Good evening
good afternoon good morning to everyone
joining in
welcome to
a session about how india can be future
ready as we know over the last 30 years
of the economic reforms of july 4 1991
india has come a long way
and while much has to has been done much
is yet to be done
i have the honor joy and pleasure
to
welcome my guest mr mohan dal spy thank
you i think many of many of you all know
mohan but i`ll give a very brief
introduction
moan is the man i go to whenever i want
to feel great about life
because his constant energy his
perpetual smile makes me very optimistic
about the future whenever i have doubts
so that`s to me the best introduction
that i can give but having said that we
know that mohan has done his ca a law
degree and of course joint infosys and
made sure that infosys had the best
disclosures the best annual reports and
helped build a fantastic enterprise now
of course he is chairman with the pine
street but with with the manipal
education foundation are in capital and
he has two really
inspirational sons who are running their
own entity 3.14 so which of course for
those of you know that`s a play on the
word pie so pi is 3.1472 so that`s uh
you know by 3.14 capital
so with that uh brief welcome because
we`ve given more detailed bios
uh mohan thank you for thank you for
joining us
and i`d like to ask of you know the
first question to you where were you
prior to the economic reforms what was
mohanda spy doing in july 1990 june 1991
before the big announcement of the
reforms
well i was running a
finance company leasing company called
prakash leasing limited like those days
was very sedate nothing much happened
we were captives of the licensed quota
raj
we were like the caged tiger in that
famous economist
you know front page and we didn`t know
it because we didn`t know any other
world
we were born into the world the licensed
quota raj where common decide everything
where you have to go to government to
get approval and delhi was captured by
some set of people
and you didn`t know better and you
waited and the life went on the sun rose
in the morning and
set in the uni so in the finance company
growth was fast for us 30 40 but very
slow
so suddenly on 91 in 1991 we had this
crisis and then india opened up but i
did that let me give some data
you know in 1947 when india got a
freedom india was the biggest economy in
asia
because we are a war economy and great
britain orders 1.5 billion pounds
for taking our services and goods for
the war effort china was destroyed by
the civil war japan was destroyed
southeast asia was destroyed by the war
in asia we are the biggest economy
remember and the richest economy 1950 we
had
you know republic with uh with the with
the
uh with the
constitution being in place
and uh
you know we
the first government of the day brought
in policies
to set up the license control raj
whereby private capital was
uh a bad name
and
you know private capital was
not encouraged
so i think
we were
you know victims of that particular
place
and we had the large public sector so we
grew at 3.5 from 1950 to 1980 population
grew at 2.5 percent per capita income
grew at 1
from the richest economy in asia we
became the poorest by 1980. in 1980 we
started opening up 80 to 90 we grew at
5.5 population grew at 2.25 percent we
saw a little bit of growth but our
foreign debt went up from 20 billion
dollars the beginning of the 80s to 80
billion dollars by the end of the 80s
and uh in 1991 we had foreign action for
two weeks of imports and we`re in a dire
crisis we had to pledge our gold get 450
450
million dollars
and then we opened up
and that opening up has been remarkable
from that point onwards
you know
in our gdp group from 275 billion to
three 2.93 trillion dollars by march
2020
and uh you know we became if we grew at
8.5 a year in dollar terms population
grew at 1.5 percent and per capita
income go at seven percent
and now of course we had kobe i do hope
by uh by 20 by 20 20 32 will be a 10
million dollar economy so see these
three phases
and then you can imagine what it was it
took us 20 it took us nearly 30 years to
come to where we are and see this high
growth phase and to understand that we
are free economically we can take many
decisions and government has no business
to be in business you know gandhiji
famously suppose i said being

so so let`s just sort of i mean you know
i love the fact that you throw data in
fact before you joined i told my
colleagues
i said you know moan`s going to throw a
lot of data at us he`s a walking machine
for data the data bank ai and everything
with it but you know sort of looking a
bit
back in history if you will from the
1991 till 2020
what changes have you witnessed have you
seen for example in technology in
entrepreneurship that desire to get a
job versus the desire to be an
entrepreneur the search for education
higher education what what changes have
you witnessed since 1991
well let me give you the example of
infosys to give the change
1991 india exported 50 million dollars
of software
this year we`ll export 170 billion
dollars
there were maybe 25 000 people employed
in software for expos this year we`ll
have 50 lakh people
and there were no listed companies now
the listed companies are worth 400
billion dollars
of the top 10 software service companies
were market value in the world five are
indian top five three are indian of the
2.8 million employees in the top 10 2
million are indians or the 6 million
employees in software in america one
million are indians out of the five
million two and a half million work for
american companies out of eight and a
half million employees in software in
america three and a half million indians
it`s all happened because of the opening
up what did it mean one we could import
computers without paying 170 duty we
could travel abroad without standing in
queue and getting eight dollars from rbi
or the airport and rbi are telling us
how much you can go and where you can
travel etc we could list our equity in
the stock market without going to the
control of capital issues all right and
we could we could grow rapidly because
the capital markets have opened up
foreign investors came in morgan stanley
at one time 13
of the equity of uh
equity of uh you know influences and
remember uh the total money raised was
thirteen and half crores
so under thirteen and a half court they
must have put in two cross and the two
cross will be what 13 billion dollars
today
two crores will be worth the nearly you
know one lakh road today right i mean
it`s incredible if you look at what
value and then of course we could grow
and everything else and you know there
was a sense of freedom
yeah we never knew freelancers
absolutely yeah it opened up

he started 1978 but he thought a scale
maybe he broke a few rules in telling a
scale but you`re the first
indian to show that we could have scale
in this country we never knew scale in
this country it`s all licensed but uh
you produce one vehicle more than
license you are you are all you know put
in jail and all that and all that was
gone it took five six years of people to
understand
how to be free but then everything
started off and it built on itself and
for education you know uh those days
you`re producing maybe 25 000 engineers
now we produced 10 lakh engineers
and those days maybe the total students
in college maybe no you know maybe five
six lack today we have 3.6 crore young
people in college i mean it is a
different world today compared to what
that world was
right so if you now
look at the next 20 years right india
has to go grow maybe from roughly three
2.73 trillion dollars where we are if we
have to get per capita incomes up to ten
thousand dollars per capita fourteen
thousand dollars for capital
we have to go towards being a 14
uh 14 trillion economy 18 trillion
economy that sort of number looking out
for the next 20 years
so what is it that india needs to do to
be future ready in your opinion to get
to those to get to those large numbers
of 14 trillion 18 trillion in terms of
total gdp so we can break out of being a
low income economy and moving very
clearly into the middle income economy
path
you know i think i believe it`s going to
be a very difficult journey compared to
what we have been through the last 30
years
for a very important
important reason okay the world is aging
consumption will not grow at the same
pace globally china is a very big
competitor who can dump
and our time at the table in my view
has passed when you could really grow
rapidly so we got to do something
special
and india today has very very deep
challenges which we have to solve which
i see the government solving in a way
but not in the way it should
all right so let me talk about the
challenges and what we ought to do to
really get going
the biggest challenge we have in this
country is that 43 percent of our
population depends on 16 of gdp
agriculture growing at 3 to 3.5 percent
a year
that means 57 percent of people depend
on industry and services which are
growing at seven to eight percent a year
so the income differential between
people on the land and people of the
land is expanding very very rapidly and
we have to break the gap and that`s why
we see
uh the income of people on agriculture
is about i think
50 65 000 rupees income on land is 1
lakh 65 000 and income of people on
you know on in services 2 lakh 25 to
like 30 000 rupees so the differential
is very very wide yeah and if you look
at the per capita income of this country
is nearly one lakh forty five thousand
uh but up is sixty nine thousand and uh
vr is forty nine thousand they are
thirty percent of india right and west
bengal is 135 000 they`re way behind so
we see this divergence in economic
growth but in the north and the south
we see divergence in fertility in the
south fertility is 1.7
1.7 for fertile human in the north is
about 2.4 2.5 india has come to 2.0
so we see more young people coming up in
the north in the south the cross
enrollment rate in education is about
maybe 35 in the north is about 23 24 and
indifferent quality of education
right so human capital financial capital
everything is very different from the
north to the south and there`s a massive
uh you know migration from the north to
the south in this country leading to a
lot of discontent all over the place so
we have to ship people from agriculture
into industry and services i think
that`s very important and for that to do
we need to have particular strategies
the second important thing which we need
is no country has grown
without urbanization okay we are
supposed to be thirty-four thirty-five
percent uh maybe four percent urban the
world is fifty-two percent urban china
is fifty-seven percent we have seven
thousand small towns which have to be
developed and somehow government still
recently had this romantic notion of
india living in villages india lived in
villages 1947 nobody wants to live in a
village no farmer wants a child to do
farming no farmer wants to live in a
village they want to come to the nice
shiny towns and our towns are not nice
and shiny you know that what problem we
have not done urban renewal work so we
have to industry in urban india because
you know
urbanization is concentration of human
activity concentration of human activity
creates specialization specialization
increases productivity that increase
income so we got to develop the smaller
towns along the bigger towns so people
from the village can come there and stay
there we got to create jobs how do you
create jobs you can`t have all this
great unwashed message into software or
in investment banking and become like an
ajit dayal right you can`t do that
because you have to get labor intensive
industries india is the only country
which has incentivized capital for jobs
and not labor capital brings in
automation where a labor interest in
like garments we were the largest
government exporter 40 years back now
china exposed 250 billion we are 25 and
bangladesh exposed 40 billion they don`t
grow cotton but they export more than us
because the bad policies right so we
have to make sure that we create labor
intensive industry in the smaller towns
and shift improve productivity and then
we got to create the source network and
the port network to reduce supply chain
costs from 14 of gdp to eight seven to
eight percent we already got gst we`re
building the road infrastructure so
there are big ticket items that have to
be done and the last point which is very
important which prime minister modi is
doing and you must give him good credit
we must make sure
every indian has the necessities of life
food on the table a roof for the hood
roof for the head
water in the tab power in the street a
gas stove with the house a mobile phone
internet connection money in the bank
with a bank account health insurance and
maybe education for the children now
with all this all the things are doing
every people will have the necessities
when people are their necessities they
become agents of economic change and
they will grow so i think we are seeing
these challenges become very evident
because of differential growth
so can i just jump in there i mean while
all this gdp and this growth is
happening
what happens to this you know right now
living in a in a world where there`s
more scrutiny on society in terms of you
know carbon emissions climate change
gender equality pay scale differential
there`s a whole bunch of focus and you
know in india we`ve had many inherent
problems for a long time for centuries
start from the caste system and they`ve
all broken barriers but there is still a
long long way to go so where does the
social sector
and where does the social impact
including the climate impact which is a
subset in my view of social where does
that fit in in your view and this whole
growth
phase that we need to give people
basically to enrich people and to make
their lives better
you know you know
we cannot we cannot adopt western models
uh for india`s needs
too many of the people working in the
social sector are funded by the west and
carry on their model which is not going
to work
okay
for example
even though we are possibly the third or
fourth largest consumer of energy or per
capita consumption is so very low we`re
just not consuming the energy required
for every person to have a good life yet
to be at badger globally that you`re
doing this blah blah blah we still need
to
enhance the consumption of energy we
can`t have this model for example
remember the midterm scheme that we run
in akshay patra has done more to bring
children back to school than anything
else that anybody could do at such a low
cost we need to develop our own models
to make sure that india it becomes a
part of what the globe has to be
now in to combat climate change india
has a fantastic model
as a civilization we believe in taking
from nature what we need for a survival
and not more
our civilization is not based on the
conquest of nature conquest of nature`s
creatures so we want to bring back our
social ethos where like gandhiji said
the world has enough for everybody`s
need not for everybody`s greed we got to
reduce wasteful consumption frugality
has to be a part of what we do and
frugality means recycling indians
recycle whatever they buy they don`t
throw it away so that kind of a culture
of reselling repair has to be there
while we grow as a consumer economy and
we also have to be very frugal in the
use of energy and not do what the west
did so we`ve got to develop new models
we need more alternate energy more
energy from the sun to assess
the next thing what we need is to make
sure
that we create the basic necessities of
life for all citizens and that no ngo
can do let me be very clear no ngo
nobody can you can do some big pieces
you can`t transform it but government is
doing it now by making sure that
necessities of life are given to
everybody i think there`s a very
important initiative and the third we`ve
got to create a system whereby
people can get a lot of things that they
want and become independent economic
agents let me give you an example
we`re starting an experiment in
bangalore where in the next one year
we`re going to do dbt for 1 000 families
give them three to five thousand rupees
a month for five years
and say okay go and leave your life and
we`ll help you and hear the money do
what you want because human beings are
agents of change
so we`re going to work on new programs
where you don`t give free ratios you
don`t give free this which you make that
individual is sufficient rather you
empower them to take economic decisions
and make sure that children get a decent
education and create opportunities so we
got to create new models now that the
necessity of life will be given to most
people impossible in the next two or
three years most people means 1995 of
population the last five percent is
going to be very very very different so
we got to rethink and reimagine the
social sector and work together to
create new models which can empower
indians
yeah so you know i mean you spoke about
the fact that ngos can`t get thrones i
remember in a previous conversation
years ago
you had told me something which was
quite startling and obviously it`s it`s
intuitively realized it`s true that
for
you and you you spoke about it before
that human capital is the key right the
ability of the human to take things
forward to give them the opportunity
you`ll take things forward and what
akshay patra has done i mean a fantastic
effort that you started 20 years ago
plus is to provide that midday meal and
you told me this that if a child is not
nourished well till the age of five or
seven years old it has an impact on the
brain for the rest of the person`s life
the ability to learn for the rest of
their life so you know it was at the end
of the day it was an ngo like yours
which came in and like you correctly
pointed out served more meals than the
government so doesn`t it mean that the
government can`t really do everything
not that it`s to blame but it`s just a
huge problem and you need the ngos and
you know while you may or may not adopt
a foreign model
foreign capital if it comes without any
strings attached is good but there`s a
lot of local capital now with people
like yourselves you know yourselves the
premg foundation the tatas so many
others in life and new new generation
people too have started funding ngos so
doesn`t that
mean two things that a you need capital
towards the ngos and b you need the ngos
because the government really can`t
solve the problem on its own
you know i`m not saying we don`t need
the us but i don`t believe ngos alone
can solve the problem it has to be a
public private partnership
for example the government funds forty
forty five percent the cost of the meal
fakshay patra should be able to grow so
the public private partnership along
with the government so we got to put in
private money through ngos in large
governmental programs where we can
really make a very big difference
because what ngos can bring to the table
is an execution capability at the local
level which very often government cannot
because of their own systems and large
scale the last smell is fair i think
ngos do very well
and many of them might grow to grow big
second we need some of these big
you know ngos to do well for example
premji foundation they could be having
they`re the largest uh corpus in in
india maybe 35 40 45 billion dollars if
you look at what it is and what do you
think they spend thousand thousand two
hundred crores peanuts
you know all the people who committed to
bill gates to say fifty percent of what
wealth will be given away how much are
they actually given away hardly anything
so we gotta have these people why are
you not giving away your wealth why not
doing it in one lifetime you made
commitment spend it we got to spend 50
60 70 80 000 crore one lakh road a year
to help people and one of the ways that
people can do ajith to you and anybody
else is
you know we have eight crore taxpayers
eight crore okay
imagine five crore taxpayers adopting
one poor family
one poor family is five people so you
adopt one family give them three to four
thousand five thousand rupees a month
and just like that in the bank account
transfer the money for five years ten
years and see the magic
right so what does it mean it doesn`t
mean that you do large programs you
empower the individuals to realize
because you know
yeah look at this
i want to ask you what is poverty
poverty is a lack of purchasing power
right now i got assets i got purchasing
power i got employment i got purchasing
power i got skill i got purchasing power
but if i am very poor i don`t have many
skills i`m left be an uneducated i don`t
have much perceiving power because we
are a labor surplus country so you got
to help them get skills you got to help
them give some money keep body and soul
together and make you confident you
can`t be a beaten human being at the
mercy of the government sector for
giving doors etc because that is
self-defeating so to me the biggest
problem is if i grow households say i`m
going to absorb one household or one one
crore taxpayer say i`m going about five
households and give them and spend 25
000 rupees a month i give them 5000
rupees a a month for maybe 5 years 10
years then we can do many things so in
this way we need innovative ways of
doing it because remember
every human being is smart
every human being knows to leave we have
survivors we`ve survived this planet for
hundreds and thousands of years they
know how to negotiate if you give money
to a mother a mother will know what to
do she`ll go buy food for her children
she`ll buy medicine she`ll put them in a
good school she`ll take care of it she
knows how to negotiate you don`t have to
give her food you don`t go buy something
for her you`re not doing this she`ll do
it why she`s got purchasing power it is
purchasing power purchasing power is
concentrated and that`s the way
economies are so we got to think of new
models where social action is there
among large number of people are a
smaller number of people do larger
things in a way where you empower the
individual time for empowerment has come
so we`ve got to work with government and
we`ve got to try new models
absolutely i mean what you`re saying is
very true because within the economics
there`s something there`s a phrase
called propensity to consume what is
that is dire to consume and obviously
the further you are the less money you
have your propensity to consume for the
extra 100 rupees you get will be 100
whereas if you`re a rich person and you
get the extra 100 rupees you`re probably
going to shop outside india somewhere
and not do anything in india so your
propensity consumers and you know and
that`s great for economics right the
fact that you have a huge base of people
at the lower end of the economic ladder
they get incomes then they can spend a
lot and that can propel the economy
towards the trillions that you wish it
to be over time so that`s absolutely
correct but just to move a little bit
towards you know what you spoke about
and uh you know about this special
program for taxpayers so we`ve had the
csr from the government 2014
where companies are supposed to give two
percent of their profits what was your
view as someone who`s been involved with
the government policy
uh and in the social sector what is your
view of csr has it succeeded does it
need to be modified what`s the pathway
forward for csr
you know
ajit i was honestly against compulsion
by law
but now i am convinced i have my
decision my my view was wrong
for a very important reason
for a very important reason which may
not uh come as an insight to possibly
you and me it may not maybe me but it
may not be you and the reason is very
clear we are
creatures of free markets we want
freedom we believe everybody will take
the right vision etc but you know
we live in a society
the divide between the rich and the poor
is expanding
the large number of people who are
bereft of any help and government is not
able to help them for whatever reason or
it doesn`t reach them so there`s a deep
sense of frustration anger that builds
up
now government and our legislators and
political leaders who are in touch with
them possibly understand this message
they have to be seen as compelling these
rich big corporates to spend two percent
of profits to help the poor and that
message that we have compelled them we
have done them gives confidence to
people who vote for them to say yes our
leaders are doing it and doing it and
they force the carpet to spend two
percent
now you and i believe corporate should
voluntarily spend two percent three
percent and they should do it for their
own good but that is not the logic
accepted by the great majority of
carpets
because so many of them there are vanity
projects they do all kind of things and
etc they want name and all that using
company money but now i think the
company twenty thousand crores a year
they`ve been compulsion it`s changed
behavior and i think it`s created a lot
of good even though compulsion is not
something possible you and i would agree
so i think it`s been very good he sent a
message to society he sells many things
but what we need now is
last scale programs why don`t you do a
national dbt program
okay
let us say
that for all the people who are in the
bpl list of whatever it is you have a
dbt program where we work through a
portal started by you ajit where you
identify the poor people i say i`m
adopting 100 people i`ll pay you um you
know five lakhs a month for those
hundred people five lakhs okay i`ll pay
you five likes i must get a 100 tax
deduction i pay you and you distribute
to them directly to the dbt
and the government has word site about
that to make sure that actually goes to
people who are there correct why didn`t
you do the last year program
so i`m just saying we`ve got to learn to
be innovative about empowering people
and remove the waste in the transmission
and do something new and maybe that can
be part of what we do i once suggested
to a very large foundation that why
don`t you adopt a state and work with
the government to make sure that
everybody has medical insurance and for
one crowd people you maybe give 500
rupees each
500 crores a year because it can one
crore
it can cover five members five more
people right in a family maybe the
insurance will be 1500 rupees for five
lakhs and government can give 1 000 and
you give 500 and you work with the
government to monitor to make sure
everybody has access to health so if
you`re going to think of these
large-scale programs and that and many
of the large companies should do this
large-scale impact you see all of them
do small small things we got to do a lot
to solve the fundamental issues of
income for people
of let us say skill for people large
scale
health for people and primary education
right well you know that`s great because
actually this is part of a series that
winnie and nishant from el parenchy have
created which is to get helper ngo
hingo which is to give small amounts of
money to large number of people and
society that`s what the database has
been built for but but your point is
correct identify the english families
use the stack that we built up in the
country the tech stack and move money
directly to people let`s just move a
little bit towards individuals
over the la so you know from the 1990s
to 2020 there was a certain site kind of
skill set or education program that
worked to make individuals ready for the
india of the post 1991 reforms
now with technology changing and
technology changing the landscape
dramatically in india and again the
world`s focus on you know carbon
footprint and emissions and gender
equality
what should
entrepreneurs
looking to set our businesses and
equally important what should employees
engineers doctors whoever what should
professionals be what should they do to
get themselves ready to make themselves
future ready for that india for the next
20 years what skill sets do they need to
build and sharpen legit uh
you know we
got our education in an era
of low growth and slow-moving society we
are part of the industrial revolution
now we are in the mr digital revolution
look at the speed of change
68 years back to go to 50 million
consumers the airline industry
took uh you know 68 years
okay to go to 50 million uh people on
the internet it took seven years pokemon
took 19 days arroga took 13 days so the
speed of change is accelerated
dramatically the world changes very fast
innovation cycles are shrunk from 36
months to 18 months second important
thing we are in the midst of the digital
revolution the industrial revolution
supply chain is gone
today you know out of 7.8 billion
billion people on the planet about five
and a half billion are on the internet
they have a mobile phone connection so
they do business on the internet and the
internet bonus mean the technology is
the front-end and all other things are
at the back end so you have access to
global markets global things and many
new innovations many things can come and
suddenly scale up before you know what
it is so when the speed of change is
accelerated your life is not going to be
the same your life is going to be
disrupted businesses are going to be
disrupted everything is going to be
disrupted for the anti-fathers so what
are the qualities you should have to
succeed in this digital era to bear mind
we must go back to fundamentals we must
have curiosity
we must have a curious mind why do
things work what happens what do we see
before us how do you reorient ourselves
what are the new things coming up you
must have a curiosity and the past
energy to be curious and that is what
will make us sensitive second we must
have a problem solving attitude
that means we must know how to solve
problems by looking at problems
analyzing them looking at data and
coming out with three or four options
choosing the one which gives the best
decision right so there`s a way of
problem solving we must be problem
solvers that means our mind is thinking
our eyes are seeing and we can solve
problems and we can be very imaginative
and creative because creativity and
imagination are going to be the key
attributes for successful people look at
all successful entrepreneurs creativity
and imagination is important and the
third we must develop the kind of soft
skill like communication articulation
etc so that there is gravitas it`s not
possible everybody at least we can be
more communicating the american young
youth are much more communicative uh you
know because you know they`re brought up
in a consumer economy than us but many
of those are very quiet we just keep
quiet etc but you must communicate you
must have a proper body language etc and
the next thing what you must do is we
must learn the use of technology
and adopt technology not go into depth
of technology the creation of technology
or that you require specialist at least
use technology to make our lives more
productive because there`s so many tools
that can be used to make our lives more
productive and if you look at young
people today 15 16 they all use
technology to believe much better much
more than us right then they`re able to
do things much better get good deeds etc
and the last point is
how do we live in a globalized world
beloved of barriers
today after kobe aid hadith you can do
work for a swedish company and an indian
company at the same time because work
has become global everybody works
through the platform you`re not wedded
to an office whether to a country
whether you`re a region whether it`s
your language because everything has
become global and there`s so many
approaches opening up because jobs are
coming to india in a very large way in
future because the field is getting
leveled by the use of the internet and
everything else so you can work for many
many people and the cost of labor is
coming down and that means you know the
opportunities for you are there you must
capitalize opportunities and for that
curiosity a you know problem-solving
attitude good communication skills
learning to use technology and looking
at the globe as a stage where you can
play and use the new approaches come up
will be very good these are the things
if you have these attributes either an
entrepreneur or as an employee i think
you`ll succeed wherever you are
so so does that three-year undergrad you
know bachelor`s in india two years mba
five-year engineering do you have to
change that whole system to make it more
practical and shorten the shortened the
learning period is that one something
you know you know
i won`t go for shortening the learning
period because people have to grow up
18 when you go to college it`s a growing
up period for you you have to socialize
you got to meet people you got to grow
up you`ve got to understand time magic
you can`t hasten it it`s not dumping
something and downloading into your hard
disk right you`ve got to experience it
you`ve got to understand you`ve got to
rationalize you`ve got to create your
network it takes time i don`t want to
shorten that process but what we should
do is bring in flexibility in the
process
that`s what the new education policy has
done for the first time you can have a
one year you can have a four year degree
get away after one year to get a
certificate after two years you get a
diploma three years you get a degree
then honest etc you can collect all the
credits and get it together go out work
come back go back so you got flexibility
and then you can rearrange your
curriculum to get credits from all kinds
of universities everywhere else so i
think all the things are important the
framework has been kept as brilliant
actually brilliant and right for the
digital era the post komidara is very
right and i think that`s very very good
what has to be done and to my mind that
is what is going to be we got to use
that but to use it is difficult how do
you create choice for students how do
you make it more student centric so the
students understand what is required for
example you go into engineering you are
forced to go into mechanical you want
computer science can you do computer
science tomorrow why not you can do a
computer science program from a coursera
somewhere else right because so many
apps are available so you should mix and
match and not be limited by the main one
offer right so it has to be rooted to my
thing and that is available today but
we`ve got to make it work so last
question for me
when you
switch off the lights to just about to
go to sleep and you switch off the
lights
what`s the
one fear that you have in your mind
what`s the one thing that you worry
about
well i worry that i`ll be obsolete the
next day
you`ll never be absolute because you
always
i don`t know because you know
well i`m not a spring chicken ajit
you know i`m not a string chicken so and
i don`t have to go for a job to earn my
living i don`t have to compete with
people but you know what matters to me
is is my life`s life relevant to me and
to others
we like be looked upon as a relic
so do i am i abreast of the times so
what i sometimes fear is that i i won`t
be able to catch up with people who are
very very bright and uh you know what
i`m blessed to think will i be abreast
that`s what worries me a little bit
uh because you know you know ajit i
realized after all these years the sun
is going to rise in the morning and set
in the union whatever happens to you or
anybody else poor is in power that`s
going to nature it`s got a long long
time and i also realized that
maybe
sometime in june of last year i woke up
one day and realized i can`t solve the
world`s problem anymore and it`s not my
responsibility
till then i was believing i got to solve
the worst problem i got to make society
better i got to make the world better
it`s putting unnecessary pressure on me
and i should run around like a mad guy
you know that but you know there`s
certainly another look i can`t do it
anymore i`ve done my bit i will do what
i can and i will lead my life
productively and do whatever i can to
make the world better but it`s not going
to be a compelling narration for me
because i`ll do i`ll not do anything
wrong to hurt people but it`s not my
responsibility and that`s a big relief
and that is wisdom
that is wisdom yeah because you know our
lives are finite we can do so much and
do it well and that is it and you know
live a life
of a reasonable uh
content contentment
right contentment and do things well and
that is it like the gita says do a duty
and don`t bother about the consequence
because you`ve done your duty but the
consequences are not within your control
i realized that
in june and now i`m much more happier
much more healthier much more at ease
with myself
so you know very different
fantastic you know there`s a wonderful
song by the beatles called hey jude and
they should sing it for you
hey mohan you`ve taken many sad songs
and made them better
and you don`t have to take the world on
your shoulder thank you moan it`s always
a joy and a pleasure to really just feel
your energy i will now request subu if
you don`t mind to take some questions
from the audience that have come in
from this chat group yeah thank you very
much
hi hi hi mohan good to see you after a
long time
so i will go through some of the
questions which have come um
one of them is how do you see
uh technology evolving uh uh having been
in that industry
particularly when you look at say
artificial intelligence there are people
at the ground level who are worried
about jobs because of ai
but how do you how do you look at this
and what kind of opportunities this
could throw up for the youngsters
well first of all
the the the moving technology is going
to be very rapid
because today please remember we have
almost unlimited computing power
because there is enough
computing power through devices and
through the cloud right cloud has given
you a memory capacity second the speed
of computing has gone up dramatically
that iphone 13 has got more computing
power than the cray super computer of
seven years back that was somebody told
me and it`s amazing to me because we`re
always bought up to believe that super
computers are unbelievably complex
machines but the iphone seems to have
more computing power and much faster and
the third thing is the huge amounts of
data that have come up allow algorithms
to run then too many things and that is
going to mean 60 of human activity can
be done by machines and then ultimately
maybe 25 30 percent can be done and
you`ll go for 60 70 percent
and then we`re going to have more and
more automation and robotics
because we already seen robots in the
lab do extraordinary things you`ve seen
drones in the air you`ve seen so many
things machines come up you`ve seen
autonomous cars and all that come up and
it`s very close to reality and that`s
going to impact all of us and then
finally uh there`s a huge amount of
capital out there to accelerate
innovation
the world has you know the central banks
are printed 25 to 000 dollars of
currency over the last many years and
the interest rates are at all time low
because the surplus money floating
around and the money will make things
volatile and also fun new innovation the
faster pace because there`s much more
money and people can afford to invest
much more so all that means society is
going to change much more rapidly and
india is not going to be
left behind but then will it impact
large number of people in india like the
u.s i think the u.s is getting impacted
because we`ve seen the last 10 years the
jobs in the middle class good paying
jobs are gone because they`re all
getting automated the rich are getting
richer and a lot more eight dollars in
our you know uh minimum wage jobs
available which are not getting filled
in india we still have to build roads we
still have to build bridges we still
have to build houses we still have to
build power plants and that`s going to
escalate we still have to build our
cities but that`s going to create a lot
more jobs but
the jobs per unit growth in gdp is going
to be lesser than 10 years ago
the job per unit rate of growth in gdp
is going to be lesser in 10 years ago
and the only redeeming factor in india
is the fact that uh for the last 30
years we are producing the same number
of babies every year don`t have growth
babies every year so today children
below six are only 11 of our population
they were 17 percent of population 20
years ago
so the number of people coming the
workforce is going to remain constant
when the economy expands and goes up so
the percentage it comes down but we have
a converse problem we have 130 million
people above the age of 60 and that`s
going to be 250 million by 2030. so on
the flip side we`re going to have some
other problem so for younger people
i would say the apologies are going to
increase for the next 10 12 years after
that i don`t want to comment i don`t
know what is going to happen but
approaches are going to be but you need
to have a different kind of skills like
i said earlier to take advantage
thank you
you alluded to this huge divide in india
between the north and the
south
so if you were to come up with three
let`s say very broad parameters to
address it how will you go about
addressing this issue because it is
quite a challenging issue when you
really look at the details
well what i would do subu is one
i would create a special structure for
labor intensive industries to locate in
the north of the country
states whose per capita income is not
more than 80 percent of india`s per
capita inc
that means the states of rajasthan
madhya pradesh bihar uttar pradesh west
bengal
so i would say a list of labor intensive
industries where labor intensity is very
high and i would say if you relocate
there i will give you a subsidy for job
based upon the payment of esipf
so government audiences keep on
reimbursing i`ll say for every job you
cannot give it two thousand rupees as a
subsidy to create the job because you
have to use the money for training and
to create jobs and i would like labor
intensive industries to be located there
much more than the south for example why
should garment factories be in bangalore
bangalore`s five lakh people the garment
factories very expensive in bangalore
why should they be in mumbai right uh
kobe a lot of people went back from
mumbai they`re probably living happier
in up than doing in the slums
and the and mumbai is paying people less
i mean because there`s a huge flow of
labor to delhi delhi you`re paying your
drivers and housemates less and
exploiting them they should deserve they
can`t keep body and soul together with
the kind of money they`re better off in
their villages right and then you`ll pay
them more you`ll have more respect for
people so i think i will do that second
i will have a massive development
program for the seven thousand small
towns towns of fifty thousand hundred
thousand population to improve the
facilities so the labor intensive
industries can come there
and you know work in that place and the
third thing i would do
is i would make sure
that i will look at clusters of
industries we have industry clusters
has got brass and then aligarh has got
some kind of industry right you need you
know biondi got hand rooms and look at
all the clusters and help people improve
skills set up design centers to make
better products on a common basis for
example tirupur has set up a lot of
facilities a common basis to help those
people uh do all this uh you know
garments etc so i think i would do that
by doing these three things i would
create more jobs
at the bottom of the pyramid and the
middle of the pyramid so the top of the
pyramid uh you know it grows to the top
of the perimeter of the period of time
and i would prevent the migration of
people down south and that means the
wages for people will go up and
productivity will go up today just
because you can get a very cheap labor
we have no respect for people
and people are paid very nice now with
kobe a lot of people went back to the
villages i mean the industry and others
people are realizing you want people
you`ve got to pay them better and you`ve
got to pay them better
right and not make them leave very
poorly and exploit their poor conditions
i would do these three things
and and the flip side of this is if the
currently the government is not
addressing it
what do you think the reactions in the
south will be in terms of the
governments what could they be doing to
sort of
stop these migrants coming in or
what kind of issues do you foresee
for example
the cm of up has done that is getting
more job for the migrants in uk
so he has done that precisely because
you know look
if your people stay in your own state
your consumption goes up your income
level goes up your skills go up you
create much better base right
so you got to do that because remember
we live in a society where people are
important we don`t live in a business we
live in a society the end result of
development should be improvement in the
quality of life of people
i was very disappointed many years ago
when i saw an article about monta
banerjee then the rayleigh minister
a flagging of two train loads of young
bengalis to come to bangalore to write
the cet exam for engineering
i said when i was growing up in the 70s
everybody went to calcutta for higher
education
that other place or the best chair
universities and colleges mom you`re
sending your people to bangalore what
are you waiting to develop your own
state what have you done for the state
with a very shame right i mean west
bengal bengal
was at the forefront of what india was a
long time ago time of independence so i
would i would say that i would do a lot
of things and the people in the south
are now realizing
uh that
they got to have
high-tech industries
they`re going to have a different way of
development and they got to
get better education
and go into high gear
for example the subu banu`s per capita
income is ten thousand dollars
okay we can`t have labor interest
industry in bangalore bangalore has got
to be a very different city
okay
in karnataka the south of south south
karnataka is much better than north
carolina
why in the north we got surplus labor
and we got more land and water and power
in the south we have lesser labor and we
have to get labor from the from outside
because you know historically industry
has been the south a lot of labor
intensity they don`t have to be there
because they become uncompetitive
so we need to have a different kind of
policy to understand the dynamics of the
growth of the economy and getting the
right kind of policies and to me
development of labor intensive industry
and urbanization north of india and more
skill development the most important
thing to reduce social disparity and
social tension
thank you
there`s one question on what do you
think of the new engineering courses in
robotics and machine learning offered by
many colleges
without a base in software do you think
it is good
for a fresher at 18 years to do these
courses
you know
my view is
you know you must read you must have
reading writing
arithmetic and
coding as the essential skills for
everybody
devang mehta former president of
nashville is the roti kaplan account
bandwidth

so we must teach coding skills to every
child they don`t have to become folders
at least they know about it because that
will help them work in the new kind of
industry like 3d printing do the small
small tweaks that are required use
technology use ai
you know algorithms and possibly use
robotics and others and you know change
for small things that can be done i mean
they must learn the skills
there`s one question on
how long did it
take you
to find success in life
and what are you working on currently as
a project
you know
when i started my practice this year i
used to won 500 rupees a month for three
years i did good work nobody paid us
money
i had 11 job offers to go to bombay or
delhi because of the rank cold and the
sea at all india level
but you know there were no jobs in my
city of bangalore i didn`t want to leave
bangalore
and then even when i was execute
director of the leasing company i got
hardly anything because you know those
days people have paid less it`s only
after joint infosys and sometimes in the
late 90s that we actually got good
salaries decent salaries and then we had
the stock option plan 1994 which i
designed
which the government amended the loss
two times to tax and could not tax and
finally went to the supreme court and
supreme court said you can`t tag this
structure and i`m very proud of it we
had you know 10 000 millionaires and all
kind of stuff you know 500 millionaires
that time you know now people do a few
and they jump up and down a recent
company listed in nasdaq and said
employees are partners in the company we
heard it before it`s been a long time
but it`s okay let them talk about it but
but i think i think i think the key
thing is
uh you know
all this all this has
made
many things and it was a great
experience for me and uh for me uh
personally i suppose i`m very lucky
you know why
my career started
when india was opening up so i saw the
rise of a great country i saw the rise
of a great industry in the software
industry i participated i saw the rise
of a great company like infosys i
participated helped build it so it`s
been a very enriching career wonderful
career
and now i am working in the area of
innovation as an investor as a mentor as
a fund manager
uh in startups and let me give you the
good news india has got 55 000 startups
for work created about 400 billion
dollars of value with 69 unicorns
employing 1.5 million people
and by 2025 we`ll have more than 100 000
startups creating 150 200 unicorns at
3.5 million jobs and 1 trillion dollars
of value so i`m working in a very
exciting area i see
two three companies coming to us for
capital 400 companies come to my office
for capital there are many funds in our
office and i`m i meet young
entrepreneurs i live in bangalore man
this is exciting exhilarating my life is
more exciting than it was in infosys
very good excellent
what advice would you give to someone
who is trying to become an entrepreneur
and well my advice to him my advice to
him is one
keep your passion and energy and keep it
it takes time
second be frugal in what you do success
is not going to come easily respect
capital third build a good team and then
choose people to work with you lead by
example fourth have the flexibility to
change
so that you know you don`t get stuck in
something which is fuzzy because things
change very fast
and five
learn to raise capital
because you have to raise a lot of
capital to succeed in this game and you
are not able to raise capital then
you`re gone because somebody else will
come and start a similar enterprise and
won`t take you and become bigger before
you turn over your bet

there`s one on um what stops india to
create uh social platforms like
whatsapp instagram facebook despite
having an i.t industry
uh which manages enterprise software
what is it yeah you know
i`ve been asked this question since
1994. why can`t they credit microsoft
why can`t you create a google assistant
i agree i remember i remember in all at
this meeting you would be asked these
questions
you know
us is a 21 trillion dollar economy we
are a three trillion dollar economy our
local i.t market is worth about 40
billion the u.s local market is worth
two trillion
so we lack the capital we have the
skills we lack the capital we lack the
market we lack the ecosystem to grow the
giant companies
whereas the us has all that now the
question they should ask is why germany
is not able to have a google or a
whatsapp and only has
only has a sap
with a three and a half trillion dollars
of gdp
and why is japan with five trillion
dollars not able to have any other giant
companies except the soft bank which
uses capital
so for for those kind of companies to
come you need to have a large gdp you
need to have a lot of spending on
technology you need to have technology
assimilation
and risk taking ability that`s coming
now
that`s coming now so in the future
you`ll see those kind of companies
coming out from india going overseas for
example freshwater which got listed in
the nasdaq at 13 13 billion dollars it
was an indian company sas company we do
in india built in india could not find a
market in india relocated the us grow
the market now they got a run rate of
450 million dollars
they stayed only in india they put a
ground right because the revenues are
not here
so you know these are the answers it`s
not because of a lack of skills you know
in the u.s we got 4.5 million indians
they have started 67 unicorns
i got the list india we have got 69
unicorns
there are 450 unicorns in the united
states
300 in china we got 69. we`ll probably
be 200 by 2025
right
but you know we are a smaller economy so
we need to understand all these things
and because you know the the people who
normally aren`t this question of people
who don`t understand how the world works
and many of them subu i`m sorry to say
very abusive i`ve been called a cyber
i`ve been called all kind of name
like oh you work in services you work in
this man of the top 10 service companies
in the world five are indian are the top
five three are indian they created 450
billion dollars of value infosys killed
100 billion dollars of value tc has
nearly 180 200 billion man you should be
proud of them
thank you thank you mohan
for that wonderful answers
waiting for vinnie i think to come on
yeah
yeah i think most of the questions i had
asked if vinnie can take it over from
here sure thanks
thank you mr pi for your insights into
what you know new india could look like
and how we can be future ready for it
mr pai you`ve committed capital talent
and time to address multiple social
issues via
and i think it`s truly inspiring to see
the impact of its midday meal program in
fact i`ve had the privilege to actually
visit one of their kitchens in hubli
now uh
yeah in terms of you know what the next
20 years for the social sector could
look like i think uh sebby`s remarkable
move to launch a social stock exchange
will definitely be a game changer also
uh the growing popularity of the efg
framework mapping esd to parameters you
know esd parameters to multiple sdgs and
of course the existing csr law will
provide the much needed boost to the
social sector
and i completely agree with the point
you made earlier that to actually create
and see impact uh there is a need for a
more collaborative approach between the
government private sector civil society
and the citizens at large
you know for over two decades helper ngo
has been striving to increase
transparency in the social sector
helping donors make informed donations
and most importantly offering easy
solutions to support ngos we are proud
to present to you our latest initiative
for encouraging individuals to support
ngos uh working tireless tirelessly
towards the unsdgs which is this bingo
band
may i please request all the panelists
to wear the hingo band and pledge their
support
thank you
um allow me to quickly share my screen
to further explain hingo
in the meantime vinnie i think you have
another idea that came through from mr
pai
mohan said now you have to reach out to
five crore indians and to direct benefit
transfers using the platform of helper
ngo
yeah
adopt
if every if one crore indians had not
five families a five crore indian adopt
one family each we solve india`s problem
correct that`s right
yeah i agree with you 100 that`s the
next product that`s going to come out
from from melbourne
so in fact
mr pi earlier when we were mentioning
about the dbt that should actually be
happening during kovit that`s one of the
main programs that we were supporting we
did dbt`s two low income families that
we had identified to you know actually
make sure that they get the money in
their accounts because everyone was
doing dry ration and you know essential
kids distribution and all of that but i
think dbt was one of our key programs
and that`s what the beneficiaries really
appreciated
okay moving on by purchasing this hingo
band you will be contributing to the
corpus we are building to support wetted
ngos
all you have to do is purchase the hingo
ban which will be packaged in a
multi-purpose hardy pouch for just 200
rupees and we`ve shared the link wherein
you from where you can purchase the
hingo band in the chat box proceeds from
the sale of these bands will be donated
to charities and not only will you
receive 50 tax deduction but also
program reports for complete
transparency so that you can actually
review how your donations are being
utilized last evening we launched our
did you hingo social media challenge
with ronnie skruvala we urge you all to
participate in this challenge by
following these three easy steps click a
photo of you wearing the band post it on
social media with a hashtag and that few
or more friends to take on the challenge
it`s as simple as that
for us to be future ready we need you to
hingo so the question is did you hingo
today because i did thank you once again
mr pi for sparing time to speak with us
and sharing valuable insights thank you
ajit for moderating the session and subu
for the q a round uh thank you to all
the attendees for signing up and
attending this session
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