 Well, hello and welcome to this final session of the World Economic Forum here in Delhi. It's been a really, really, I don't say this every time, a really good last two days with people getting more practical and more nitty-gritty and not just ideas up in the air. And you can see the amount of enthusiasm because of the absolutely full hold is a standing room only. Thank you all very much for joining us. In this final session, we want to talk about what steps are needed by India for India to take off. What specific steps are needed? One thing we have all sat together and promised what we will not do. We will not make any statements which are motherhood and apple pie. Like we're not going to say we need better infrastructure, we need better schools, we need better medicine, we need better people, we need better everything. That's like our Indian cricket commentators. The way you win a cricket match, they say, if you bat well, you bowl well, and you catch your catches, you're going to win this match. We want to know how do you bat well, how do you bowl well, and how do you catch or catch? So we're going to ask some tough questions and I can see some people here who are going to ask, make some tough questions and answers too. And we couldn't have better minds amongst us. We have Vijay, a most amazing personality who's been a rebel all his life. He's a dropout from classroom, he dropped out from his classroom to the computer room. Sorry, first row to last row to computer room. And has been an entrepreneur and a disruptor all your life. God bless you. And of course with Paytm now disrupting India and the entire financial world. We have Amitabh Kant, who is, I would consider most unlike any government officer that you normally meet, thank God. And most respected I'd say. And he's really responsible for pushing India's digital transformation. And he's really doing a fine job, but we'll find out exactly how. We have Geeta, who amongst all of us is the most brilliant mind. Was that saying, not saying much? I remember when we used to do the world this week now, people used to say, that is the best program on Durdarshan. Hello, was that saying, is that a compliment? Anyway, those who were of that era before your time will remember what that means. So the professor at Harvard, and she's not just a theoretician, she's practical down to earth. In fact, she's even advising the Kerala government as we speak. And of course we have Johann Orik, am I pronouncing that right? It's pretty close. Roughly, yeah. So we have an academic, we have a government servant, we have a startup entrepreneur, and we have a man who combines all three. You couldn't get a better panel, right? Let's have a round of applause for this wonderful panel. Now, you know, it's tough to get anchors to shut up, but I'm going to just give you the format of the show today. We're not going to have questions only at the end, because we're dividing this into five topics. And at the end of each topic, about 10 minutes, please ask your questions, I'll ask you, on that topic. And at the end, we'll have free for all for any question. But don't ask a different issue when we're discussing, like our first topic is protectionism. Should India protect its startups from foreign competition? We'll go into that in a bit of depth. And you've got questions on that. Please raise your hand and we'll ask. You can fire it to anybody in the panel. The second topic is, will e-commerce destroy small industries, small retailers in medium size? Is this a antagonistic relationship, or can they both help each other? The third topic we'll be discussing is, has the government got any role to play in this new digital transformation world? Or should they just stay out of it? Is that the best thing they can do? Or if they're going to stay in, what should they do? The fourth topic is about China, where we know they have $280 billion Ali Baba, they have $100 billion companies. Are they our friend in this whole process? We're growing? Or are they going to be an antagonistic, competitive relationship? China and similarly other parts of the world. And finally, and really to take off, any country needs just one thing. You need an ability to laugh at yourself. Do we Indians have an ability to laugh at ourselves? And we're going to ask each one of you to try and prove one area, or tell us one area where we really need to laugh at ourselves. And there's actually quite a few areas where we can laugh at ourselves. So if you've got any in the audience where you can think of why Indians, journalists can't laugh at themselves. Journalists are above all this. We can't laugh. We are very self-important. Okay, so let's dive into the first topic. And that is about protectionism. As I mentioned, China has $280 billion Ali Baba, $50, $70, $80 billion, $100 billion companies. And when any foreigner, forget China, Amazon or anybody who all these come into India, they bring in a huge amount of money. They bring in funds. They're not necessarily bringing in technology. They're not bringing innovation. They're not bringing new ideas. But one thing they do bring in is money. And that's going to kill our industry or is it not? Kita, protectionism or not? So I guess I would disagree a little with you about the fact that they only are bringing in money and not bringing in technology. Some of this is kind of embedded in the people that come and work here, in who they hire and how they get trained. So there is transfer of soft skills if not the hard skills. I'm in general in favor of, and I suspect most people would be in favor of having a competitive environment, as long as we have a level playing field. So as long as we agree that the access of Indian firms to finance, I don't think we lack for great innovators in India. If that is the case, I don't see a reason to have a very strong policy anti big companies coming in. At the same time, I actually do like very much the idea of tying up foreign direct investment with some kind of technology transfer, too. The Chinese model relied a lot on that. So does the Chinese model actually almost prevent foreign competition from coming in? That's how Alibaba grew. I mean, they just don't have foreigners coming in a little bit lately, but even those that came so late they couldn't make a dent. You're selling out there. You're talking about the more recent industries, but China has been doing this for the last 25, 30 years. And so initially, they were bringing in foreign companies that came in and were also transferring technology. And so that certainly, there is a space for that to happen. But again, my punchline would be to create a level playing field to make sure that... Because anything that's done to prevent competition is a problem. That's a point because protectionism in the old days used to lead to monopolies and inefficiency in India, and we hate protectionism. But here, when you've got protectionism, you've got so many startups, they're not going to be monopolies. They're going to be, in fact, over-competition. So do you feel level playing field doesn't quite exist because foreigners coming in have already become $150 billion companies, and they've got so much money, our startups cannot compete? Prenu, you need to look beyond just e-commerce. The digital world actually transcends the boundaries of e-commerce. Actually, the kind of innovative things Indian startups are doing and amazing things in the field of health. You look at concio-medical, you look at Pratt or you look at some of these new startups like Mitra Biotech. I mean, they've relocated from Stanford to India. So the amazing amount of work, they're bringing in a different energy vitality into Indian growth and development. Now, many of these startups require FDIs. It's impossible to grow without a lot of investments coming into them. I mean, look at even a company like Paytm. I mean, Paytm has attracted investments because you had a very dynamic entrepreneur like Vijay here. And the Chinese model was a very close model, but India's opened up in 1991, and since then it's just opened up, opened up, opened up, and we've now believed against protectionism of any kind. So we need to allow Indian entrepreneurship to grow. We need Indian young entrepreneurs. We need young entrepreneurs. To my mind, we need young entrepreneurs to take on the Amazons of the world. And we need them to take on Amazons of the world by sheer ability on technology and by the ability to understand the Indian market scenario much better. Vijay, now Geetha, I want key factor, level playing field. But when a foreigner comes in, he's got everything else level, technology, skill sets, manager, we have great entrepreneurs, but then he's got 10 billion dollars to lose, which our startups don't have. Now, you're in both sides of this, so you would really understand which is better to have a bit of protection like China or not. First of all, level playing field is a good word, but reality is that everybody is built with a construct which is not so straightforward to be identified that you have a level playing field. People have structures and the aging of the business and opportunity of access to the capital, which is totally different because you're structured in a way that you can access something else versus an Indian company can access and so on. I truly believe that opportunity for Indian entrepreneurs is to build a global company out of India and not give India as a market to a global company. It is not just our duty or an obligation, but it is our right to build India as a market even if it is an open market that exists today there. Because I do not believe that entrepreneurs do not have enough energies and capabilities to fight this managerial, if you will, the talent there. And I'm not treating that it is an entrepreneur versus manager gap, but I'm trying to say an entrepreneur can tweak around the business model with a lot more freedom then a manager would be able to do it if the market conditions change and that person has to have a buy-in at a headquarter back. So playing on the advantages of who you are and playing on the disadvantage of what your target is is the business about it. And fundamentally here, if money is your answer to the problem, you've not found the answer to the problem yet. It is not about tens of billions of dollars. I don't think... But isn't that a little easier to say than done? I do not think... Everybody's got same entrepreneurship, same technology, but somebody's got ten billion. It is absolutely not. Masa's son was not a family that would have inherited a soft bank and built what it is today. In the label-playing field in that country and there are examples in this room, it would have not been possible in a way that, oh, no, I have the same excess and same not or not. It is the energy and the passion that brings over and take over the chasm. Let's talk about the car makers, if you will. Japan created Toyota, Nissan and Honda and talk about when they were landing in Japan, they were making this car. They were building cars for Japan in a market which was local. They were not building guest guzzlers like Americans were building or they were not making cars like the Germans were building. They were building cars which were made for Japan. And when they had built and owned it, they went to the world market and today we know what who sells more in U.S. than who sells more. U.S. company or a German company? Actually bounce that off you, Johan. In our television sector, especially in the news sector, we didn't allow foreigners to have a majority and they invested in many other companies, Indian companies and Indian companies have grown and they've far outstripped BBC, CNN. I mean, BBC and CNN used to be, or BBC used to be 70% of the market, now they're less than 7%. But Indian entrepreneurship and journalism has grown, some may say grown too fast and too far, but anyway, we'll come to that another point, but it has created a huge industry. Is that needed in not just e-commerce, digital transformation where foreigners have to invest with Indians or can they come in independently? I first of all completely agree with what the previous people have said. But they all said different things. No, but the basic thing was the same, that for innovation and for growth and particularly for startups, it's not capital that's the short resource, it's brilliant people and brilliant business models to make profit with that. That is what we have a shortage of. I love the saying, anything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger and I really believe in that. And you know what some of the most entrepreneurial areas are in the world, it's often the most difficult areas in the world where there's no support from any government or even a government that opposes you. You would be amazed how many startups there are in Paris, arguably a government that makes life for companies very difficult. Africa the same, some of the most brilliant entrepreneurs come from Africa. Look what happens in Kenya in the telecom sector. And so it's not capital that's the shortage, it's really bright entrepreneurial people. Capital helps bright entrepreneurial people. It happens at some point. There's more than enough capital around to the world, particularly with the current interest rate environment. There's no shortage of capital, there's a shortage of bright people and good business models. And second of all, I would argue... We've got too many bright people, we don't have capital. It's not easy to raise 10 billion to get a startup in the last three years against a major American company that's in here. It's still an issue. But before you were born, I used to follow China very closely and I covered the first McDonald's that came to China. It was opened on the crossroads. On one side was the first McDonald's, on the other side was a huge poster of Deng Xiaoping with his arm like the blessing McDonald's. That was a great symbol. It was a great piece to camera for a flunky journalist. But they did protect their industries for a long while. They got 80 billion dollars a year on foreign investment and everybody said every 20 billion dollars in foreign investment, not in the stock market, investment is almost 1% on your growth rate. At that time, we were getting 3 billion. So they had 80 billion. So they seem to have done everything right. Can we learn from them? Well, they did many things right. I wouldn't say they did everything right. There are sectors that we're not discussing today that they didn't do great things about. And also the most recent last five years in trying to prevent their growth rates from coming down too much, they've been fueling it with credit. And that's a model we simply should not be adopting, having a credit field expansion. Everybody's talking about that being a bit of a bubble. I think the fact that we've learned looking around the world is that whenever we've seen growth that's basically been fueled by credit, the fact that there will be a crash has been almost with certainty. So we don't want that in India. While we're talking about capital, I just want to make that very clear. This is not about suddenly opening up the tabs and making 10 billion dollars available to all startups in India. So what China did, some of the things right, which is in terms of how their own special style of ease of doing business, which is getting things done when people came in and they had to start companies and they needed land and they needed permits, those things were available. So they also focused a lot on education, they focused a lot on increasing human capital. Those are the kinds of things that are lessons for India to take. It's not specific. This is not science that's come out of China. I think that's the way best practices have been everywhere in the world. And so it's quite clear what India needs to do. When I was in the finance ministry many years ago, when you were also a bachha, we had a lot of protectionism and we were opening up. That was the time of opening up. And every industrialist used to come I was just a joint secretary and these top industrialists to walk into my room as though I was king. Spend a bit of time in government, you feel like you're God. They really treat you like that and they all say one thing, I'm totally in favour of opening up the economy. But in my industry there are specific conditions. This one you should not open. So it's great to hear you saying, open up. But are we kind of a reflex against a failed policy of the past which doesn't quite apply here because that created crony capitalism and monopolies. Now in digital transformation all the examples you gave, no question of crony capitalism. These guys are entrepreneurs and they're competing against each other. So is it a different world? Pranay, you just can't copy the Chinese model to an Indian soil. And last two years we've opened up just about everything. So let me say socialism with the Chinese context, whatever, China with the Indian context. So India has to have its own growth model. And India last two years, if you look at it, we've opened up defence, we've opened up railways, we've opened up construction, e-commerce, we've opened up insurance, pension funds, we've grown. We've opened up everything. Our FDA has grown by 53% at a point of time and globally it's declined by 16%. We are the number one FDA recipient country in the world. We've beaten China at it. You can't suddenly backtrack. You'll be sending a very, very wrong message. Now you want to say that I want to protect my startups? I mean, you can't have a half-baked house. And since when have you become a great advocate of protectionism? Me? Look, I am an anchor. I have no views. I agree with her. I agree with him and I agree with you. Anchors don't have views for God's sake. So my belief is... I agree. I don't like that. And I... Maybe you want to protect the newspapers. Anchors. Okay, how many of you here believe the startups in this new digital world need protectionism for five years? How many believe they do need protectionism? Zero percent. Or are you too ashamed to raise your hand? What do you say when we're not in the room? 100% believe there should be freedom of all types, even if it's not a level playing field. Even if it's not a level playing field. Okay, this is hardcore. Hardcore. Any startup here? In the audience. Okay. Are you worried? Do we have a mic? You can ask a question. I want to be very clear. I am not for protectionism, but I have to counter you to make the best come out of you. And I don't... As I said, anchor, no views, no ideas, no IQ. Pranoy, I... Pranoy, we are actually completely in the same belief as Vijay that out of India we can build well-beating stuff. You've got to find your niche. You've got to skate smartly. Got a question for them? Anybody? Yeah, here's the question. I just have one question. Of course, I mean... Amitabh, you, Pranoy, your background. Indigenous manufacturing capabilities became what it is today because you had licensed Raj in the past. So you could protect your industry to become capable before they could address the global markets. True or not? I don't know. You're saying that whatever you do, how do you make sure that you can insulate some of these people to excel in what they do in some shape or form so they can actually compete in the world and not just the e-commerce? You know, you've got to create the right ecosystem. I mean, what is it that has enabled 1,500 multinational corporations to relocate their global innovation centers to Bangalore and Hyderabad? I mean, they're innovating for the rest of the world based in India. You know, and Indians are innovating for themselves but for the rest of the world. But we don't have a $280 billion company. Pranoy, that will happen. I mean, you just started liberalizing. Your liberalization started in 1991. China started two decades before. So your process of wealth creation has just happened. I mean, people like Vijay have just started creating wealth now. I mean, he'll be a multi-billionaire in a decade's time. I mean, so just... What do you mean? He already is. He already is. Okay, let's move on to our next topic because we've been shouted at that we're going over time. And that is about the competition or is it complementary between digital world and the bricks and mortar world? Say retail, for example. Small retailer and the e-commerce retailer. Is it... We know that in some senses the digital world gives a small retailer an all-India market. I remember a startup give me an example. His aunt used to sell saris. She used to go from shop to shop and beg them, don't put it so low, let people see it and they'd be treated like dirt by the shopkeeper. And she could hardly sell. Now she sells 17 crores a year of saris on the various platforms. So the digital world has provided the small entrepreneur an all-India market. So is it Vijay competition? Because retailers and they're a powerful lot in India as a lobby are very worried. So how do you tell a retailer, don't worry, it's not competitive, it's complementary. I think... I don't think that retailers in India are worried about technology-led companies because technology-led companies give them also that equal market. What they're worried about is exactly what you a while back were talking that international companies come and throw money and that becomes a little sort of irrational playing field. And in the offline retailer space it looks like that offline, online, online does that irrational exuberance of money in a way which is what brings a conflict or tension. It is not about the technology can support them or not. I'm a fundamental believer and foundational believer that technology is an inevitable journey for anyone who does not have a technology play yet even if it is part of efficiency or growth whichever way you choose to do it. You will not live without it. You have to live with it and not live with it but maximize your outcome with it. You're saying it's inevitable. Inevitable? It is just that irrational spending by the online that gets challenged, I think. But Gita, isn't the government worried about this that the retailers will start protesting on the streets and therefore we have to protect them? I mean we are a democracy and anarchy democracy and we love that aspect of us but is that a political worry? Again, to be clear this is not a debate about big versus small because this could be two small people but providing the same service differently. Maybe the digital person or the digital company has lower costs or something. Yeah, but I'm just saying that previously when you had these discussions about these conflicts it was about the big guy versus the small guy. Now it's about if you look at Uber and Ola it's about the previous taxi driver versus the new person who's a small entrepreneur or a self-employed who decides to drive around the car. So question is who do you pick? Are you going to pick the small taxi driver? Are you going to pick the small household person? Is it a question of picking one or can you say both will flourish? I don't think governments can choose that and I don't think that they can have any special knowledge or special advantage in figuring out that okay, the way technology is going we should be supporting this particular group of people and not these other group of people. But the problem is they can influence it. For example, they say you can't have foreign investment if you're going to stock the products. No, you can't have a surge pricing you can't have number of cars. Today morning we got to know from the IPP secretary that a city in this country has a limit on number of cars that sort of protects in a way who is running it versus number of cabs which otherwise could have been created. I thought we were talking about what they should do not what they're doing in terms of what's the right thing to do. They can, so should they not? Should they do this kind of protection and just forget the fact that they're going to lose a lot of votes with the small guys? I have no politically interest in this matter. But I think what is true and this is not something to be ignored which is the fact that it's no longer the case that one can say I'm going to let a big constituency of people just suffer in the transition to a better world. So there is certainly a need for some stepping in but it cannot be something that's irrevocable. Like what we did in the past in India which was protect certain sectors for small scale industry. Those were very, very hard to change because it just doesn't change very quickly. But you can think of short run things somehow on their own laps over time. That might be okay. So intervene but for us a transition. Is it a bit like again going back a bit when computers came in, everybody said don't let them in, our clocks are going to lose out but they will come in. So are we, when we are kind of doing these limits on the new technologies, is that just you know something against the wind which is a tornado and it's going to take over anyway. Uber and Ola or that model will take over and you're just delaying it. What's the size of our e-commerce? It's about 25 billion. Take it from me by 2025 this is going to be 300 billion. And this is going to happen because we're the only country with a billion mobile but we'll be a billion smartphone. But let me come to that. Does that terrify the small retailer? No. The only way you can the small retailer must embrace technology. The small retailer he wants to do brick and mortar please do it but embrace technology you can do both brick and mortar and e-commerce but there's no way you can stop e-commerce. E-commerce is going to suck in loom, handicraft, cottage industry that will become the biggest driver of job creation. Are you showing a government officer because you're saying open up embrace technology something's wrong here new generation I must say. Do you see a conflict? You can be honest. I'm paid to be honest actually and I really think you're in the protectionist camp I'm sitting with amazement I'm following this conversation autocratic and no opinion either that's clear I really think what has been said is what I firmly believe if you look at a player like let's go to a different country not to India which is maybe a bit less sensitive let's go to Amazon Amazon is one of the biggest creators through it's platforms through it's e-commerce platform retailers, small monopop shops to sell anything over their platform not just a couple of dozen or so hundreds and thousands and it can be totally complimentary the example of Uber was given it's about embracing it's about embracing technology and it's not only about e-commerce it's about everything different channels certainly retailers need to use all of that so let me ask everybody here hands up for those who feel that the new technology and the bricks and mortar are in direct competition I think I'm in the I would just as a health warning we're not in a typically Indian audience this is not a random sample here you ask it, what is it how many believe that they are complimentary and they will the small scale sector will benefit from the digital transformation it's consistent I would say 90% say yes still 10% who don't know because zero put their hands up for competition any questions on this particular issue here there's a question just take a mic I'm Kamal Hingarani from SpiceChit come from aviation and tourism so the aspect of online travel agents 7-8 years back the likes of ClearTrip make my trip and all came in and there was a huge hue and cry by the brick and mortar saying that they are taking away our business but the reality is like Amitabh just mentioned that the small brick and mortar also had to embrace technology to a certain point and they still survived because they provide that personalized service which probably an online an OTA may not be able to so maybe a similar complimentary thing would be possible so my question is to Vijay who talked of technology having taken over so if we take the example of OLA where we are saying that OLA and OBA will probably completely overshadow the individual Kali Peeli do you think the same thing will happen to travel agents, the brick and mortar Kali Peeli means taxi my learning has been that technology adds to the consumption it's not a zero sum in a way because it is easily available and I can I will consume more if the rest of the economy is growing in a way technology increases consumption of an economy because convenience and availability changes we sometime later will become impulse buyers of things which we might have not even thought that we would buy because it is easily accessible in a way and that stands for that even if you were to have online massive number of people to sell digital travel plans ultimately overall travel will grow and people will find their own niche and spaced out opportunities by the way we had a bigger question a while back when Mr. Mithal and other team were sitting here that technology eventually the question was a really important which just leads to this technology artificial intelligence robotics and so on is getting so efficient that higher strata jobs jobs where doctor was operating and a robot arm was operating and trading floors where bankers or security traders were trading versus a robot bought was trading and these are fabulously, fantabulously ahead of human thought processes so effectively while the efficiency will come and at jobs people will get to do a few more things the bigger challenge of this technology will be or maybe and that is a question that was being debated I think where we should go is are these technologies challenging a job itself while efficiency is coming? Would you say it challenges jobs in the short run but in the long run like computers it creates jobs? I don't think anybody can answer that question right now there is a lot of uncertainty about I mean every time there has been the so called industrial revolution that's always been the billion dollar question about we basically substituting labor with machines and the question has come up now too and like Vijay said it's on a grander scale because previously it used to be the very high skilled jobs would not be replaced but that's come up too except for the plaques in Calcutta when the computers came in a real worry for them but do you think it's a short term problem and any way technology is going to take over and it will create more jobs? So the problem I believe is that this industrial manufacturing revolution, smart manufacturing revolution is is inevitable it's the digital technology is going to converge with the process of manufacturing and what the consumer decides will get translated to the floor shop and manufacturing will become extremely fashionable and it's not going to be dirty dark and dangerous anymore it will be very fashionable and sexy in future and therefore you know you have to be ready for that it may lead to some loss of jobs initially of a particular kind but it will create jobs of a different kind it will create high value jobs and what your skilling should really do is to train your people to get jobs which will give you higher unit value okay that brings us to our third segment which is in this whole transition this is for you has government got any role to play or is the best thing you can do is just stay out? No the government must act as a very active facilitator it must act as a very active catalyst and as a very active driver of change so they must behave like they've never done before? Absolutely it must keep itself hands off but it should encourage the private sector to embrace smart technology from all over Can they do that? I can tell you something we said okay Dur Darshan is there politicians must not must give it independence you know what they did one night they phoned up the DG and said I'm having a party please show that clip of a dance with Madhuri Dixitinit for my party that's the level of interference they had to show it on Dur Darshan the whole country had to watch something because he has a party going on can our politicians keep their hands off? You know Pranoha I think the days of the days of Madhuri Dixitinit Sarovar oh no no no well you belong to a different generation you know there's a generation gap you know okay so you say put on Deepika Padukone but you politicians of every generation are the same they interfere they love it I think it's important to understand that the government has to spearhead change and it's doing that in many many ways and it's important to understand that this new revolution of manufacturing is going to spread in a very big way I mean look at what's happening in universal payment interface that is going to happen you're going to make every single debit card credit card, ATMs, posh machines all of them will become redundant in India India is the possibility of becoming the first cashless, paperless, presence less society in India simply use biometric and your mobile telephony every individual will become a walking ATM by 2025 it's possible for India to do this you just need to create the right ecosystem and it's doing it right now let me ask a question how many of you believe the government can keep their hands off and not interfere or in fact unbiasedly encourage how many feel they will stay away how many feel they won't stay away that's about 40% so 50-50 once again need a mic while it is agreed that government should keep off and Amitabh is probably an example that a change is happening but I don't think the same similar change is happening and the political which is a very important part of the government Vijay, one thing is if we are a whole lot of Amitabh things would be different but there's politics and the politicians can't keep their hands off very well put actually I think we should remember that people like Amitabh and his department are must requirement there are kind of situations that we wouldn't know where to go and there is a direction and there is a champion of that cause in a larger environment typically whenever there have been a question in a government or policy making the choices have been given versus incumbent versus noobs have been thrown out so it is the shoulders of giants like this department which is championing them I want to tell you this just before you say that it is a slight compliment to politicians that they allow Amitabh to function yes that is true I think this department you know I want to put this I want to put this record right because you function in spite of this I want to tell you this that Aadhar was started in the previous government story no no and I want to say this that this government you know pushed it to its limit every single government scheme they have brought in efficiency using Aadhar 36,000 crores have been saved and that is happening right from the top because the PM himself is a techie you know so it has been driven right from the top to say that every time government interferes you are sadly mistaken here the drive for inclusion I am not saying I am just asking questions yeah in Kerala are you going to ask the government to keep their hands off I have nothing to say about that can governments keep their hands off of politicians I should make a distinction between technocrats and politicians it is difficult because politicians work on election cycles and they care about getting the votes and that is usually involved at some point that they have to make decisions that are not the best economic decisions but they have to do it so I don't think that they can keep their hands off fully in Germany they don't keep their hands off at all do they why do you ask me about Germany well because we just want an international stellar example because I am not German in case you you were talking about Germany earlier well I am a consultant and I tend to look at facts and draw conclusions from that that is why I am not an anchor and if you look at the companies around the world that scored the highest on the competitive scores and just the WEF brought out the latest score by the way India made a huge jump the ones that are consistently at the top 10 for the last 20, 30, 40 years usually have highly capable, consistent leadership in place consistent and highly capable and I think a government that focus on the key enablers like education, like infrastructure like you name it and third of all allow the free economy to develop and allow diversity and entrepreneurialism to take its place and also those that fail allows them to fail and it is very, very important failure is a key in success that doesn't happen in our public sector but we will come to our public sector next panel you got a question? just step forward a bit so we can just to make one specific point on the government involvement especially when the market has evolved and private sector has jumped in government should not interfere and I would go to the extent of traditionally what have been government areas education, health, water there are enough private enterprises now delivering solutions to these problems the framework where they allow these private enterprises to compete we have seen the reverse in recent past there was a comment actually any questions? just let's have questions actually take a mic please the local government which administrates the local offices or local facilities of a plant or in a perfect world should facilitate all that that's a huge hurdle in India at a policy level FDI, small retailer multi-brand retailer all that is fine that's a rule but what you are thinking of government is not just Amitabh Kanth or central government but what he has started which actually I think the World Bank has taken on as well is ranking each state so you are dead right reality is state wise why don't you explain you know I we did on 100 points we ranked the states last year we said we will name and shame the states and put it in public domain and there was huge amount of competition this year we have done it on 344 points and every single state is competing I mean this kind of competition among states I have never seen before and the amount of dismantling of rules, regulation, procedures acts that has taken place in India I have never seen this happening before many states are determined to make themselves the easiest and the simplest place it will take time 68 years of legacy don't expect it to radically change overnight mindsets are changing it will require a lot of more drive but I am quite sure in 3-4 years time you will be there I feel like I should counterbalance Amitabh so Gangu I agree with the point that was made that it does come down to what happens on the ground and even now when I go to one of the state banks to get some work done it feels exactly like it was 25 years ago the ground realities it will take time I don't think 3-4 years will be enough but it will take time but it is still torture the only problem is that Gita's understanding of India's ground realities based from Harvard oh come on that's an unfair one I'm afraid all of us have exactly that experience you go to a bank you probably haven't been to a bank in 30 years okay let's move on to the next one in this whole development whether it's 5 years, 20 years, 30 years China is he a friend or is it an antagonistic a competitor and we better watch out man China is there what do you say there are 2 ways to look at it I don't eat 40% Chinese for lunch I have 40% ownership by a Chinese firm in my company first of all when it comes to India's sovereignty and choices we make for the borders there is no doubt about it there is a one way to look at it and there is no alternate way to look at it which is that we will only be friends with those who are friends with our borders that's it so that is like the point when I talk about business safe borders create safe businesses and when it comes to the business it is nice to have money but at a condition and a document that is written by us with our terms and conditions so you've got to be like Trump a good negotiator like Trump is a bad example or claims to be Geeta, China we should worry about it it doesn't matter what you think if you can't live with them you can't live without them either that is a very safe answer that is it is what it is China is you can put up hurdles and delay things he's great he's opening everything up what should he what we certainly need to make sure is that we have good market access in China that's his point about the other way around our terms and conditions make sure that if that's the case that's a big plus for the Indian economy to be able to have market access you have to work with China in the world markets don't embrace or reject you have to work together do both and it could be a big plus to make good market access are Europeans scared of China? not in the least states don't have friends first of all they have interests second of all imitation is never a good strategy I've learned that over the years India is not China and the other way around you're completely different it takes different things for India to win and so don't look at that and finally if I may add I've been coming to India for many many years and it's a time you guys stop being obsessed about China stop talking about it I wouldn't be I mean it's not that interesting for India I think India is less obsessed about China than the Americans are about China that is probably true as well I would agree with that but still it always surprises me Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai you know in trade investment and also travel and tourism you know there's no friend of four and for long we have a huge fiscal deficit you know in about 76 billion of trade there's huge fiscal deficit which India has and actually we've been just importing made in China but the strategy should be that invested by China and made in India and we should get Chinese companies to make in India rather than importing their goods so we should stop importing their goods no we should import but we should get the Chinese companies to do manufacturing here they've already created large capacities to do manufacturing in India but the second key thing is Chinese will be the biggest travellers across the world and you need a law you want travel and tourism will be the biggest job creator you want jobs to be created in India get Chinese tourists to come into India Johan speaks Mandarin already so people are learning Mandarin because they are you need Chinese speaking guides how many believe that in this short term future ahead for India we should embrace China and how many feel they are going to be a major competitor and we better watch out so how many people feel we better watch out about China that's about 20% how many feel embrace China that's about 20% so 60% remain undecided or refuse to reveal their preference or need third element what should we learn should we learn from China is there anything where we can learn from China right how did they make their industry efficient socialism under Chinese conditions so China under Indian conditions if under socialism any questions one question somebody who has an answer my question is to Gita do you think India is on the right path for achieving growth with equity and what's going well what could be done differently this is the general question motherhood in pie motherhood in pie question that's a bit now I think this is it's a very good question and obviously among the things that need to be done is you have to make sure that people have the right amount of skills right skills in you know being ready for the jobs that are going to come up we need more job creation in India the skill is still a big skill deficit that's the key factor I think that's a very important factor it should come not only from the government but should also come from enterprise right right any other general we are coming to the last segment where we are going to find out from the panel and from each one of you why we need to laugh at ourselves and I think I know somebody will tell us many reasons why we should laugh at ourselves so be ready we are coming to you any general questions which are not motherhood and apple pie I think I am the only person retailer in the room I am a grocer I am a shopkeeper so I think I must be I just need to comment on something that we have already discussed and first of all we are not certainly terrified about the technology coming and I like to believe that it's only a temporary disruption technology is a great leveler and already we are embracing a lot of this technology at B2B level are you embracing it? you have a e-commerce we do have an e-commerce at B2B level we need to make a lot of transfer and then of course at e-commerce level I just wanted to say that we are not terrified certainly we are willing and we are ready to take on technology and other things and the all level playing field can be very terrifying for a lot of people like us now because then we are again talking about all protectionism my point is that technology can be a leveler and tomorrow bespoke manufacturing but isn't retail currently benefiting a lot of protectionism right now as we speak I think it should go multi-brand retail should come in I am already here as a multi-brand retailer don't say it publicly we as a local company we have went internationally and gave competition to people technology is like driverless cars deliveries, drones, bespoke manufacturing it could always be advantageous to traditional retailer which are through bricks and mortar and I think it is still going to be there very much one more question then we will go on to why we should laugh at ourselves there is this question about protectionism and you think India can progress without its farmers and you think farmers can survive without protection this is a question to you and this is a question to the government and farmers survive without protection it has huge protection for their farmers how can we survive that do we need it as well you are right there is a lot of protection in the west for farming it is a difficult it is a difficult question when you get from a global perspective is that a good thing then that is definitely not a good thing to have protectionism anywhere but one could argue from an individual country's perspective that might be a good thing as long as they have it you know I think the more important question is again let's care about the outcome we want to have higher productivity in farming in India we want that whoever is in the farming sector gets paid earns a good livelihood and there are many ways to solve that which at this point do not involve going for protectionism you just have to fix the problems with making sure that litigation making sure what is used you need to make sure the produce that these farmers make reach the market there is no monopoly along the way that is taking away those are more important areas to focus on those are I would say get those things right before we start talking about protectionism I have a question to ma'am I have a billy she got me ma'am ok thank you professor that is good are you asked for that sir I have a question for you that I have a belief that those who have always choose the rules to decide how will be played and western world and developed world more or less have more or less large number of vertical of industries where they are like open up the world because we want to come there and when they do not have in farming they say let's protect it isn't it like that I would agree with you to some extent that it is certainly the case that you know there are two rules when they go to the rest of the world there is the rule that you have to open up and when it comes to their own sectors they have it and that is something that the emerging markets should fight back on I think that they should have a bigger representation in terms of decision making of the IMF, the World Bank and all of these organizations looking around the corner hoping your son would be able to answer this question I want you to tell us why we need to laugh at ourselves and what is funny about us first this debate not only till the west especially the US, Japan and France UK is ok, Germany is not that bad she would know better not only till they are protecting protecting for production protecting for export protecting for imports we should protect our agriculture and I'll come to what she said well beyond they stop theirs and I don't know when they will stop theirs this is just one sided nonsense they don't listen to us when we negotiate last 30 years whether it was GATT or WTO he should know it better than me it's very easy to say liberalized liberalized it's alright for industry politically it's impossible 60% of the population she said more productivity yes 3% of their population produces tremendous amount of food we have over 50 if not 60% doing that to come to 3% in your lifetime we won't come to 30% and that would mean 400 million being replaced in relation to the 10 million needing jobs now no matter factory will provide that forget the service industry it's just not on we don't want to kill our farmers we don't want to kill India no wait till it sucks they do exactly what suits them I've been involved in WTO negotiation not maybe as much as him in various committees I won the expert committee of WTO when Super Chai was the WTO director general one of the 13 people okay now you've got so serious there's an ID time to switch a little bit on China Chinese question on economic matters let's get the best out of them but till now they've been negotiating harder than us so maybe it's on equal terms or whatever now you're sounding like Trump bad negotiation that's our problem SOB but I trust relatively speaking Hillary which people in America don't and if she wins it will be because she could not get votes not because he got votes but that's another story particularly in every other respect apart from economy if I was the government I would not show my hand but I don't trust them I don't like them I'm very sorry to say this across the border they keep humiliating me not only 62 when we was okay got it now you have to laugh at yourself aren't you laughing at what I said haven't people laughed at Bombay club one man per club no but more seriously I think there are those who laugh two things a country has to laugh very serious we are God loving God fearing we believe in fate so many people have said if this doesn't happen if it's not inclusive growth there will be blood rivers of blood flowing low rivers of blood flowing 70 years though billionaires have increased what have also improved but the inequalities have risen like mad those weaknesses of globalization clear cut weaknesses everybody accepts Brexit accepts Trump accepts Bernie Sanders accepted so we laugh because all the poverty here if we have to laugh there's one thing there's actual fate it is certainly true that you may not agree with this but if you go to South America or most of Africa the crime rates are way higher than India your houses are protected in India I know there's a lot of crime but it's nowhere near as what happened in Columbia Pranay we got the Nobel Peace Prize the Colombian president wonderful news and for finding that great agreement which after that you had a referendum and lost one thing in India say if we've never had a referendum okay let's say the other reason we laugh you have to be ready to counter his extremely serious countenance today one last point you're not in the room you're very you joke a lot laughing point laughing point I don't speak I don't ask you ask me I never ask a question and never make a comment that's a good one that's a good one when the glass is half full of what? water but that's alright Murat will say vodka but that's alright he's a friend of Eddogan but partly to please depending on the subject please the powers that be very fashionable everything is good good good you have to laugh you see the glass half full the few like me oh that's good the glass is half full of course so what? where were we? in 69 where are we now I see the glass half full so I don't laugh the first machine is correct the politicians don't like me because of that that is a very only idiotic industrialist they start liking you very very worried it's a compliment it's a compliment I think so the laughable matter for us is our aspirations are moon landing and global superpowers and our appreciation is Jogar that's a great thing about India true true we applaud Jogar like nothing and we still want to be the superpowers Jogar is a uniquely brilliant Indian phenomenon what should we laugh for ourselves I've worked in both north block and south block and between the two of them we just about managed to block everything so we should change the names the east kund block the west kund block the north block and south block you have to tell a joke about Indians no no I'm a guest here guests have to behave no no we are embracing you say whatever you want Indians are not sensitive not not in the least not in the least it's sort of like German humor isn't it no no I don't have a joke for you I have to disappoint you I can only share with you that this is an absolutely wonderful country and I meet many Indians that indeed the glasses have full a couple of years ago I come three times a year ready for a long time and I still love it very much isn't it amazing and I've learned to love it every time even more and despite the fact that I have to crawl through the streets of Bombay sometimes in the late afternoon with all the people honking and etc. I still love it very much because what's so great about this place is the sense of being alive I know no other place in the world where there's so much joie de vivre the French call it I would know exactly how to translate love for life and that is true not being seditious how about you don't be seditious now I'm actually I want to say something that is not a laughing matter which is we've been talking about growth and we're talking about India two decades from now I just want to say that India has to be a better place for women for the if you want if you want women to be a big part of the growth story for India it has to be safe to go to work anywhere it has to be it's just very it's very important that it's not just the people living in urban India but even women living in rural parts they have a really better opportunity and safer lives and I'm not just saying this because you're here and I've said this before Indian women are far superior to Indian men that's why 70% of NDTV is women far superior they just need the opportunity and forget 9-10% growth rate we'll hit 15% I really don't know exactly good question thank you all very much for blocking everything and unblocking now we'll call it North and South Unblock thank you for watching bye for now just one second Phillip the managing director will come and thank everybody but it's been a wonderful two days God bless you all first thank you for an excellent and very dynamic and very lively moderation you're a real great anchorman coming later second I would like to thank all of you for two days hard working fighting in and for India and I know that you cannot applause yourself so please a big hand to our busiest coaches Dieter Johann BJ and Arneel and John who cannot be here thank you very much and applause to World Economic Forum God bless you so this is at the same time our appeal to you that you will be our ambassador for the next 12 months and make sure that everything what was discussed committed to degree 2 will be turned into reality by all of us and finally I would like to thank all the helping hands here all our forums, teams, our partners conferation of Indian industries under the leadership of our regional director Viraj Mehta for South Asia Viraj come here to thank you outstanding well done thank you