issues that need to be addres -sed’. He further mentioned, ‘there arethree major permanent resets that we arelikely to see going forward. Productivity,we should learn to live more with less.Risk, appetite-companies have to transformthemselves in how well they manage risk.Finally, companies should revisit debtleverage’. He quoted Darwin’s theory – ‘thefittest will survive’. Prashant Tandon,CEO & Founder, 1 MG quoted ‘Never let agood crisis go waste – new normal is aboutlearning. We have learned how to live,maintain basic hygiene and do not spreadgerms’. He mentioned, ‘there is a need tocreate new health delivery infrastructure.’He further mentioned, ‘World is lookingfor diversification and new solutions.’Vishal Choradia, Chairman, Maharashtrastate of Khadi & Village Industry Boardquoted ‘Post COVID everyone has becomesensitive towards Indian products’.

Digitally Elevating India’sPopulation Dividend India is the most populous nation in theworld but it has the largest off-line pro por -tion. Hence, digitally upskilling the Indianpopulation is crucial. Though technologyhas been available, its full potential has notbeen explored. The pandemic gave this apush and the contactless interactions forcedpeople to deploy the technology. Thoughthe consumption is increasing, there’s stillthe rural sector that cannot afford to buydevices enabled by technology. Addressingthe change in the work culture, KeshavMurugesh, Group Chief Executive Officer,WNS Global Services, India during a dis -cus sion on Digitally Elevating India’sPopulation Dividend says, ‘We actuallybrought forward the future in the matter ofa few hours, by overnight moving the entiremodel from work from the office to workfrom home.’ He credits Jayesh Ranjan,Principal Secretary, Government ofTelangana, India, for helping the IT sectorcome under essentials and also enable thedelivery of 3.5 million laptops for work fromhome. This shows how India has maturedand not heard of any challenges within thissector. However, there still exist areas thathave high potential; for example, the gigeconomy can enable the 120 million womenwith secondary education to get involved in

Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Government ofTelangana

Mridula Ramesh, Founder, Sundaram Climate Institute

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some part-time activity. To enhance theirproductivity and also of the other work force,the main criteria would be to upskill.Conrard Egusa shares three ways on howIndia can move forward. Firstly, adopt thebest practices instead of reinventing newpolicies, giving the example of ‘Start-upChile’. Secondly, use constraints as a forceto innovate and not as an obstacle. Thirdly,integrate international and local communi tieseffectively, keeping away from the politicalenvironment. Answering to the questionfrom the audience on the safe comeback tooffices, Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secre -tary, Government of Telangana, India, saysthat with the help of data and analytics byNASSCOM task force, they could study thespread of the pandemic and accordinglyallow companies to work. He says, ‘As longas there is some rationale behind the decisionmaking, you should feel safe and allow thingsto get back to normal.’ It is also mentionedthat COVID-19 has really accelerated theadoption of digital technologies around theworld. For the final words, ‘The crisis isunfortunate, but the opportunity that comesout of this is huge and India can take ad -van tage of that, be the next supplier oftalent and capabilities to the world’, saidSrikanth Velamakanni, Co-founder andGroup Chief Executive, Fractal Analytics,India.

Plenary: India – Opening Again for BusinessTalking about the opening up of businessesagain in India amid the pandemic,Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General,Confederation of Indian Industry (CII),India opened the conversation by talkingabout reformative and futuristic measuresthat would make India self-reliant. PiyushGoyal, Minister of Railways and Ministerof Commerce& Industry, India, started bythanking Chandrajit Banerjee, CII, Horasisfor pulling off this event during such testingtimes. He said, ‘I have always believedinteractions and flow of ideas with peopleduring such events are important for go -vern ment policy makers.’ He believes thatlockdown was essential for our countrysince India was ill-prepared three monthsback to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. From 1000 testing kits, we have reached1,25,000 testing kits today. We manu fac ture300,000 PPE kits per day now. He said, ‘Itwas a challenge to encourage 1.5 billionpeople to practice social distancing, but Iwant to thank each one of you for adheringto the rules and ensuring social distance iswell maintained. One of the main challen geswas spitting in public that was uncontrollable,but people followed the no spitting policyreligiously. In the last 60 -90 days, it iscommendable to see the collective effortof all the world leaders to help overcome

Panel at the virtual Horasis India Meeting

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this pandemic.’ India covers 17% of theworld population. Given this fact, we arestill under 5% of the overall population interms of positive cases and the death rateis under 3%. The Aatm Nirbhar Bharataproject will help get back the likelihoodand business on track in India. While wewere 60% down on exports in April, we arecurrently only 10-12% down. He furtherwent on by saying that the Indian Govern -ment has ensured that there is no shortageof food and other essential services duringthese testing times in any nook and cornerof the country. Usually, the average speed offreight trains was 23 km/hour. Yesterday theyclocked in at 41 kms/hour. The railwaydepartment is using this time to rewrite thefreight traffic. They are targeting to doublethe speed of freight training. Mr. NarendraModi is making effective use of time bycontinuously being concerned about ourcountry at every stage. The focus of theAatm Nirbhar Bharat program is for the longterm. Additionally, the government is veryresponsive to businesses. They plan tocontinue to support and make it easy forbusinesses to invest but the focus will be onsustainable businesses. Chandrajit Banerjeeconcluded by giving a vote of thanks toPiyush Goyal and mentioned about thecommendable work being done by theRailway Department of India.

Plenary: Special address by thepresident of Armenia – Vitalizingglobal governance

Frank-Jürgen Richter, Chairman &Founder, Horasis moderated the sessionand Armen Sarkissian, President ofArmenia started the discussion addressingthe great relations with India which datesback to centuries and thousands of years.He states that this pandemic on one handhas caused huge losses but on the brighterside there is a lot more connectivity acrossthe globe. He shared his view on how theworld is changing and the great opportunityto create a lot more jobs in new spheressuch as AI and Robotics and India, being abase for computer services, will attract alot of employment. He added ‘we have tostart learning that introduction of thingslike biotechnology into healthcare or newachievements of AI into production willchange the entire economy and industries.We need to redefine our priorities for thenext 100 years’. President Sarkissian statedthat we need to be well prepared for anypandemic rather than groping with theafter-effects of a crisis. He also concludes byreiterating ‘The world has changed and inorder to make it more sharper I am using asI said before a term called the new quantumworld and whatever we had before was theclassic. For many its unpredictable, it isunknown, it is challenging and it is frighte -ning but for those who will start embracingthis using logic and philosophy it will bethe best place in the universe’.Frank-Jürgen Richter inquired on whichkind of institutions do we need to come outof this crisis, to which President ArmenSarkissian answered that we don’t neednew institutions but rather strengthen theexisting ones and also need to rethink therole about how these institutions have toact for the next 10 to 20 years along withwhat kind of powers and tools have to begiven to them in this new quantum worldfor them to be successful.

Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman, Kirloskar Brothers Ltd Nasser Munjee, Chairman, Development Credit Bank

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Plenary: Karnataka – Building for the post-Covid EconomyFurther, B. S. Yediyurappa, Chief Minis -ter Karnataka, during a plenary session onKarnataka – Building for the post-COVIDEconomy, states how Karnataka handledthis pandemic by acting swiftly and takingcontrol in time and is one of the first statesto restart all economic activity. He states,‘I am happy to tell you that around 80% ofour industries are operating at 60% of theircapacity and this has been improvingsteadily’. He explains how Karnataka is inthe forefront of attracting FDI and hasopened schemes like the Niti Ayog Innova -tion Index to make the state a conduciveclimate for investment. He also stated thatthey are offering a single window claim,simplified process & labor laws like flexiworking hours, nighttime working womanhours for women, old-time wage revision,and a stable policy environment with regularconsultation to attract investment into thestate. He says ‘Our govt is working to launchthe new industrial policy 2019 – 2024’ Allthese initiatives will result in better em -ploy ment opportunities within the state.

He also answers a question posed by one ofthe attendees of ‘How can we open the eco -nomy so that we balance life and livelihood’.To this, he replies, ‘Karnataka has effectively

used a strategy of testing, contact tracingand quarantining so as to contain the spreadof the virus’. He also tells us that as theeconomy opens up the citizens have beenasked to use the protocol of using sanitizersand follow social distancing along with stan -dard operating procedures for workplaces.

The Indian government should quickly workon land reform, labor reform, adminis tra -tive reforms, and Tax reform. The Indiangovernment announced 21.5 crores of moneyas a relief package. This has been discussedfor the past 25 to 30 years to release as aliberalization package. Now, this vast moneyhas been released to people, to welcomemanufacturing industries and start-ups.India needs to determine which SME willsurvive with the relief package and whichSMEs won’t survive.

Plenary: Deepening India’s TransformationRekha M. Menon, Chairman, and SeniorManaging Director India, Accenture, Indiaduring a discussion on Deepening India’sTransformation, added that the IT and BPOindustry had responded well during thecrisis. Digital technologies are going to helpto overcome socio-economic challenges.‘To attract new opportunities, the govern -

Axel Threlfall, Editor-at-Large, Reuters, UK, chairing the plenary Deepening India’s Transformation

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ment must enable collaboration amongvarious stakeholders, particularly for thedigital infrastructure sector,’ added AshishChauhan, Chief Executive Officer, BombayStock Exchange, India.

Sanjay Kirloskar, Chairman, KirloskarBrothers Ltd; President, AIMA, India addedto this by mentioning that India has a massiveopportunity in this pandemic to make a largenumber of changes. Investors want to seemore stability in the long term. Currently,people are investing in India, and that is apositive signal. Axel Threlfall, Editor-at-Large, Reuters, United Kingdom said thatthe pressure would be on the local societiesto manage the people who are returned fromthe urban areas. Especially the small villagesneed to cope up with these people. Themicrofinance banks must look into theseground opportunities and issue credits tothose migrants; this is a critical institutionalreform in the financial sector. In this pan -demic, the MSMEs are severely impacted,and ‘Government guarantee to MSME is apotent tool,’ said Nasser Munjee, Chair -man, Development Credit Bank, India.Why because the big companies are alsofacing tough situations, and that needs to berescued. However, ‘When big boys are introuble, the small boys are also in trouble.’

Parallel sessions

Caring for Others in Times of Stress Harsh Vardhan Jajoo, IndependentDirector, Blossom Industries, India empha -sized that it is important to build emotionalintelligence right from a young age whentalking about Caring for Others in Timesof Stress – a session chaired by HenryShterenberg, President, World TradeCenter Kyiv, Ukraine. He said, ‘Only if weaccept negative emotions, we can accesspositive emotions’. We have to teach thekids that accepting negative emotions isabsolutely alright. He mentioned the project‘One mindful mind’ as a wonderful way toconnect parents and children to emotionalintelligence. Emotional intelligence isdirectly related to building self-esteem.Pooja Shukla, Founder, and Chief Exe cu -tive Officer, LA VIDA, Singapore startedwith employer-employee relationshipsduring critical times. During the times ofworking from home and retrenchment, itis important for employers to care for theemployees. She said, ‘Different kinds ofactions have different kinds of impacts ondifferent kinds of employees’. So, when wetry to over-expect the employees, there is alot of pressure going on between the em -ployees as well. There should be a clear sense

Rekha M. Menon, Chairman and Senior Managing Director India,Accenture, India

Ashish Chauhan, CEO, Bombay Stock Exchange, India

29

of direction because retrenching an em ployeecauses pressure on other em ployees interms of work being distributed. Althoughthe Government’s role is important, it startswith employers to see how effective it is tocare for the people. Pankaj Gupta, Presi -dent, IIHMR University, India spoke aboutself-awareness. Stress should not be a triggerfor caring for others. People who really carewill do so even at the time of prosperity.He quoted from the Bible ‘It is in givingthat you receive’. Since caring is a basichuman quality, we need not develop that butjust need to be aware of that. Caring forothers will come only when you care foryourself because you can give only whatyou have. Then we have to expand the circleto your area of influence such as family,organisation, society, etc. He mentionedabout Gods being called as ‘Devta’ whichmeans somebody who gives. So, nature givesblessings to you. It is not you who gives butthere is a source from where things come.

Engaging India’s Diaspora in its Post Covid FutureWith the worth of 1.4 trillion dollars andpresence in all the major developed eco -nomies, the Indian diaspora is the singlelargest diaspora in the world. BidushiBhattacharya, CEO & Founder,Astropreneurs, USA, talked about outerspace, and the solutions that can be derivedboth for the government and commercialside, during a discussion on Engaging India’sDiaspora in its Post COVID Future. Sunil Golecha, CEO Asia Pacific,Thomson Reuters, Singapore, talked aboutthe problem of lack of a platform for Indiandiaspora that can be solved by building talentexchange and marketplace. Geo Murickan,CEO & Co-founder, TransfInnovation IoT,USA, was quoted saying ‘there is no bettertime for collective unification and inte gra tionof scaled solutions by the Indian diaspora’.Aditya Rian, CEO, Virus Digital Indonesia,representing the new generation of Indian

diaspora was quoted saying ‘COVID-19 canbe the catalyst of the collaboration of theyoung Indian diaspora around the worldthrough activism, technology, and creativity’.Sailesh Purswani, President, Thai MartinGroup, has a family business in Thailandwith a lot of ties to India and focused ontalent, engagement, and collaboration.Lastly, Venkatesh Shukla, Partner, TiEGlobal Monta Vista Capital, concluded bysaying that there is a huge opportunity forIndia to leverage the talent because of thehuge reservoir of goodwill that Indians carry.

Rapid Digitalization – Hoped For,but Not Always AchievedThere are a lot of challenges in a way aheadof the future of digitization taking intoaccount the current global perspective of theshutdown of the world economy. MohitJoshi, President of Infosys while talkingabout Rapid Digitalization – Hoped For, butNot Always Achieved highlighted upon thefact that Government of India has alreadytaken few initiatives to improve the basicinfrastructure which has vested in smoothrunning of the economy, such as Aadhar andGST without which the economy would bein a much deeper hole. Rishi Mehra, CEO,Wishfin, India shares similar concerns wherefintech can be an enabler in India depen ding

Henry Shterenberg, President, World Trade Center Kyiv

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upon 2 mediums of demand: Internet accessand Smartphone possession. According tohim, digitization serves as an enabler tothose industries where digitization is noteven existing. Navroop Sahdev, Founderand CEO, The Digital Economist, USA,states that the role of Digital Tech is notstraightforward and needs to be validated.There are a lot of search costs and trans -action costs included in Digital Tech.Pramod Bhasin, Founder, and Chairman,ClixCapital, India, reminds us that digitizationhas not progressed the way it should in India.We have reached a space where con sumersand transactions are happening but it’s still30-40% of the total achieved. ShriyaDamani, Cofounder of SkySquare Tech no -logy, mentions the fact that with the onsetof COVID, consumers have been pushed tostart using technologies that were neverused by them before. The matter is moreconcerned with consumer adoption nowand we can overcome these challenges ofdigitization not reaching the last mile byfocusing more on the consumer behaviorside. The example of Telehelp was broughtin for discussion as it proved to be a successin COVID times. But there are challengesexisting due to the same reason. ThroughTelehelp, consumers are getting the rightmedical advice but are scared to visit thehospital because of COVID. The issue lies

in a lack of understanding for people to getthe reason for using this technology. It ishard to put digitization as a basic right alongwith all other rights such as employment,food, healthcare, education and where digiti -zation lies in this chain as India is not onlystruggling to meet the basic human needsbut also facing a shortage of real-worldinfrastructure. The choice to go digital is nota choice anymore since cash is disappearingfrom economies. The session ended withMs. Shriya wrapping up that digitization is not a parameter, but rather as a cross-cutting parameter which powering each ofthese aspects and regulatory work arounddata policy and privacy should be launchedmaking it a basic need along with the basicinfrastructure to be connected.

Strengthening InternationalInstitutionsInternational institutions were largely builtpost-world war II to bring agreementsamong the nations. Still, as the battle overCovid-19 is continuing, the world’s under -standing of vaccine programs is breakingdown. Countries are prioritizing theirpeople; the European Union has failed tobring consensus among its nations, and WHOhas no control over any vaccine program.During a discussion on Strengthening Inter -

Mohit Joshi, President, InfosysPramod Bhasin, Founder & Chairman, Clix Capital, India

Navroop Sahdev, Founder and Chief ExecutiveOfficer, The Digital Economist, USA

31

national Institutions, Sudhir Sharma,Chairman, Mitkat Advisory Services, India,mentioned that international institutionsare not doing what they are supposed to do.International institutions were created by thevictor nations, post world war II, and theydo not represent the current geopoliticalworld order. Therefore, they failed toaddress most of the problems. A systematicchange is required to empower them.Rajiv Raghunath, Chief Executive Officer,Wellversed Media, India, endorsed the factthat international institutions need to bereorganized and aligned with the needs ofthe emerging world. The end goal shouldbe the benefit of all the member nations,which is not the case in the current situationas it seems like some powerful states arebene fitting from these organizations.Harjiv Singh, Founder, and Chief Execu -tive Officer, Gutenberg, USA, referred thatthe economic power is moving to Asia andinternational organizations need to considerthe inclusion of countries like India intothe UN Security Council. Yogesh Singh,Partner, Trilegal, India, brought up thatIndia represents one-sixth of the world’spopulation, and the country’s interestsshould be covered. India should make all thepossible efforts to be part of the initiatives.To conclude, the individual countries cannotaddress issues like global warming, poverty,education, and sustainable development,and therefore, the role of internationalinstitutions is crucial to bring the nationstogether to solve common problems.

The New Leadership in the Tumultuous TwentiesNeha Berlia, Member of ManagementBoard, Apeejay Stya Group, while discus -sing The New Leadership in the TumultuousTwenties, acknowledged the fact that COVIDhas been good for its overall broaderframework and could foresee leadershipwould undergo a paradigm shift in thetimes to come. She quoted ‘This changed

leadership is helping in understanding thepeople better’. She further mentioned thereis a need to focus on setting up deliverables,timelines, task lists and motivating people.Rajnandan Patnaik, Member of theBoard, IMT Dubai stated that ‘We are in adifferent type of the twenties and we aregoing to witness a lot of challenges for nextdecade. Leaders now have to work on bothfronts – managing health and economy. He further mentioned ‘Leadership is underdeep pressure and the followership has ahuge expectation from leaders. COVID-19has made faculty at various education in sti -tutions flexible and adaptable. He quoted‘there is need for integrated leadershipwhere the real leader has to depend uponsituation leader for various situations andreal leader aggregates all problems andtheir solutions’.

Benjamin J. Butler, Co-Founder,Quantum Futures, stated COVID has actedas an appetizer. We are witnessing ecolo gi -cal crisis, tectonic changes and cultural war.Humanity is undergoing a revolutionaryperiod and technology is going to drive thenext level of disruption. He also mentionedthat there is a need for new leadership toattend and manage this new phase. He further added there is a need to con -sider what is emotional intelligence, social

Sudhir Sharma, Chairman, Mitkat Advisory Services

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intelligence & imagination. He quoted‘India is a great place to provide imagina tionleadership’. Mac McKenzie, Co-founder,Bridge Institute mentioned we need asocietal leadership that can look at the worldwith the same belief systems. He concludedthat discussion by mentioning this crisiscannot be solved in isolation but need allgovernment, business and society to cometogether and work in a cohesive manner.

Temporally Relieving Global ConstraintsPrior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic,the global economy was being stressed bytrade disputes, rapidly changing demandand supply across many commercial sectorsand the onset of an oil-pricing contest. Allhave caused geopolitical confusion. Talkingabout the ease of doing businesses, duringthe discussion on Temporally RelievingGlobal Constraints, Anuradha Agarwal,Founder, Think North Consulting, India,vocalizes, ‘Though India moved 14 placesupon the chart of ease of doing business lastyear, it’s still not a good place for the world’s5th largest economy’. Adrian Mutton,Founder & Chief Executive Officer, SannamS4, India, adds by saying, ‘Encourage a frame -work that enables and encourages them tostay in India, but also attract global talent to

India’. Sumeet Anand, Founder, IndSightGrowth Partners, India, contributes byproviding suggestions on how India cancontribute in relieving global constraints –‘There are two roles that it has to play; one,it has to really become the supply chainpartner to the world and the other it needsto become an enhanced tech partner.’

Preparing for the Next Pandemic Hannah Wise, Anchor, CNN Money,Switzerland, opened the discussion onpreparing for the next pandemic by askinga question to the panellists – ‘How was thispandemic been for you?’. Carlos Sentís,Founder, World Impact Alliance, Spain,started by saying that all organizations shouldbe thinking about how they are going to bepreparing for this pandemic. Instead ofhaving a normal year of business, their teambrainstormed on what they can do diffe -rently during the current situation. So, theydecided to restart stronger. Gulu Lalvani,Chairman, Royal Phuket Marina, Thailand,shared his experience by saying that tourismhas been badly affected but thankfully theirMarina, is an award-winning one in Thailandwho has been doing well. It is a center pointalong with other properties in Thailand. Asof now, they have not had to borrow anymoney from the bank yet. Ejaj Ahmad,President, Bangladesh Youth LeadershipCenter, Bangladesh, talked about his busi -nesses’ pandemic situation. He said that heis currently in California, but his business isin his home country, Bangladesh where theyounger population has been badly affectedand unemployment has been a major issue.More than 80% revenue of the countrycomes from exporting garments andmigrant workers but that has taken a tollon the younger population unfortunately.Education has been shifted online by hisbusiness. Another focus has been on thedistribution of food to vulnerable popula -tions. That is what is keeping him busy duringCOVID-19. Pratik Gauri, President, 5thElement Group, India, added by saying that

Harjiv Singh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Gutenberg

33

his team has been focusing more on strategythan execution. More work has been on theground. COVID-19 is helping them shiftfrom the 4th to the 5th industrial revolution.They have opened virtual offices and pro -ductivity is not too bad now. They are stillmaking profits and have also launched anew media channel during the pandemic.Gulu Lalvani, Chairman, Royal PhuketMarina, Thailand, contributed to thisdiscussion by saying that one thing thatCOVID-19 has taught us is that you can notonly work from home but also from any partof the world. He wasn’t used to Zoom untilthe lockdown began in Thailand. He hasbeen managing his international busi nessover Zoom calls and it has been workingperfectly fine for him. Yatindra R Sharma,Managing Director, KHS India, India, saidthe lockdown started on a positive notebut lately since a lot of things have startedopening the number of cases in India hasbeen increasing as well even though themortality rate is relatively low. His team’soperations have been on since April but withreduced capacity. No one knows till whenthis pandemic shall last. The politicians,economy, and people, in general, will haveto undergo a drastic change in lifestyle. Thenew way of living will have to be defined.Hannah Wise addresses a question fromthe audience – ‘How will technology changeafter this pandemic?’. Pratik Gauri said thatit is going to be different from what we havebeen seeing so far. The focus will be moreon taking care of nature and the environ -ment. Carlos Sentís added by saying thatone of the biggest issues will be how to re-arrange resources and manpower. We havebillions of people engaged in ArtificialIntelligence to solve problems, but this shouldbe applied to all companies irrespective ofCOVID-19. Ejaj Ahmad added by saying thatour actions speak louder than words. Peoplewill have to act upon new technology toprove the positive change that is about totake place after the pandemic. Yatindra RSharma complimented the efforts of WHO.But he felt that the transparency of data

was not maintained from the early stagesby China. Therefore, there was a delay byat least 4 weeks in declaring the pandemicby WHO. Gulu Lalvani on the contrarybelieves that WHO was used as a scapegoatby Donald Trump. He recommended thatall the businesses should look at the worstscenario annually when things are goingwell. Pratik Gauri believes that ArtificialIntelligence (AI) will play a huge role toreach out to more consumers along withBlockchain and 3D printing as we preparefor the next pandemic. Carlos Sentís saidthat 40% of jobs will change. We are goingto see a change for the next 10-20 years ascompared to the last 200 years. We needskills that companies need to educate people.There will be more focus on mental healthtoo. We need to educate leaders, citizensand workers and prepare them to prosperin the job market at any point in time.

Supply Chain Evolution Post-Covid A discussion on Supply Chain EvolutionPost-Covid focused on how COVID hasalso led to a massive disruption in the supplychain industry and to avoid this we mustthink of how to grow internally and use thisopportunity to become an export power -house. Ease of doing business, maintainingcosts, financing from end to end can helpIndia create scales of global value chains.

Hannah Wise, Anchor, CNN Money, chairing the session Preparing for the Next Pandemic

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Vineet Agarwal, Managing Director, TCIGroup, India, states ‘Road transport isabout 63% traffic in India that needs tochange, it’s about 25-30% in China andabout 40% in the USA so if we have tomake our exports more competitive andultimately be part of the value chain we needto look at alternative modes of transport’.

Vivek Agarwal, Co-founder, InDutchVentures, The Netherlands adds to this byhighlighting one of the limitations of Indiais infrastructure and suggests if we canreignite PSU’S since they have the trainedmanpower and infrastructure it will help toattract FDI’s. He also states that Chinesecompanies are becoming aware of how theymust produce locally in India to keep costslow and be competitive which will also helpshape the supply chain in India. MichaelCarlos, Member of the Supervisory Board,Givaudan, Switzerland states that one hasto be wary about the overdependence ofChina and hence this has resulted in a Chinaplus 1 strategy to spread the risk. Also to setup businesses in India is highly complicatedversus China where there is the ease ofstar ting the same who also have the right ex -pertise in comparison to India. He, however,concludes by saying ‘One of the biggestadvantages that India has over China is theRule of Law’.

Sushil Choudhari, Founder, Scandid,USA states that India as a market is notready to take the workload and fulfill criticalfunctions. He states ‘On an average, a USbusiness or Chinese local business has adigital presence to around 40-50% in orderto make their services available, in order offacilitating transactions and supplying theorders, that number in India is close to 10%’.He focuses on how we must look at re -shoring, offshoring, and focusing on enablinglocal businesses with technology to cater tothe local community in a more efficient way.Phillipe Reich, Chairman, Swiss-IndianChamber of Commerce, Switzerland thinksthat diversification and switching from onecountry to another seems difficult andautomation will have a major impact onthe supply chain. India from a policy-making standard must make itself moreattractive which it currently is lacking. Hestates that ‘India has great potential but itis not homerun’

Fuelling India’s Conversion into ModernismIt is during the time of pandemic that Indiarealized it lacked a strong healthcare infra -structure and that it wasn’t strong enough totake care of its sick citizens. The lockdownhelped the country to quickly know thepower of Indian innovation because thethings required during this COVID-19 likePPE kits, ventilators, beds, etc. startedgetting manufactured rapidly in just twomonths. In a discussion on Fuelling India’sConversion into Modernism, Rajiv Podar,Managing Director, Podar Enterprise, saidthat India is now ready to revamp the healthcare systems because the new innovators andinvestors have joined hands and pro du ced aventilator that cost about 1000 to 1500 $ inbest quality.

Roshan Shankar, Urban GovernanceAdvisor, Government of NCT of Delhi,India added that the pandemic has changedthe situation in India, especially during the

Sheetal Amte-Karajgi, Chief Executive Officer,Maharogi Sewa Samiti

Philippe Reich, Chairman, Swiss-Indian Chamber of Commerce

35

lockdown period. People for the first timespent their time sitting inside the house formore than 60 days, new trends surfaced onsocial media, and news channels discussedhuman stories rather than criminal and otherpolitical news. Wines added modernism is amindset because COVID-19 gave a forcedpause to people and changed their thinking.

Plenary: Climate Change Commitments have not RecededPanelists also spoke about the impactCOVID has had on the whole of Earth.The COVID-19 pandemic has drasticallyreduced pollution levels globally makingcities appear clean. This however won’t staylong once the economies open up. During adiscussion on how Climate Change Commit -ments have not Receded, Naina Bajekal,Deputy International Editor, Time Magazine

said that during the coronavirus crisis theCO2 emissions have gone down and scien -tists have confirmed that the air quality hasimproved as industries have slowed to ahalt but how sustainable is this? As we exitlockdown and many countries face an eco -nomic challenge, countries need to rebuildeconomies without neglecting climate change.

Deborah Wince-Smith, President, Uni -ted States Council on Competitiveness,started by saying that one of the things weare facing in the US is the speed transfor -ma tion of moving all the activities in thedigital world. The transition to using digitaltechnologies and being energy efficientwould really help us in meeting our neartime goals on decarbonization. Taking thediscussion forward, Anish Shah, Mana -ging Director & Chief Executive Officerdesignate, Mahindra Group, India stated thatsuddenly cities in India during the pandemicare much better to live in as the air is muchcleaner. We see birds chirping and fromsome cities, we can see the Himalayas and,now people have started seeing the benefitsof climate change. Talking about the Mahindragroup journey, Anish stated the Mahindragroup’s journey on cutting CO2 emissionstarted in 2008 much before it was a globalconcern and Mahindra is putting muchcapital in renewable energy.

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Plenary – Climate Change Commitments have not Receded

Nik Gowing, Founder and Director, Thinking the Unthinkable

Plenary: India and Global Economic OutlookSpeaking during the opening plenary ses -sion discussing India and global economicoutlook, notable business leaders focusedon the post-Covid outlook of the globaleconomy. The sessioin was chaired by NikGowing, Founder and Director, Thinkingthe Unthinkable, with the following spea -kers: Dinesh Dhamija, Chairman, CopperBeech Group; Rajan Navani, Vice Chair -man, Jetline Group of Companies; RonSomers, Founder and Chief ExecutiveOfficer, India First Group; T V Narendran,President-Designate, CII; CEO & ManagingDirector, Tata Steel Limited.

The most severely impacted sector in theIndian and global economy would be theservices, this is not to downplay impact onother sectors. India compared to otheradvanced nations, however, faces a muchlarger challenge due to the sheer size of thepopulation and its poor financial position,being ranked 138 in terms of per-capitaGDP. It is expected that real unemploymentwill almost double, a large portion of thework force will become redundant. Thischallenge, however complicated, needs tobe ameliorated by the public sector. Onesuch measure is ensuring high liquidity inthe hands of the common man, which will in

turn help boost demand thus jumpstartingthe economy. Additionally, the workforceneeds to be retrained for future jobs. TheIndian story is still a positive story, ourpopulation is our strength with 54% ofpeople below the age of 25.

Plenary: Learning from Covid in IndiaIndia has the largest global population –there are massive urban conurbations but66% live in the countryside. During a dis -cussion on how countries must learn fromCovid in India, Vineet Mittal, Chairman,Avaada Energy said that the world is seeingthe biggest central bank intervention globallyand the highest price decline during thistime. He says systems should treat this crisisas an opportunity and pointed that GOI putout bids for solar energy ramp up even at avulnerable time like this and his experiencesays that India is a deep market to investfunds in, which could be leading to a con ti -nuation of investments. Investors have a hugeappetite and Indian investment space couldbe attracting investments in infrastructure.Rajive Kaul, Chairman, Nicco Grouppoints out that going by the biggest coun -tries by GDP, Germany vs. China vs. India,India’s GDP growth is the poorest. Indiashould now work on-demand creation andneeds to follow up on it by creating jobs

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T V Narendran, President-Designate, CII; CEO & Managing Director, Tata Steel Limited, India

Nik Gowing, Founder and Director, Thinking the Unthinkable, chairing a plenary panel

and putting money in people’s hands.Referring to China’s current global image,he feels there is a need to drive globalsavings to India. What India has done rightis – Keeping the supplies of food, cookinggas, money to the poor constant. The short -comings of the stimulus in terms of liquidityhave been balanced by saving people andbusinesses with a balance. The round 1stimulus has helped the poor and MSMEsmassively. We however need another roundstimulus for the working class and middleclass. Rajive mentions that govt. committeespreviously were only doing change-makingdialogues, they’re acting on priority, arefreshing change in the government’sfunctio ning. Results like highest ForEx re -serve, high productivity in the 3rd month ofpandemic (mostly owing to low oil prices),etc., suggest India is doing well.

An audience poll during the session saidIndia hasn’t been successful in its measuresat controlling and managing the outbreak.

Harshvardhan Neotia, Chairman,Ambuja Neotia Group believes that we’re allnot in the same boat but instead, we’re in the‘Same storm, different boats’. Everyone has

varying health risk hazards and economiccircumstances. Speaking about the globalscenario, he says that the interdependentworld is causing a domino effect in thesupply chain leading to not being able todeliver. Commenting on the state of testingin India, he says due to lacking infrastruc -ture, we may not be able to test everyonebut we should direct it through hotspots,contact tracing etc. He says essential/non-essential divides need to remain until avaccine is found. Asha Jadeja, Founder &ED, Motwani Jadeja Foundation rightlypoints out that the crisis is handled well bysmall countries with a correlation of havinga women leader. As for the COVID manage -ment, India is lacking real testing numbershowever she mentions that hydroxy chloro -quine worked well and mellowed down thehavoc in the healthcare centers. She saysfollowing the US model, India must rampup testing by making it more accessibleand cheaper. Comparing the pre-COVIDIndia to post-COVID, she says that therehave been obstacles and bureaucracy. Techsector could thrive with the opportunity athand and this phase should lead to us seeingthe next big thing in tech, Google from India.

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Rajive Kaul, Chairman, Nicco Group Rajan Navani, Rajan Navani, Vice Chairman,Jetline Group of Companies

Dinesh Dhamija, Chairman, Copper Beech Group

Parallel Sessions

Resuming India’s Inclusive GrowthStrategyDuring the discussion on Resuming India’sInclusive Growth Strategy, AlokeshBhattacharyya, Senior Editor, The Eco -nomic Times, India, the host highlightedthe fact that India’s GDP has seen a sharp falland can ‘be of up to 10%’ where ‘majorcompanies are expecting contractions’Thereafter, setting the question of inclusivegrowth to the speakers. Alok brought for -ward a new way of thinking where he statedthat ‘COVID is an opportunity where nowwe can redesign and re-think’ all the oldstrategies.

Bill Nguyen, Founder, and Chief Exe cu -tive Officer, ABS Institute, Vietnam, men -tioned that the government’s inclusion iskey where taxes need to be decreased andinvestments must increase to help theeconomy survive. Moving forward MuraliBukkapatnam, Chairman, Volksy Techno -logies, India, said that ‘migrants’ sufferinghas been the toughest’ which had broughtproblems for many industries such asconstruction and for it to resume back tonormal can take up to 15 months.Sandeep Gulati, Chief Executive Officer,and Founder, Zyomed Corp, USA, said that

in all the panels in Horasis so far he has seen3 teams emerging - ‘India’s GDP growth isskewed’, ‘COVID is an opportunity for re-building’ and lastly ‘policies are gearing tosupport the poor’ and lastly Nandakishorebrought the panel back and states thateconomy has had a great hit and it is adrawback regardless of the opportunities itmight bring in the future. He also mentionedthat India is not creating jobs even thoughwe have skilled labor. There need to be morefocused initiatives to train the workforce.

Co-Developing Asian Regions Post-CovidFurther, Kanesan Veluppillai, Partner,INSYNQ Partners Group, Malaysia in adiscussion on Co-developing Asian regionspost-COVID said, ‘We are currently in amulti-facet of challenges, but many peoplewill see that as an opportunity.’ Passing it onto Bradley LaLonde, Managing Partner,Vietnam Partners Kanesan asked him howVietnam took action or COVID. To this,Bradley responded with a story he recalledwhen he went to the states at the end ofJanuary 2020. It was very interesting as weheard that it was evident the US wasn’tprepared and lacked awareness. He said theyweren’t wearing masks and masks were outof stock in Walmart and other chains.

Vineet Mittal, Chairman, Avaada Energy, India Deborah Wince-Smith, President, United States Council on Competitiveness

Ron Somers, Founder and Chief Executive Officer,India First Group

39

He felt Vietnam was very aware of it andthe Vietnamese were wearing masks.Schools were shut, they were washinghands and there was social distancing.

Kanesan then asked Ajey Mehta, VicePresident India, and APAC, HMD, India tojump in and talk about India’s situationand what his thoughts were on how Indiaprepared for this pandemic. His openingremarks were, ‘We did probably have thetoughest lockdown... which continued foralmost 60 days.’ He feels we are slowlycoming out of it although the numbers areincreasing. The Government is doing itsbest and we are trying to help the people asis evident from the percentage of peoplerecovering. However, he added that we havea long way to go to be where countries suchas Vietnam and Malaysia are right now.

Krishna Kumar, Founder, GreenPepper,India then joined the conversation with‘India has always been a great destinationfor foreign investment.’ Making his point,he added, ‘the last 3-4 months have beendifferent primarily because of the trustdeficit caused by the virus.’ He feels that thisis the time to send a message to the worldthat India can be trusted, and India has theculture of acceptance. Closing the topic,Bradley said that it’s all about maintaining

peace with China now and Vietnam is doingexactly that. He feels Vietnam and India willeventually have a strong relationship thatwill go beyond trade, given the issues Indiahas with China.

Learning from Global Exposure to CovidLearning from Global Exposure to Covid,managers leading successful global busi nes -ses need deep knowledge and farsightedness.Tarun Anand, Chairman, UniversalBusiness School layed out India’s oppor tu -nity areas post-COVID in terms of frugalinnovation, availability of investor capitalas displayed by Reliance, education, AI,machine learning, and taking over the supplychain dominance from China. In the contextof India’s goal of becoming a 5 trillion-dollareconomy, he said, ‘This could be the rise ofIndia if we get this right, truly a sunriseeconomy.’ This was built on by RajivLuthra, Founder, Luthra & Luthra whospoke about India’s need to develop goodinfrastructure and how this requires lendinginstitutions that can provide long termmoney. He also highlighted the archaic lawsthat still exist and how they are to beblamed for the courts being backed up withcases. The conversation took a more globalperspective with the opening remarks from

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Kanesan Veluppillai, Partner, INSYNQ Partners Group, Malaysia Asha Jadeja, Trustee, Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation

Harshvardhan Neotia, Chairman, Ambuja Neotia Group

Marcelo de Andrade, Partner, EarthCapital Holdings who touched on a programhis organization has built with the IFC anddeployed in LatAm and Africa. It is calledthe shared value platform and is a conceptwhich applies to a positive impact on thebottom of the pyramid in large scale infra -structure projects and he expressed this isa model for India to explore and adopt.This was aptly complemented by the viewsof Eva-Lotta Sjöstedt, Member of theSupervisory Board, Metro who said ‘Youngleaders of today are showing us that it’s notonly about economic development but alsoabout the value system of leaders, sus tain -ability, social indicators and long-termgrowth. One must balance the impact oftechnology with human nature. We havemore technology today than people can use.’The conversation sobered down with theview of Heinz Dollberg, EVP (ret.),Allianz who expressed his belief that it is notthe right time for any European company tolook to India as they have enough problemsto combat at home. He also cautioned againstthe recently enacted laws in India and Ger -many which prevent foreign acquisition.The discussion concluded on a positive notewith Tarun Anand and Rajiv Luthra reitera -ting the opportunity COVID has affordedIndia in the fields of global talent acquisitionand new technology through M&A respec -

tively. Marcelo summed it up by adding‘For Indian companies to go abroad it shouldexport its best and realize its strength. Thelevel of Indian management on a global stageat international companies is very impressive.India must also use this knowledge fromtheir experience in India with the BoP tounlock new, similar markets as it representsa significant advantage to them over othercountries.’

Covid – its Testing, Tracking andTreatmentThe global malaise is primarily medical andits financial issues are mainly a result of thepandemic. But testing and treatment dependon innovation and tracking on well-estab -lished logistics. All need considerable globalresearch effort. Vinod Juneja, Vice Pre -si dent, SAARC Chamber of Commerce,during a discussion on Covid – its Testing,Tracking, and Treatment said the term‘treatment’ casually being used by health -care providers is misleading. Hospitals onlyplay a supportive function in COVID mana -gement. He stated that India has contributed50% of the SAARC emergency fund andemerged a sole food supplier to SAARCfood bank that feeds 21.8% of the worldpopulation, in spite of poverty prevailing inall SAARC countries and the presence ofdifficult terrains across. Commenting onsocial distancing, it seems to be a challengein SAARC nations. In Spite of that thesecountries celebrate major festivals e.g. Eidpeacefully. India has sent her healthcareworkers and paramilitary staff to some ofthe SAARC nations. There is a constant flowof information regarding business incentivesand benefits amongst SAARC members.

Asif Iqbal, Director General, IETOinformed that vaccines are in the pipelinewith various collaborative and develop mentefforts. India’s role has increased in reliefwork globally with WHO. He believes thatIndia will play an important role with her

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Asif Iqbal, President, Indian Economic Trade Organization (IETO), India

innovation, quality, and affordable solutions.There are 30 potential vaccine efforts inIndia, some of which might pass for humantrials. Xavier Prabhu, Founder, PRHUBpointed out that the Epidemic Diseases Act,1897, and Disaster Management Act, 2005are all India is fighting this epidemic with,and none of them fledge the communicationmanagement well enough for crisis mana ge -ment of this scale. The government needsto provide a messaging framework withinformation that can be adapted from thecorporate model to a public framework.Centralized information should be all –Credible, Consistent, Accurate, andTimely. The PR magnate mentioned thatsome hyper-localized information shouldbe disseminated using technology. Peopleneed context to relate and take caution.Learning from several state government’saddressing mechanisms’ mistakes, he suggests

one point of contact for the media and itwould leave no room for confusion. In thepast, there was a need for a standard proto -col for quarantining, etc. to avoid panic.We could have used brand Modi for clarityand detailing instead of symbolism. E.g.we could learn from Bangalore, the city’sculture is about effective communicationdue to the corporate employees, curbing thegeneral level of spread due to education. Allstakeholders should collaborate at differentlevels and India needs greater adherence andcompliance from the greater public withthe current planning and infrastructure.

Cristian Fracassi, Chief Executive Officer,Isinnova, Italy created a 3D printable filefor snorkeling respirators, converting tomedical respirators. The file was downloadedand printed across various locations about2M times, cutting on supply costs andmanufacturing lags. The exports yieldedgood feedback from health workers.Speaking about predictive technologies’role – variations in data sets across the globerelated to COVID, non-uniform patternsof the spread couldn’t enable big softwarecompanies in engaging new technologiestowards fulfilling COVID diagnosis/pre dic -tion needs in Italy. They feel that we haveto collaborate as a world and be togetherin this fight

Arun Sharma, Senior Advisor, Mastercard, USA

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Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, Axilor Ventures Long Viet Nguyen, Deputy CEO, Becamex, announcing the 2021 Horasis India Meeting

Austerity may be our Fate Post-Covid Global institutions, central banks, andsovereign funds have lent generously, delayed,even renounced loan repayments until theglobal economy recovers. But how willslowly working commerce rapidly repay thedebt? David Wu, Founder, and Chief Exe -cutive Officer, Motus Nova, USA, startedthe discussion on Austerity may be our FatePost-Covid by giving the perspective fromthe US. The situation is very promising inthe US that how quickly the economy wouldrecover, and the worst is already over.

Devendra Agrawal, Founder, and ChiefExecutive Officer, Dexter Capital Advisors,India, sharing his expertise from the financialservices sector stated that the whole COVIDsituation has led to a confidence crisis wherethe companies which were becoming in -vestable are not able to get capital now.Overall the confidence crisis is from bothsides i. e., parties that want to invest andparties who are looking to raise capital.Hence, both parties need to come together tosolve the crisis, and the government can helpthrough taxation and making the processeasier.

Supporting Cross-boundaryEntrepreneurshipVictor Guixer, Managing Partner,Guixer&Partners, Spain, sharing theexperience from the financial servicesindustry stated that the country noticedcompanies in Europe that have a good cashflow were willing to take risks and invest inthe crisis. While discussing the supportingcross-boundary entrepreneurship, PallaviAiyar, Journalist, and Author, Japan openedthe panel, stating that often innovatorsdevelop in-house as a micro-venture, some -times they locate within clusters, but all usea local language of understanding – of theneeds of financing, of staff develop mentand so on: they are not truly transferable toa new society and then raised an impor tantquestion how innovations and entrepre -neurs move location post-COVID withouthindrance. Pham Thi My Le,Chairwomen, Le & Associates, Vietnamemphasized the importance of stayingagile and investment in digitalinfrastructure has helped her humanresources business, which is quite labor-intensive, to navigate through COVID-19situation. COVID-19 acted as anaccelerator. Santosh Yellajosula, BoardMember, SingularChain, United Kingdomexplained that there has been a drasticchange in the way organization has been

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Audience invited to take part in polls

run pre-internet times and current times.The borderless entrepreneurship requiredstrong and supportive policies from regu la -tors, a trustworthy platform where block -chain capabilities can play a significant role.Shoummo K Acharya, Chief ExecutiveOfficer, eTrans Solutions, India indicates thatthis is time that Southeast Asian countriescome together to create an entrepreneur shipplatform to leverage our entrepreneurshippower to build a better tomorrow.

Bernhard Steinrücke, Director Gene -ral, Indo-German Chamber of Commerce,explains that Germany has been a worldchampion in exports because for the last125 years Germany has developed relation -ships all over the world by the way of trades.The investment follows trades. Steinrückeadded that when people move to an inter -national location for study, they make friendsand this changes the entire dynamics forglobal business studies. Chandini Jain,Chief Executive Officer, Auquan, UnitedKingdom citing her experience of settingup a business in India and the UK, echoedSantosh Yellajosula and Bernhard Steinrücke’sthat India has a competitive advantage tooffer in terms of digital infrastructure andaccess to talent, however, setting up anIndian entity looking to sell in the UK raisefund from outside of India was challengingand the simplification of this process wouldbe a critical step toward cross borderentrepreneurship.

The New Role of the YouthThe COVID pandemic struck less at theyouth which suggests India’s future economicsurgency might be assured by its demo -graphic dividend. The current time callsfor new factors to be raised to assure thebest use of the youth. While discussingThe New Role of the Youth, Adrija Bose,Associate Editor, CNN-News18, India statedthat the Indian population has grown since2018 and with the pandemic, there looms an

economic crisis, a digital divide is visible,higher education is even a viable optionanymore. Sumeet Anand, Founder andChief Executive Officer, Crrux.com, citinghis experience of working with rural youththrough NGO on one hand agreed thatgovernment has a critical role to play incleansing the system, enforcing the rightpolicies to improve work culture and crea -ting the right mix of skills so that Indiabecomes a favorable destination for businessto grow. Anand also adds that it is equallyimportant for the youth to become self-reliant and to take charge of their destiny byupskilling themselves to become employableor by taking entrepreneurial routes focusingon solving problems specific to Indiandemography.

Tetyana Kretova, Director Asia, IEBusiness School, Spain added that IE hasbeen one of the first few schools offeringonline education in the 90s and now inCovid-19 situation, this has become the needof time. The current change requires bothemployers to embrace online education andstudents to carefully select the areas in whichthey want to upskill themselves. On theother hand, Nikhil Chawla, Founder, andExecutive Editor, The Unbiased Blogemphasized that an unequal educationsystem negatively impacts the growth of

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Shoummo K Acharya, Chief Executive Officer,eTrans Solutions

Chandini Jain, Chief Executive Officer, Auquan, United Kingdom

children in poor countries and a solution isrequired to bridge the digital gap. RajathGoud, Chief Executive Officer and Founder,GlobalOpz, India calls upon the govern mentand society for a cultural change where risk-taking behavior is encouraged in society.Gayathri Kupendra, Founder, KReateFoundation, India said that in a countrylike India where the average age of youth is24 years, there is a need to rethink oureducation system. Overall all panelistsagreed that Covid-19 has accelerated thepace of technology adoption and thoughyouth have a critical role to play, govern -ment and society also need changes toadapt to new normal.

Targeting the Politics during post-CovidIt is the duty of opposition parties globallyto question incumbent governments, citingpoor management of pandemic response.A session on Targeting the Politics duringpost-Covid, moderated by Manish Chand,Chief Executive Officer, and Editor-in-Chief,India Writes Network highlighted thatpandemic and politics do not go hand inhand as it can be seen as devious howeverit directly relates to democracy. HeewonKim, Lecturer, Aston University, UnitedKingdom added that it has been over ‘100

days now with the pandemic’ and it is a‘testing time for humanity’. Handed over toMaya Tudor, Professor, Blavatnik Schoolof Government, Oxford University, UK,she mentioned that during such timegovernment is tested for the common in -terest of people, the Modi government hadan impact on democracy however they dida ‘good job in locking down’ the country.Later, Sumantra Bose, Professor ofInternational and Comparative Politics,London School of Economics and PoliticalScience (LSE), UK, added that ‘politics isabout uncertainty’, which has now beenaggregated by this pandemic. This has affec -ted the livelihoods and incomes of peopleand now is the time for the opposition inIndia to get their act together. PrernaSingh, Professor of Political Science andInternational Studies, Brown University,USA followed up on existing comments andhighlighted that health is a state responsibilityin which Kerala had made internationalhighlights on how it dealt with the pan -demic. India is a very religious orientedcountry however in ‘Kerela there was nostigmatization’ and discrimination whichhelped them win the war against COVID.Moving forward Heewon added that duringthe lockdown, ‘opposition in India wasmissing’ and it was because ‘they lacked astrategy to counter BJP’ and people couldnot relate to them. Lastly, Anjoo Sharan,Professor, Banaras Hindu University, India,said that religion is not the defining pointfor the pandemic, it eventually fades away.She added that Kerela handled the situationby February however the center waited untilMarch to take any action.

Envisioning Indian NarrativesEvery crisis has a life-cycle and we are inphase 2 where the velocity of change has tobe very ‘swift’. Bindu Dalmia, NationalChairperson, Committee for FinancialInclusion, Niti Aayog, India who chaired thesession on Envisioning Indian Narratives,

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Tetyana Kretova, Director Asia, IE Business School, Spain

started off by quoting Satya Nadella (CEOof Microsoft) ‘We have seen two years ofdigital transformation in thee two months.’This has compelled manufacturers, mar -keters, advertisers, and everyone to altertheir business models, products, and modeof communication. Passing it on from hereto the panelists, she asked them whether theyfeel that the economic cycle is sustainablewith the current lift of the lockdown. Shehighlighted the fact that the migrant crisishas brought to the floor a need for rural-urban re-balancing, making it crucial forlabor exporting states to incentivizedomestic industries.

On this note, she asked Hakan Bulgurlu,Chief Executive Officer, Arçelik, Turkey,and Dinesh Joshi, Chairman, SatyaGiriVentures, India to share their views. HakanBulgurlu added that it is difficult to get theconsumers to pay for anything in India be -cause the priority for the Indian consumersis ‘value’ he feels. He said you must givethem more for less, and this is particularlya constraint during a pandemic. ‘Made InIndia’ can drive domestic growth in India,but to quote him, ‘I still believe that thegreatest growth potential for the next 10years comes from India.’ Taking it from here,Mr. Dinesh Joshi said to this point that ‘Indiahas always been a land of opportunity.’ He

feels that India is now opening doors for theworld and foreign investment is encouraged.Countries such as Australia, Japan, and US,according to Mr. Joshi are the ones whocan give the bigger amounts as that is whatIndia needs in order to recover fast.Gayatri Dalmia now requested AnantSinghania, Chief Executive Officer, JKEnterprises, India, to step in and talk aboutthe immediate challenges and opportunitiesthat lie ahead which will determine India’sgrowth. She asked Mr. Singhania for hisinsights and it is worth noting that he feelsthe long-term objective of India is verypositive and the demographic dividend thatIndia can provide is phenomenal. Further,Sanjit Sethi, President, MinneapolisCollege of Art and Design, USA, said, ‘Indiahas incredible potential to be an innovator inhealth care and higher education.’ He thinksit is important to parse out the long terminto three orbits, the short, medium andlong term. Rishi Kartaram, Founder,Jeffcommerce Group, The Netherlands tookit from here and said that ‘One must lookat how much work is outsourced to Indiabecause it is much easier to connect withthe Indian people.’ Also, the fin-tech spacewill allow more transparency and move -ment of money. India should only be afraidof how they will keep the existing foreigncompanies in India itself.

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Spriha Srivastava, Executive Editor for Europe, Business Insider Rajeev Mantri, Managing Director, Navam Capital

Shiv Khera, Founder, Qualified Learning Systems, USA

Parallel Sessions

The Next Big IssuesOnce the main effects of Covid are finalizedand its resurgence prevented either naturallyor by vaccines what does the world face?Climate change, pollution, and food/watershortages remain to be solved. Gender andother inequalities need to be addressed.Global institutions need to be strengthened.Paritosh Gupta, CEO, Kukuza ProjectDevelopment Company, during a sessionon The Next Big Issues chaired by LouMarinoff, Professor of Philosophy, TheCity College of New York, USA mentionsthat to integrate Africa in the post COVIDworld more cohesively, transport corridors,food and agricultural developments; health -care and pharma are the requirements of thehour. Food and agriculture shortages arebecoming a pronounced issue towards makinga unified Africa. He feels that like-mindedcountries, diplomatically, resourcefulness-wise, etc. should now work in harmonywhile enabling systems and in a true sense,reducing the borders.

Murthi Nuni, Managing Partner, MarshalFunds points out that people’s healthbecame prior in the eastern world, e.g.India has gone through one of the world’sstrictest lockdowns. Post-COVID should

ensure focus on non-COVID healthcare,and the education gap in the new normalworld. He reckons that global debt wouldincrease to fill economic gaps for the middleclass. Currently, as the environmentalimpact on wildlife is being marginalizedand focus has been back on humans, we’llneed to make a shift. He feels that energy isanother resource we’ll need to harp on anduse the reset time to reinvent. He concludesby saying that COVID has exposed the non-cooperation in the world and the ‘each totheir own’ attitude. Now governing andinformation systems need to come togetherand co-operate. Jerry Power, Founder, I3Systems suggests that we start thinking ofinformation as a part of the infrastructurein governance as a response to such crises.COVID has rightly exposed the access totechnology and digital divide as compart -mentalizing the ones who don’t have accessvs. the ones who do. Global organizationsneed to become more resilient and agile.He points out that we’ll need informationto be clearer as well, e. g. there had beenissues with WHO data in the US. He feelswe can start by incentivizing the datacollectors and maintain transparency of dataand its traceability and that ‘trust and dataare investments’.

Tomohiko Taniguchi, Special Adviser,Cabinet of Prime Minister Abe predicts thatthe structure of industries will becomeinshore with insourcing. He reckons thatextremism in politics might gain the powerto bring about a strong change due to thepsychological vulnerability of the worldunder lockdown. He emphasizes that theworld is no longer borderless but borderfulas people spread the virus and the borderswere to be resurrected. This has certainlycaused a political and geopolitical realignmentof the global village.Ashokraj Vedivelu,CEO, Intelizest Global says that the contexthas shrunk, changing the agility of supplychains as leaders have no pre testament tofollow. Lockdown and now preventive

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Anu Bhardwaj, Founder, Women Investing in Women, USA

Lou Marinoff, Professor of Philosophy, The City College of New York

lockdown is moving to a depression state(in India). He demands quickly adaptabledata as all the past machine learning andalgorithm went into a black hole with noprecedent to follow.

Reform-Minded IndiaIndia has been a land of reforms. GaneshNatrajan, Chairman, 5F World, India,during a discussion on Reform-Minded Indiasaid that the country had it’s first majoreconomic reforms in 1991 for privatizationand globalization. As in the recent past, wecan certainly be proud of Jan Dhan, Aaadhar,and mobility. Furthermore, being from theTechnology industry, it’s great that apartfrom the 5-trillion-economy that the Modigovernment aims to achieve for India, thegovernment also plans to make India a 1trillion digital economy.

Vijay Sambamurthi, Founder andManaging Partner, Lexygen, India, said thatreforms in India could be broadly classifiedas Good and Bad. The good ones are in -creasing the defense cap, coal mining, andinsurance sectoral cap, however elaboratingthe recent reforms, one requires govern -ment approval on FDI from neighboringcountries that shares border with India, asthis affects business as the highest FDI from

land bordering countries comes from China.Sanjay Budhia, Managing Director, PattonGroup of Companies, said that during thecurrent crisis companies and countries arelooking for alternatives to establish abusiness but one key question comes up‘What do we offer? What do we have andwhat do we lack?’. For India, we have rawmaterials available, skilled labor, ease ofcommuni ca tion, and of course volatilityand commitment. Providing the macroperspective and personal view, RichardRekky, Member of the Board, KPMG,UAE, said that every crisis in the past hasthrown up opportunities. Speaking specifi -cally on India, he said that India is currentlyone of the few countries with a positiveGDP forecast, electricity, grocery, andpharmaceutical consumption has increased.Hence from a macro perspective, India is ingood shape.

The Quest for Green EnergyFurther, the panelist which includeGeoffrey Clements, Chairman, Com mon -wealth Infrastructure Partners, Dalip Dua,Chairman, Krishna Hydro Projects, DevinNarang, Managing Director, SindicatumSustainable Resource, Ajay Poddar, Ma -na ging Director, Synergy Environics andNalin Singh, Managing Director, Natio

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Tomohiko Taniguchi, Special Adviser to the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Richard Rekhy, Member of the Board, KPMG, UAE Vijay Sambamurthi, Founder and Managing Partner, Lexygen

Cultus Consultancy, also highlighted thequest for green energy and discussed atlarge about some of the intricacies aboutthe industry. At the outset, the panelistsenumerated the disadvantages of greenenergy, wherein each of the energy sourcesfrom Hydro to Thermal is either responsiblefor the destruction of mountains, landgrabs, or danger to the human population.Additionally, they also pointed out that thehuge capital requirement in the sector makesthe sector predominantly out of reach ofthe startups. The industry needs innovationin each of the sources of energy by eitherreducing the capital, land requirement, andby improving the usage and distributionand pricing models. India is a huge marketand innovation here is greatly rewarded.The best minds and the government aretrying to make the green energy industrywork with innovations alongside policiesand structural reforms.

Supporting New Education Ideas Atul Temurnikar, Executive Chairman,Global Schools Foundation, Singaporeopened the discussion on supporting neweducation ideas by putting forth a question,what changes should be expected in theeducation sector regarding the availability ofresources, capital, and governance standards

in the education sector post-COVID-19 ?

Sushma Paul Berlia, President, ApeejayStya& Svran Group, India spoke about thedigital divide which has to be taken care ofwhen education sector has to overnight moveinto the virtual model, training teachers onthe fly, reaching out to the children whodidn’t access to the required tech. Post-COVID there is an opportunity for blendedlearning and Sushma believes that digitaltransformation in education is here to stay.Sushil Premchand, Managing Director,PRS Services, Switzerland emphasized theimportance of educating SMEs to lift theirESG compliance on environment sustain -ability post-Covid. RL Narayanan, ViceChairman, Centre for Innovation in Educa -tion and Empowerment, said that this is anopportunity for students and parents to lookbeyond the classroom and see how they canlearn more from the situation. RL Narayanan,while responding to one of the questionsrelated to India’s supply chain operationefficiency mentioned that India has ampleof opportunities in the supply chain areawith big players such as Amazon, Flipkartoperating in logistics sectors.

Divya Lal, Founder, and Managing Direc -tor, Fliplearn Education, India said ‘A crisisis too precious to lose’ and appreciated how

Sanjay Budhia, Managing Director, Patton Group of CompaniesDalip Dua, Chairman, Krishna Hydro Projects

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India has shown true spirit that learningshould never stop when the lockdown wasabruptly announced on 21 March. Lalsummarizes the discussion that it is notabout comparing human competence withAI, the idea is to use the technology as atool and should not be given much credencebeyond a point.

Envisioning and Building Smart CitiesCities are engines of growth and they arecritical to India’s economic transforma tion.Their population density is also of concernhaving been proven an issue within the Covidpandemic. Discussion hosted on BuildingSmart Cities by Arvind Sethumadhavan,Member of the Executive Committee, SmartCities Network, Singapore, he started thepanel by stating that ‘2020 is a pressure testfor smart cities’. Furthermore, he added thatareas like command centers have becomehubs where everyone is now going. Movingforward Jerry Hultin, Chair, New YorkAcademy of Sciences, USA, added that‘cities are here to stay and they are strong’,‘80% of the GDP is developed in cities’however cities will change faster now thanin the past. Automation is going to changethe way cities and education work becausenow all manual jobs will become robust andtherefore brainpower will be how you value

yourself. Alfonso Vegara, President,Fundacion Metropoli, Spain, said that manypeople after the pandemic thought that itwas the end of the cities because it is busyand polluted. However, ‘city is not theproblem, it is the solution!’ Now it is allabout educating and attracting talent tothe cities and they can do that by gainingimportance. Ashok Kinha, General Part nerand Managing Director, Athamus VentureManagement, India, agreed with Jerry andAlfonso and further added that we need tobe closer to where we work because nowpeople do not want to waste their timetraveling. This ‘trend is catching up fasternow therefore smart cities are the presentand the future’. Moving forward NitinTripathi, Professor, Asian Institute ofTechnology, Thailand talks about Bangkokand how it has grown immensely, he thenfocuses on healthcare and talks about smarthealth. ‘Health care facilities are the lowestin India’, a lot needs to be done in this areaand COVID has exposed this problem.Lastly, Prasad Medikonda, Founder andChief Executive Officer, GuWha Enter prises,India highlights the importance of sustai n -ability and how that will be valuable for thefuture of smart cities, without that theywon’t be able to become ’truly smart’ andhe also said that smart cities should largelyconcentrate on road safety and infrastructure.

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Sushma Paul Berlia, President, Apeejay Stya & Svran Group Alfonso Vegara, President, Fundacion Metropoli, Spain

India’s Technological ThrustIndia has been very successful in Infor ma -tion Technology, Pharmaceuticals, andEducation to name some of the sectors.During this session on India’s TechnologicalThrust, key factors like, what the marketwill look like and to face this, what skills,what talent do the speakers believe Indianeeds in order to survive in the ‘new normal’scenario, were discussed. Vijay Thadani,Vice Chairman and Managing Director,NIIT shared his point of view from theEducation perspective and stated that he seesEducation and skills as a ‘forced multiplier’because not only can it improve the qualityof life of Indians, but also how Indianscon tribute to the rest of the world. Healso believes that the education sector hastried reforming itself in the last two-threecenturies but has not been successful – anddigital technology has had a great oppor tu -nity here. However, there were only a fewearly adopters. This new normal has nowforced everyone to deliver through tech -nology. Now people will understand thateducation is beyond the classroom. The globaleducation space, worth 6.5 trillion dollars,poses lots of opportunities for India.

Then, Srikar Reddy, Chief ExecutiveOfficer, Sonata Software, India chairing thesession went on to ask Srinivas Madduri,

Director, Center for Regenerative Medicine,University of Basel, Switzerland, to jump inwith his thoughts in the pharma industry.He stated, ‘The healthcare industry hasbeen significantly disrupted due to COVID.’He also added that India largely dependson China for the procurement of medicalequipment, which corresponds to 70% ofIndia’s requirements. To save the pharma -ceutical industry, the Government of Indiaand the key pharmaceutical representativemust understand the scenario and alignsolutions. Bolder actions must also be taken.The market must be identified along withthe triggering points. Next, ShailendraGoswami, Chairman, and ManagingDirector, Pushkaraj Group, India, steppedin to talk from the perspective of themanufacturing industry. He brought up avery valid and golden quote, ‘When life shutsone door, it opens ten others’ and on thatnote, he believes that there will be someopportunities and some challenges. Theintelligence lies in understanding which tendoors have opened, rather than focusing onthe one that shut. Sundar Mahalingam,Chief Strategy Officer, HCL Corporation,India, commenting on how he sees the wholedigital landscape said that ‘if you clearly lookat the technology industry in the next oneor two years, we are not going to grow, weare in fact going to fall.’

Atul Temurnikar, Founder, Global Schools FoundationDivya Lal, Founder and Managing Director, Fliplearn Education

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Strengthening VC CapabilitiesThe Covid pandemic may freeze fund flowinto startups as venture capitalists exercisecaution. India’s startup ecosystem seemsto be paralyzed as far as investments areconcerned.

The discussion on strengthening VC capa -bilities was kicked off by Jayesh Parekh,Senior Advisor, Jungle Ventures & IC,Avishkaar fund who shared recent fundingstatistics with respect to VCs & founderswhich acted as a segue for each of thepanelists to share their introductory remarksand their thoughts for the future in termsof challenges and opportunities. GaneshRengaswamy, Partner, Quona Capital said‘We have 2.5 times more capital todaycompared to the 2008 crisis. So there isdefinitely capital available. Markets are likelyto come back faster than we think. Nothingis as bad or good as it looks’. BhaskarMajumdar, Founder & Managing Partner,Unicorn Ventures added ‘We see the digiti -zation of processes dominating. We areactively involved in Fintech and starting tosee companies in our portfolio suddenlymaking huge progress with banks.’ SunilNihal Duggal, Chairman & Founder,Twenty 4 Ventures Group advised that ‘A lotmore that VCs can do than just cash. Haveexperience on their board in the form ofgeneral management skills and entrepre neu -rial experience (cost optimization, pivotthis product, etc.) and VCs must step it upfor their entrepreneurs at this time.’ SashiReddi, Managing Partner, SRI Capital addedthat ‘We invest a lot in enterprise tech. Thebig issue is that they are in India while themarket is in the US. Thanks to Covid that’snot an issue anymore and Indian start-upsare more effective now in the remote workingarena.’ This sentiment was rounded off byBinh Tran, General Partner, 500 StartupsVietnam who expressed hope but alsocaution when saying that ‘10 years of digitaltransformation happened in 8 weeks. E-commerce has doubled. As a long-term

investor, you have to ask which changes aretemporary and which are permanent aftera vaccine finally arrives. Must look beyondthis Covid crisis and think on a 5-year timehorizon.’ All in all the panelists indicatedthey expect to see growth in a number ofsectors spanning financial services, cyber -security, IoT, health tech, preventive tech,personal safety and wellbeing, remoteeconomy, deep medicine, telemedicine, e-commerce & digital higher education.They mentioned portfolio companieswhere they had to step in to advise onliquidity issues, cash collection, andtrimming non-essential resources/servicesto survive. The session was aptly roundedoff by Ganesh’s reality check when he said‘Reality hasn’t set in yet. The impact fromthe crisis has not really manifested yet andit usually sets in a few quarters down theline. So, I see a lot of entrepreneurs andinvestors living in a fantasy land in termsof their projections, expectations, etc.Time will tell!’

Vaccination Availability post-CovidCovid vaccines will take a long time to passregulatory hurdles, even with agile paralleldevelopment: some people may risk lightlyregulated early release Covid vaccines.Indian manufacturers are gearing-up rapidly

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Sushil Premchand, Managing Director, PRS Services

to the global market. Is global cooperationreally taking place? When will a Covidvaccine be ready? During a discussion onVaccination Availability post-Covid,Moderator Priya Prakash, Founder, andCEO, HealthSetGo mentions that it’s a chal -lenge making a vaccine as the last vaccinetook 5 years to make. She also pointed outthat WHO is making new ways to reach outto all audiences towards education, throughplatforms like TikTok, Instagram etc. tobecome generation inclusive.

Preeti Dubey, Founder, Strive High pointsout that 6% of vaccines end up making itin the market. Out of 100+ vaccines beingdeveloped worldwide, only a handful makeit to human/clinical trials. Talking about thecurrent situation, she says that the globaldemand is vast, and hence to make it, we’reracing against the speed of damage to createa vaccine. As for the public-private part -ner ships towards the future vaccines, shementions that companies like J&J andorganizations like Bill &Melinda GatesFoundation are partnering with the govern -ment to come up with a structure for vastdistribution. She lauds the leadership thathas been seen amongst people workingtowards relief and prevention work, onlyprecedent by world war 2 as the latest event.

Siddharth Ganeriwala, CEO, Aura Inte -grated Solutions says that unfortunately noneof us have a playbook for COVID. Hepoints out that there has been a lack oftransparency in communication towardsthe virus, at times creating an atmosphereof panic and disillusion amongst people.There has been a gap in communication thatwe would need to learn from, as he reckonsthat the vaccine might play up towardspeople forming queues as if it’s an elixir oflife, causing further chaos in the future.

Scott C. Ratzan, Editor, Journal of HealthCommunication suggests that we startworking on vaccine literacy, following thesuccessful patterns used while eradicatingsmallpox and other pandemics in the past.Getting the range of vaccine acceptancehigher – i.e. currently 87% respondents inChina would be accepting of the vaccinewhile only 55% would place their trust onthe vaccine in Russia (India is at 72%), suchthat people gain trust in the efficacy andsafety of the vaccine. We need to attainpeople’s attention with evidence-basedinformation globally alongside the worldleaders.

Deepti Panicker, Founder and ChiefExe cutive Officer, SparkHealth mentions thather organization is maintaining a registry

Priya Prakash, Founder and CEO, HealthSetGoScott C. Ratzan, Editor, Journal of Health Communication

Deepti Panicker, Founder and CEO SparkHealth

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for data for the Maharashtra government inlength and breadth consisting of data of thepatients, the available medical infra struc tu re,working towards maintaining a preparationindex for optimizing testing and furthertreat ment. She says that we need to be pre -pared to tackle this situation with the currentsystem, and monitor the sustainability ofshifting zones such that a possible future redzone is always ready with required supplies.For a vaccine availability phase, she says thatwe would need to go back to our data andmaintain transparency at a regulatory levelso that the attitude shift is well managed.

The Future of TravelThe travel industry has been particularlyhard hit by Covid-19, in India and elsewhere.The post-COVID recovery process will becomplicated and lengthy. In this session,panelists attended to some crucial questionslike When will travel recover and how istourism in India restarting? What willtravel look like, and how will it evolve inthe future? Which digital technologies willshape post-COVID travel?

Lathika Pai, Country Head for Startups,Microsoft opened the discussion panel onThe Future of Travel with a question ‘Is therea new business model that would evolve

for luxury travel? Answering this question,Puneet Chhatwal, Chief ExecutiveOfficer, Indian Hotels Company Limited,stated that Safety is a new luxury at least forthe short term. The safety would be provi -ded by the brands, brands that people trust.The luxury travel is going to be natural andoffbeat, people traveling to places wherethey can drive through from the big metroand more individuals, which are built-in withsocial distancing. Komal Joshi, Partner,ALMT Legal, spoke on how Indian govern -ments can help the travel industry to surviveand said that as of now no financial aid hasbeen provided to the travel industry in India.Furthermore, Komal said that in this currentcrisis it’s very important for the travel in -dustry to get some aid from the governmentto help them bounce back. Moving thediscussion to Suvir Malaney, Founderand Chief Executive Officer, Mobile Globe -trotter, Portugal, to provide a perspectivefrom Europe, Suvir said that the govern mentin Europe is providing financial aid andalso opening up the economy to keep thetravel industry alive. Furthermore, he saidthat the Indian government needs to take itseriously, so the supply chain remains intact.

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John Cook, Chairman, Rock Lake Advisors Preetha Reddy, Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals

Plenary: Post-Covid – RepositioningCapitalismAcross the globe Covid-19 has caused hugechanges: most people don’t go to work –instead stay isolated at home; many industrieshave failed or been furloughed. Our life stylehas changed. The concept of work may havechanged forever – what is on offer? Howwill we cope with a more frugal life, lessenergy, and consumption? How can Indiatake the lead in new lifestyle models?Rosalind Mathieson, Executive Editor,International Government News, Bloom berg,the host of Post-Covid – RepositioningCapitalism, started the panel by stating thata crisis of this magnitude makes us rethinkhow work, society, and the governmentlooks like and if this is the opportunity tobecome more sustainable. ‘It should not begoing back to where we were’ especiallyIndia needs to think about their safety andstructure vulnerabilities. Mukesh Aghi,President and CEO, US-India StrategicPartnership Forum, USA, said that post-COVID there will be more ‘realignment ofglobal order’ and in order for India togrow, it ‘needs to depend on FDI for its$5 Trillion vision’.

Thereafter, Hank McKinnell, Chair man,Moody’s, USA added a US perspective onthis issue, the business serves not only

share holders but also the stakeholders. Thisis because even ‘investors want more thanjust business projects, they seek greater socialimpact’ and employees want to work witha well-reputed company. Next, VineetNayar, Co-founder, Sampark Foundation,India, highlighted that the human aspect isbeing troubled the most, this includes thestate of education currently. Now ‘peopleare taking out their children from privateschool to public school because of salarycuts’ moreover migrants are moving back torural areas where the education system lacksthe most and this will reduce the number ofskilled labor in the economy. Lastly, PreethaReddy, Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospi tals,India, added a healthcare perspective whereshe said that ‘there comes a time in our lifewhere we need to reach a higher moralground’ moreover she complimented SouthKorea’s efforts of going from poverty toprosperity and tackling the Pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic has already resultedin significant economic disruption and un -em ployment in India. Many of the newlyfurloughed are resilient and inventive andhave ideas for products and services for thebottom of the economic pyramid.

Further, Rosalind Mathieson stated that in the current scenario, business is not an

Rosalind Mathieson, Executive Editor, International GovernmentNews, Bloomberg

Komal Talwar, Founder and Chair, Xlpat Hank McKinnell, Chairman, Moody’s, USA

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option anymore and further threw a chal len - ging question about the impact of COVID-19on the education and business sector.Mukesh Aghi proposes that India has to lookfor a quad relationship with Australia, Japan,and the USA to achieve the vision of a GDPof $5 trillion. Aghi emphasizes that Indiahas the biggest capital which is human andIndia can play a pivotal role in the globaleconomy by utilizing this capital to createworld-class cost-effective clusters of ex -cellence on a global basis. Hank McKinnellfurther adds that India capital is not justpeople but rather educated and motivatedpeople. Vineet Nayar raised a serious concernabout the impact on the Human Capital.The sudden increase in the number ofstudents in government schools due to lossof income to many families and the move -ment of migrants to rural communitiesfrom urban areas has caused double whammyon education. Since government schoolsare not capable of managing this kind ofburden, this creates a serious problem in thelonger run. To fix these issues, we shouldleverage digital technology to provide edu -cation to schools in the rural community.

Responding to Rosalind Mathieson’s con -cern of technology eliminating the peopleto people interaction, Preetha Reddy saidthat Technology is going to play a crucial

role but it will never replace the humanelement. She further said, ‘While we canbe high tech, we still need the high touch’.Reddy explains the use of technology willcomplement human interaction such as inthe healthcare field, after first in-personconsultation, follow-up consultation can bedone via Teleconsulting platforms. The Covidpandemic has shocked the world: however,India is capable of supplying health care atscale. Better health in India and globally willengage commerce, and India will recom -mence its growth and development pattern.The country will draw together the findingsof India and the globe’s future of empowe -ring people; raising economic well-being;brin ging cities to be sustainable and scalingits manufacturing and riding the digitalwave from services, through education tohealthcare.

There are 3 main challenges now for India;Economic, internal challenges, and exter nalchallenges faced by trade and geopoliticalrelations.

Plenary: Post-Covid – RepositioningLifestylesGerard Baker, Editor at Large, Wall StreetJournal, USA, chaired this conversationand started the session by introducing the

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Gerard Baker, Editor at Large, Wall Street Journal, USA Sunil Kant Munjal, Chairman, Hero Corporate Services

Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, India

panelists and addressing the impact Covid-19has created on societies, economies andlifestyles. ‘This is not a health pandemic, butan economic pandemic ‘said Sunil KantMunjal, Chairman, Hero Corporate Ser -vi ces, India. The panel conversation focusedon how businesses and customers needpivot in the post Covid world. Key issues forbusinesses like to hunker down and focusinternally for a while look at saving costs andmanage cash along with reinventing newefficient and lean business models was thecore message. ‘Due to large differences indemographics and economies, it is impos -sible to compare India’s response to thepande mic versus EU or North America’,said Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITIAayog, India. Tejpreet S. Chopra, Presi -dent & Chief Executive Officer, BLP Group,India commented that ‘the current scenariohas a demand-supply imbalance with supplychains in need of recovery’, which left amark on the panelists. The panel discussionrounded concluded with Hemant Kanoria,Chairman, Srei Infrastructure Finance Li mi -ted, India quoting ‘The buzz word is inwards– where one needs to look at their bodies todevelop a robust immune system to fightthe virus.’

Closing Plenary: India’s Hope for the FutureThe first speaker for the discussion onIndia’s Hope for the Future, Sunil Mehta,Chairman, YES Bank, India, started bysaying, ‘It is very evident that we will face aserious issue in the year 2021. Some sectorswill get more impacted than the other sec -tors.’ He said it’s good to look at the sectorswith a sense of optimism. He believes it isvery important to ‘de-bottleneck’ theproblem of liquidity. Dilip Piramal, Chair -man, VIP Industries, India, then came inwith his thoughts, saying that India’sbalance sheet is strong in his perspective.He said, ‘Many businesses will go down,but it de pends on what business you arein. Many businesses will also boom.’ It is anunpre ce dented situation and companies, bigor small, MSMEs must first survive, andthen manage liquidity. If they lose sales for 3or 4 months, they could virtually becomebankrupt. Frank G. Wisner, UnderSecretary of State (ret.), USA, added tothe point that the world is going through alot of change and India is facing pressurefrom China. He believes that ‘We (USA) and you (India)have to be very careful in facing these chal -lenges as there will be differences.’ He feelsthat the Americans are very dominatingwhereas Indians don’t like to be told what

Sunil Mehta, Chairman, YES Bank, IndiaTejpreet S. Chopra, President & CEO, BLP Group Hemant Kanoria, Chairman, Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited

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to do. Another difficulty is that India’srelations with other countries, for example,Russia, will not match the opinion of theUS and this will pose trade issues betweenthe USA and India. However, to sum up, hesaid that the USA and India need each other

to particularly face pressure from China.Prakash Hinduja, Chairman Europe,Hinduja Group, Switzerland, coming in atthe end, commented on how he sees thepost-COVID situation in India. He brieflyhighlighted the impact on industries wherethe Government would have to spend. Hebelieves there are certain things working inIndia’s favor, however, the Government willplay a huge role in the fiscal policy hereon.Moderator Sanjaya Baru, DistinguishedFellow, Institute for Defence Studies &Ana lysis left a wise note that he truly be -lieves that even with the population in India,India can stay ahead of other countries andbe disciplined in their approach towards theeconomy post-COVID, with proper planning.

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Dilip Piramal, Chairman, VIP Industries, one of the co-chairs Prakash Hinduja, Chairman Europe, Hinduja Group

Frank G.Wisner, US Under Secretary of State (ret.)

Sanjaya Baru chairing the closing plenary

Sujata Koirala, Former Deputy Prime Minister, Nepal

Virtual Closing Dinners

India and South Asia: Exploring Regional CooperationIn a discussion on India and South Asia:Exploring Regional Cooperation, RamMadhav, National General Secretary, BJPsaid, ‘The first quarter of this century be -longed to China, but the next quarter willbelong to India where we predict that we willsee India rise to the 3rd largest economy in adecade from now.’ Ranil Wickremesinghe,Former Prime Minister, Sri Lanka who hasbeen deeply involved with SAARC had thefollowing perspective, ‘There will need tobe agreements between countries outside ofSAARC as well, to achieve objectives andto supplement the work done in SAARC.So, both these tracks need to be concentratedon and used to complement each other.’Farooq Sobhan, Former Foreign Secre ta -ry, Bangladesh highlighted the need to speakas one voice, focus on areas of convergencerather than divergence and to make space tobring in the private sector. He built on Mr.Wickremesinghe’s statement when he said,‘Former PM Ranil made a good point whichI advocate – heads of government shouldmeet frequently and without ceremony to

focus on monitoring implementation. Im ple -men tation is where we have faltered despitehaving great ideas.’ Sujata Koirala,Former Deputy Prime Minister, Nepal alsomade the point of not allowing politicaldifferences to stand in the way of regionalcooperation and highlighted India’s role inthis respect when she said ‘India has a keyrole to lead South Asian countries out ofthis covid crisis. Just like when NarendraModi was elected in 2014 and adopted aneighborhood first approach, we need some -thing similar right now amongst all themember nations to promote One SAARC.’The discussion continued in the vein of thevarious focus areas required to foster en -han ced regional cooperation, delving indetail into the need for road connectivity,personal relationships both in politics andbusiness, the importance of the privatesector, and the learnings that can be takenfrom the success of ASEAN. The conclu dingstatement by Binod K. Chaudhary,President, Chaudhary Group, Nepal sumsup the discussion well – ‘India follows twoprinciples when it comes to support acrossnatural disasters, and political and civilconflict to its neighbors in the region –Together we grow & Neighbourhood first.’

Ram Madhav, National General Secretary, Bharatiya Janata Party, India

Binod K. Chaudhary, President, Chaudhary Group,Nepal

Ranil Wickremesinghe, Former Prime Minister, Sri Lanka

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India and Central Asia: Nurturing a Common FutureIndia is also taking great efforts in streng -the ning its ties with the Greater CaspianRegion. Azar Bayramov, Adviser to theChairman, State Agency for Public Serviceand Social Innovations, Azerbaijan during adiscussion on India and Central Asia: Nur -turing a Common Future spoke aboutAzerbaijan’s UN award-winning Asaan (easy)service system being a platform for all publicservices with a services satisfaction rate ofabout 99%. They're now using this plat formfor COVID management. Emphasizing theNorth-South transport corridor he says it issimilar to reviving the silk route and a similarlevel of potency. 6 weeks delivery timewould be cut down to 3 weeks. India’s trainconnection with Azerbaijan is being workedout to strengthen trade links. He feels deeppartnerships and tie-ups across these coun -tries will help recover the economies in theregion post-COVID and provide sustainableand digital new normal. There has been atrade imbalance between India and Azer -baijan, in spite of the fact that the latter hasan immense export capacity. However, nowwith the North-South corridor, there is anexpectation to see a change and serve as apath between Europe and India. Transportand digital infrastructure projects is wherehe seeks investments in.

Yerlan Alimbayev, Ambassador ofKazakhstan to India says that as strategicpartners, 1.2B USD trade has happenedbetween the countries in Jan-Apr’20.Kazakhstan is amongst the top 25 fastestgrowing countries with ease of doing busi -ness. He highlights the foreign investmentsof 317M USD belonging to Indian investors.He believes that Kazakhstan is an importantmember in improving the trade climate inCentral Asia. India in his opinion has the softpower of Bollywood in Central Asia, winninghearts globally. Mentioning the Internatio -nal South-North Trade Corridor, he sayswill unveil opportunities to the markets ofSouth and SE Asia, and significantly reducethe cost and time and development trade andeconomic relations. Shanghai CooperationOrganization having China, Russia too willcontribute to this growth. He mentions thatCOVID hasn’t actually postponed much ofIndia-Central Asia trade dialogues. Explo ra -tion of mutual interests and strengtheningof logistics and supply chain is important.Mining, metallurgy, food processing arethe industries from his country that he’dwant to push for.

Murat Seitnepesov, Chairman, CaspianWeek says that the Caspian region is theFuture point of growth, with rich mineralsand oil resources. There are needs for

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Murat Seitnepesov, Chairman, Caspian Week India and South Asia – Exploring Regional Cooperation

logistics reform. The Caspian arbitrationcenter has enabled an understanding of thespecifics of the region. Mr. Kalinin elabora -tes further on the abundance of resourcesin numbers, and the potential of growthamongst the countries in this region (notrepresented in the panel). The GreaterCaspian Region is completely open for Indiawith plenty of opportunities. He em pha sizesthat the countries in the Caspian region andSouth Asian ones, should not only move onthe bilateral level but at a regional level astogether they’re much stronger.

Abdul Kareem Malikyar, Deputy Mi -nister Of Trade And Industry, Governmentof Afghanistan lauds the support from theneighboring countries during COVID. Hementions that Afghanistan serves as a linkbetween Central Asia and South Asia, andAfghanistan is working on policies and legis -lations to play better on this opportunity ata faster pace. The platforms that he believescould push the envelope for these countriesare WTO, such that their trade systems arevery liberal and we should use it to our be ne -fit, Eco organization, SAARC organization,and others can come together and induceregional activity for reforms. A push thatAfghanistan would like to see is in theirenergy and oil transportation logistics toSouthern Asia.

India and Africa: A Case of Symbiotic DevelopmentSpeaking of India’s relationship with Africaduring a discussion on India and Africa: ACase of Symbiotic Development hosted bySuhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Editor, TheHindu, General V.K Singh, Minister ofState for Road Transport and Highways said,‘Relation with India and African nations isnot only ancient but also progressive whichhas matured over the years.’ The trade be -tween the two nations from 2001 to 2014grew from 7 Billion to 78 Billion. Secondly,India’s most development assistance goes toAfrica. Discussing various opportunities forboth the nations, General V.K Singh also saidthat there is a need for Indian businesses,African businesses, the Indian government,African government, and students alike todiscuss what both nations want. Ministerand Special Advisor to the President of Niger,Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou focused onhow African countries need to developeconomies to access clean water, betterinfrastructure, education, and much more,and it is only possible by leveraging tech no -logy. Lucia Lipumbu, Minister of Indus tria -li zation and Trade, Namibia added that shedoes not see any better partner to bringtechnology solutions other than India.

Lucia Lipumbu, Minister of Industrialization and Trade, NamibiaIbrahima Guimba-Saidou, Minister and Special Advisor to the President of Niger

Mukesh Aghi, President and CEO, US-India Strategic Partnership Forum

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Geopolitical Challenges and Oppor -tunities in the Post-COVID WorldReflecting on the geopolitical challenges andopportunities in the Post-COVID World,Shashi Tharoor, Chairman, ParliamentaryStanding Committee on External Affairsexpressed his views on the complexity of theIndia-China border conflict, which goesback 50+ years in history, and suggestedmeasures to ameliorate such as maintai ningstatus quo in the short term and across thetable settlement in the long term. The nextissue discussed by Dr Tharoor was the sur -facing ineffectiveness of the multilateral

bodies such as the WHO, WTO, etc,including the recent US fallout from theWHO. This is a reversing trend, a trendwhich is undoing the globalization progressthat has been achieved in the last thirty years.In his opinion, there are multiple factors thatimpact the working of multilateral bodiesand the leaders need to find ways to helpthese bodies function more autonomously.Moderator Richard Hames, Founder andChairman, Centre for the Future, Australiaclosed the session by pondering about a po -tential cold-war between the US and Chinaand how the other countries would react.

Shashi Tharoor and Richard Hames on geopolitical challenges

India and Africa, with Ministers from India, Niger and Namibia

Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Editor, The Hindu

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Virtual Reception: Horasis Young VisionariesDuring the concluding Virtual Reception onHorasis Yong Visionaries, Moderator YoncaBraeckman, Co-Founder, Impact Shakershighlighted that now young leaders willalso be a part of Horasis and there will be‘training and fellowship opportunities formore young leaders’ to come onboard.Abhilasha Bhatia, Founder, The CreatorsDevhub, Canada, mentioned that the edu ca -tion, family, and support she has gotten hashelped her become a successful entre pre -neur. This is the building block that drove herto her mission, and moreover she requests‘Horasis program to boost local entre pre -neurship’. Moving forward Helen stated that‘services for human advancement are key’,the main passion should be people. Re sour -ces in Africa are rich however ‘mindset needstransformation’ as that change occurs wewill see communities developing. SherazAhmed, Chief Operating Officer, Katarina,Switzerland, said that ‘dedicating yourselfto a mission at such a young age is noteasy’, one cannot be stubborn and decideone’s future by plans and calculations. Hementions that it is important to ‘have anopen mindset and learn’ then develop acombination of our passion and missiontogether. In part 2 Yonca continued to getmore young leaders onboard, she men tio -

ned that these panels are an example of whata young Horasis panel will start to look likein the future. Later, Kartik Sharma,Director, Agnitio, India, added that tech no -logies that are being used for empoweringyoung people by proofing their future andeducating them on it as the current jobs canbe made redundant. Navdeep worked withBJP in PR and communication and is nowworking on campaigns to create aware nesson rural economy and migrant workers.Darshan wants to promote entrepreneur shipglobally and is currently advising companieson having more social impact and sustain -able development. In conclusion, Christinaadded that women’s employment and sharinginformation is important, many countrieslack information, experience discrimination,and violation of human rights.

Kartik Sharma, Director, Agnitio, making a point

Vivek Atray, Visiting Professor, Shoolini UniversityVineet Nayar, Co-founder, Sampark Foundation Shaju Stephen, Chairman, AADYAH Aerospace

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Lourdes S. Casanova, Professor, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, with her panellists

Cardiac Surgeon Naresh Trehan, Founder, Medanta, with co-panellists

questions from the digital audience

Abdulkareem Malikyar, Vice Minister of Trade and Industry, Afghanistan

Groupfie of panellists – the (virtual) Horasis India Meeting was a very engaging experience

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