S3 E04 | Amitabh Kant's Vision for India's Transformation: From Incredible India to Invincible India

[00:00:00] India was one forty-fifth in the World Bankies of Doing Business

[00:00:04] and I think we were very terrible.

[00:00:06] So it was a lot of effort to work with about 40 to 45 ministries,

[00:00:12] work with the state governments to crack that

[00:00:14] and India jumped up in three years times 79 positions in the World Bankies of Doing Business.

[00:00:19] Yes sir, amazing.

[00:00:20] So India really improved.

[00:00:22] Imagine if cement factories and if industrial plants had come up on the backwaters

[00:00:27] on the sea of Kerala, Kerala would have been ruined.

[00:00:30] Remember 20 years ago it became like everyone's you know place, the place to go if they were traveling into India.

[00:00:38] You know Kerala is not a product of five-star hotels, it's a product of boutique resorts.

[00:00:42] It's a product of local entrepreneurship, it's a product of local art, local culture, local cuisine.

[00:00:49] India has built up this very unique digital public infrastructure which is open source, open API.

[00:00:55] Last year we did about 130 billion transactions.

[00:00:59] So 46% of the fast payments in the world, China is next with just you know 18%.

[00:01:18] Today we are honored to host a distinguished leader whose pioneering work has put India on the global map,

[00:01:23] truly embodying our theme, Winning Beyond Boundaries.

[00:01:26] Our guest is none other than Mr. Amitabh Kant,

[00:01:29] a named synonymous with innovation and transformative governance in India.

[00:01:33] Mr. Kant is the architect behind the iconic Incredible India campaign

[00:01:36] which redefined India's image as a premier global tourism destination.

[00:01:40] He also anchored the successful God's Own Country campaign in Kerala

[00:01:44] and the Atiti Devo Bava initiative.

[00:01:46] As the former CEO of Niti Aayog, Mr. Kant has been instrumental in driving groundbreaking initiatives.

[00:01:52] Under his leadership, Niti Aayog played a pivotal role in launching transformative programs such as

[00:01:57] Make in India, Startup India and the aspirational districts program.

[00:02:00] Most recently, Mr. Kant was India's G20 Sherpa,

[00:02:04] navigating complex global discussions and forging consensus on critical issues.

[00:02:09] During India's G20 presidency, he led over 220 meetings across the country,

[00:02:14] transforming the G20 into a people's initiative and making the presidency a resounding success.

[00:02:20] Mr. Kant, you've been a champion of all of what startups look forward to in India,

[00:02:26] which is government support, policy support.

[00:02:28] So you were an obvious guest for us in this season.

[00:02:31] And also, this whole theme of winning beyond boundaries is just something you embody.

[00:02:37] So once again, welcome to the Bloom podcast.

[00:02:39] Thank you.

[00:02:40] I think what usually is never spoken about too much is the backstories behind our guests.

[00:02:48] So I would love to go back a little and delve into the history of

[00:02:52] what shaped Mr. Amitabh Kant in his early days.

[00:02:55] So from what our research says, you were a Delhi boy, studied here, post-grad,

[00:03:00] and then of course, cracked the IAS.

[00:03:02] And how did Kerala Khada happen?

[00:03:04] And how do you navigate the cultural differences?

[00:03:07] I'm a South boy who came to Roorkee for the first time at the age of 17

[00:03:11] and I knew how challenging it was to acclimatize myself to UP.

[00:03:15] And so you did the opposite.

[00:03:19] So I sat for the exam, I got in and then I got the Kerala Khada.

[00:03:24] And Kerala was really the backwaters and beyond.

[00:03:28] It was very tough.

[00:03:30] But you know, once and those were the days when they were,

[00:03:34] you know, the trade unions were very strong

[00:03:37] and industries had been driven out and so on.

[00:03:40] But I landed up in Kerala and my first posting as sub collector was in a place called

[00:03:49] Telishari.

[00:03:51] It was in the Malabar region of Kerala, very next to

[00:03:57] Vainad which is very much in news right now.

[00:04:00] And I spent two years there and I fell in love with the region.

[00:04:08] It was a fascinating area.

[00:04:09] And I fell in love because Kerala had very high rates of literacy.

[00:04:13] It had great social advancement.

[00:04:16] Health standards were high.

[00:04:17] People were very literate.

[00:04:19] People were very aware and everybody knew their rights.

[00:04:22] So it was there.

[00:04:24] It was dealing with everybody at a personal level.

[00:04:27] And the system of governance was good and I really enjoyed myself.

[00:04:33] And I really was had a collector who made me speak in Malayalam.

[00:04:38] So throughout my stay in Kerala, I never spoke in Hindi or English.

[00:04:43] I spoke in the local language and I gave all my speeches in Malayalam.

[00:04:46] And that's how I perfected my skills at Malayalam language.

[00:04:51] And after Telishari, I was posted in the fisheries sector.

[00:04:55] And my job was to transform the lives of traditional fishermen.

[00:05:00] And you know, so fishermen, they used to get only about 18% of the market price of

[00:05:07] the fish they used to catch.

[00:05:09] And it used to go through about almost 15 different middlemen.

[00:05:15] And 15 different middlemen.

[00:05:17] So I introduced beach level auctions.

[00:05:21] I worked for almost four years in that sector with traditional fishermen and fishermen.

[00:05:28] So I got new technology, which is fiberglass crafts for them.

[00:05:33] I got new outboard motors and they could go much further into the sea.

[00:05:37] And I got new fishing nets, which are known as disco nets.

[00:05:41] And their catch went up.

[00:05:43] And because we introduced beach level auctions,

[00:05:46] they were able to get a much higher earnings.

[00:05:50] And then we had to open their bank accounts.

[00:05:52] And opening a bank account was a real nightmare.

[00:05:55] Those days it was a nightmare.

[00:05:55] Chasing, know your customer, chasing bank managers used to take six, seven months.

[00:06:00] But a lot of hard work.

[00:06:03] And but it gave me immense amount of job satisfaction.

[00:06:07] And I learned a lot from forming self-help groups of traditional fishermen.

[00:06:13] And for fisher women, we introduced buses for taking fisher women to city areas.

[00:06:19] New buses so that they could keep their baskets at the back.

[00:06:23] In the normal buses, they were not being allowed.

[00:06:25] So they could keep their baskets at the back and sit in front.

[00:06:28] And today Trivandrum has almost 20 odd buses for fishermen women.

[00:06:35] And it was the most satisfying period of my life.

[00:06:39] In this age, if you had done that, somebody would have given you a $10 million term sheet.

[00:06:44] I'd asked you to leave the IAS and start the...

[00:06:47] No, no, it was greatly satisfying because you could transform the lives of fishermen and

[00:06:53] fisher women.

[00:06:54] It's fascinating that you created a fish marketplace back then and built all the elements of it.

[00:06:59] And of course, you know, your Kerala students known a lot for

[00:07:03] coining and championing this amazing phrase called God's Own Country,

[00:07:09] which became like almost a global sort of brand campaign.

[00:07:12] But even in that small way, I think it put India on the tourism map and sold

[00:07:18] brand India in a very unique way.

[00:07:20] So from fish to selling God's Own Country, how did that transition?

[00:07:24] So I, you know, later I was district collector in Calicut, which is the place where Vasco

[00:07:30] Degama had landed and discovered India.

[00:07:34] And I did some very interesting work in terms of rejuvenating the city of Calicut, widening

[00:07:42] its roads.

[00:07:44] And, you know, the heart of the city had a lot of encroachment which I removed and

[00:07:51] I created a public library, started a Malabar Mahoutsavam and I ran into severe,

[00:07:57] you know, after three, three and a half years because I removed over 450 encroachments.

[00:08:02] I also ran into major challenges and, you know, the government,

[00:08:07] I was a personal non-grada with the then government for almost 10 months and I had no posting.

[00:08:15] So as a punishment posting, I was posted as secretary tourism.

[00:08:20] Nobody had heard of Kerala as a tourism destination at that point.

[00:08:25] Everyone used to go to Kashmir or they used to go to Rajasthan but nobody used to travel to

[00:08:30] Kerala.

[00:08:32] So, you know, I thought I'll use this punishment posting for transforming Kerala tourism and I,

[00:08:40] the only product then known was Kovlam Beach and Kovlam Beach used to get low value tourists

[00:08:46] from UK, charter flights, $20 a night destination. It was being encroached,

[00:08:53] culture, local culture was being invaded and therefore I closed on Kovlam and I started

[00:08:58] new products and I went back to the roots of Kerala. I brought back the traditional

[00:09:03] Kerala architecture, the Nalkitram houses. I opened up new destinations like the backwater,

[00:09:11] brought back Ayurveda center stage not as a massage but as a therapy to be utilized over 21

[00:09:18] days and I went back to traditional Kerala cultural arts, the Kudi Atom and the Kathakali

[00:09:26] and Mohini Atom and we went back to traditional Kerala martial art that is

[00:09:33] Calripet and revived it and we brought back the traditional Kerala cuisine which is very popular

[00:09:39] now but nobody had heard of it then. So actually we differentiated Kerala from the rest of the

[00:09:44] world by going back to its traditional art, culture, martial art, backwaters, Ayurveda and

[00:09:52] differentiated it totally and National Geographic Traveler that year did a, after three years did a

[00:10:01] feature on the 10 exotic paradises of the world and they rated Kerala as a paradise found in the

[00:10:08] world and Bill McBin who'd written that piece said that it's a paradise, it's an exotic

[00:10:14] paradise not merely because of its natural beauty but it's the only destination in the world

[00:10:19] which has physical quality of life index and the human development index is more advanced

[00:10:27] than the western countries and when you combine its high education and health standards with

[00:10:34] the natural beauty, Ayurveda, backwaters, art and culture it's a unique paradise in the world

[00:10:44] and that's how Kerala was put in the world and we worked and it was a product of private public

[00:10:50] partnership, it was a product of a lot of young entrepreneurship. I've heard that so what do you

[00:10:55] mean by like what worked on that private public partnership and I know today we championed it

[00:10:59] a lot but was it an early one of our earliest great examples of how private public came together

[00:11:04] to make this successful? So you know before I did Kerala tourism Mr. S.K. Mishra had done

[00:11:11] tourism in Haryana and he had developed very nice government guest houses and so on and

[00:11:20] he named them after beautiful birds and then Mr. Mishra did some remarkable work and Haryana was

[00:11:27] known as a tourism destination for a while and then when he got it posted out those guest houses

[00:11:32] were taken over by politicians and civil servants so you know I had felt very early that it's

[00:11:38] not government but private sector which must drive it so I and industry had already failed in

[00:11:44] Kerala so I sat down with the private sector and I said I'm going to support you and we supported

[00:11:49] them in a very big way in terms of land in terms of providing credit through the state industrial

[00:11:56] development corporation through brand marketing but I said the resorts must be established by

[00:12:02] the private sector they must run and operate it and they did some great work and then I realized

[00:12:08] that actually the entrepreneurship of Kerala was top class the young entrepreneurs were better than

[00:12:14] anyone else and therefore and I really felt that actually in a way it was good that industry

[00:12:21] had not succeeded in Kerala because imagine if cement factories and if industrial plants

[00:12:28] had come up on the backwaters on the sea of Kerala Kerala would have been ruined so actually

[00:12:33] the trade unions had saved Kerala for tourism purposes and tourism really flourished and

[00:12:40] tourism became a great job creator the multiplier impact on jobs was enormous huge and it created

[00:12:48] a for every direct job created there were 12 13 indirect jobs being created and jobs were

[00:12:54] created for women and one of the early studies I got done through TCS Tata consultancy service

[00:13:02] on a tourism satellite account demonstrated that big jobs had been created so all political parties

[00:13:10] actually supported tourism in Kerala in a very big way and everybody has been a champion of tourism

[00:13:15] and it went so fast I think it transformed so rapidly and remember 20 years ago it became

[00:13:21] like everyone's you know place the place to go if they were traveling into India and

[00:13:26] that transformation has been fascinating and obviously this set like a incredible benchmark

[00:13:31] for every other state because you know Kerala is not a product of five star hotels it's a product

[00:13:36] of boutique resorts it's a product of local entrepreneurship it's a product of local art

[00:13:41] local culture local cuisine and therefore very difficult to replicate anywhere else in the

[00:13:46] country I think and and rumor has it that you obviously spotted for this you know stroke of

[00:13:52] genius and imported into Delhi back you know to under Mr. Vajpayee's leadership to run incredible

[00:13:59] India and that must have been even more daunting or challenging was that the come back to this

[00:14:04] part of the world or also what happened was actually one day I got a call I was a young

[00:14:09] officer and I got a call that the from the principal secretary to the prime minister and he

[00:14:13] said that the prime minister wants to have a holiday but he doesn't want to he will not it's a plain

[00:14:17] holiday and he will not interact with politicians state politicians and the rest of it and you

[00:14:24] will organize the trip you will take care you will do everything so I hosted Mr. Vajpayee in

[00:14:31] Kumaragam in the backwaters for seven days okay and he wrote the Kerala Kumaragam musings

[00:14:37] after that and we were then able to show him the backwaters and we were able to show him

[00:14:43] Ayurveda we were able to demonstrate all that Kerala tourism had done and you know one evening Mr.

[00:14:52] Rajesh Mishra was his principal secretary told Mr. Vajpayee on the dinner table that we should

[00:14:57] get this young officer to Delhi so Mr. Vajpayee turned to me and asked me whether I had applied

[00:15:03] for government of India and I said no sir I have not applied so he said

[00:15:06] he said no I have not applied because if you apply then Mr. Rajesh Mishra will send you

[00:15:11] women and child development so don't apply so I didn't apply I applied

[00:15:17] I applied one and a half years later and I was to go to the finance ministry but the civil

[00:15:29] services board selected me for finance ministry but Mr. Rajesh Mishra called me up and he said

[00:15:35] have you applied for Delhi I said yes so he said you remember that conversation there we'll post

[00:15:40] you to tourism so I said sir but there are no vacancies there so actually they posted the

[00:15:45] incumbent out and created a vacancy for me in tourism and that's how I landed up in

[00:15:50] tourism ministry that's right but you know what happened was at the minute I landed

[00:15:55] within two months of that month and a half of that the twin tower blast happened

[00:16:00] and then there was a war in Afghanistan there was attack on our parliament and there were several

[00:16:08] travel advisories against travel to the south Asian regions particularly India so our you know

[00:16:15] hotels which are very few in number their occupancy came down to 10 to 15 percent

[00:16:20] and all hotels were saying that we are not getting tourists we are not getting tourists

[00:16:24] and very few hotels but they were just not getting tourists so they said we need to do something

[00:16:31] so I went to tour operators travel agents and those days there was tours used to sell by

[00:16:38] creating tour packages and brochures used to be made and then the brochures those packages

[00:16:43] which were sold by the tour operators and the tour operators said that whatever marketing we

[00:16:48] said we'll buy you know many packages this that so tour operators said there's no consumer

[00:16:53] demand for India nobody will go to India even if you buy even if you give us advertising space

[00:16:59] and at the peak of that crisis with no tour operator supporting us we did a consumer

[00:17:05] we went straight to the consumer and we launched the incredible India campaign which was you

[00:17:11] know commercials and it was like I think a new york times everywhere and also CNN BBC we did the

[00:17:18] incredible India campaign and we you know indonesia malaysia thailand all had withdrawn their campaigns

[00:17:24] we launched it at the peak of that crisis and peak of that crisis we did this and we brought

[00:17:29] tourism back to India and that led to our hotels getting 100 occupancy you know demand just

[00:17:37] grew blossom and that led to new airports being created in Hyderabad Bangalore Mumbai

[00:17:44] Delhi because it was a marketing led strategy to drive growth and they say never waste a good crisis

[00:17:50] and I think it's a perfect example of that shifting gears a little to your more recent

[00:17:56] avatars like I don't know if you can pick between favorites but you know you see you

[00:18:03] have Nithya Iyoga G20 Sherpa it seems like a natural transition but would love to see

[00:18:10] like you know what what were the principal things that you wanted to achieve in each one of these

[00:18:16] given that you've already put India on the map but these are very different kind of you know

[00:18:20] diplomatic missions if I may say so especially as the G20 Sherpa and Nithya Iyoga of course

[00:18:26] you know people wanted you to you know come up with new ideas to motivate the

[00:18:30] entrepreneurial spirit of this country so if you can compare and contrast the two and see

[00:18:36] you know what enjoyed about both and what was the most fulfilling part about both

[00:18:40] so you know I was secretary department of industrial policy and promotion and then the

[00:18:44] prime minister in 2014 when he came in as the prime minister the first presentation I made he said

[00:18:53] you know go after ease of doing business because India was 145th in the World Bank ease of doing

[00:19:00] business and I think we were very terrible we were full of procedures rules regulation

[00:19:06] and he made me in charge and I went after it and you know that time everybody used to do

[00:19:14] long long forms long long papers nothing was digital so it was a lot of effort to work with

[00:19:21] about 40 to 45 ministries work with the state governments to crack that and India jumped up

[00:19:27] in three years time 79 positions in the World Bank ease of doing business yes amazing so India

[00:19:33] really improved but the other thing that we did was that we started ranking states and the first

[00:19:38] year we did this Gujarat came number one next year Andhra beat Gujarat and the third year

[00:19:43] Telangana beat Andhra and Gujarat but the good thing was that Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh

[00:19:48] which were 24th and 25th they had jumped to fourth and fifth position so my belief was and

[00:19:54] rightly so the prime minister said make the states compete if you make the states compete

[00:19:59] they improve so that was a lot of hard work with the ministries to change mindsets

[00:20:04] to change forms to change procedures which is very very tough in government but a lot was

[00:20:09] achieved and I think after that you know the we did the make in India campaign yeah and that was

[00:20:19] the first time we got all the industries together so not only ease of doing business but

[00:20:23] before we did this we opened up the FDI regime in India which was very complex which was case by

[00:20:30] case so we did a lot of work going to the cabinet again and again we opened up the regime

[00:20:36] today 98% of the FDI comes through the automatic route and we opened up the patent and trademark

[00:20:43] regime in a very big way so those were very very major structural reforms which were made in India

[00:20:50] at that point of time 2016 we launched we see startup India rolled out I think it's held on

[00:20:56] for like eight years now every year it gets bigger and better what is the thinking behind startup

[00:21:01] so startup India when we launched there were just about 200 or startups today the 140,000 startups

[00:21:08] in India and I think it's the great entrepreneurial spirit but before we launched the startup a lot

[00:21:13] of homework was done in terms of ensuring that we don't put you know remove the government rules

[00:21:22] regulation procedures the labor laws etc away from startups we brought incubators we brought

[00:21:28] you know the whole ecosystem of vital innovation mission etc yeah we opened up tinkering labs in

[00:21:36] schools all that we did and that enabled us to drive the startup India movement and it's been a

[00:21:43] huge success story of India that we've been able to build up the third best ecosystem in a way

[00:21:48] short while and we built up a lot of young entrepreneurs and they are all great national

[00:21:54] assets and that's partly because India has built up this very unique digital public infrastructure

[00:22:00] which is open source open api which is globally interoperable so we are able to do you know

[00:22:08] 46 percent of the fast payments last year we did about 130 billion transactions

[00:22:15] so 46 percent of the fast payments in the world China is next with just you know 18 percent

[00:22:22] so based on that many young entrepreneurs like you know mobi equate pine lab they are able to give

[00:22:30] credit many of young entrepreneurs like Zeroda grow up stock they are able to provide take the

[00:22:37] stock market into rural areas into tied to tied three cities and then you have insurance companies

[00:22:44] like go digit and aqua all young entrepreneurs who were grown in the last few years they

[00:22:49] provide insurance in 30 seconds to one minute so this has not happened anywhere else this has

[00:22:56] happened because of the digital public infrastructure India has built up that you are able to do

[00:23:01] everything within 30 seconds to one minute and the cost of acquisition of a customer has radically

[00:23:08] fallen in India that's right and no paperwork all digital and the data belongs to the citizen

[00:23:15] so actually if you're just for the audience's perspective especially a lot of young entrepreneurs

[00:23:21] some were probably still in school and college as they're listening to it in 2024 I think that

[00:23:26] 2015 to 17 was a magical moment and it's very interesting that you along with Mr. Modi you

[00:23:34] know decided to go all out and kickstart startup in 2016 the same year that uid came alive in

[00:23:40] a lot of applications up I came alive geo came alive so what you described this perfect storm

[00:23:47] and then add the bank accounts that we open 500 million plus I think it's created a

[00:23:52] absolutely different vision of where an India riding on India's DPI can go but you know as we

[00:24:00] discussed Mr. Kant the theme is not just think of our borders but how can Indian entrepreneurs

[00:24:08] not just build the next wave of great public companies in India but actually have a shot

[00:24:13] at conquering the world so that might come by exporting anything right can we move beyond

[00:24:18] services to potentially agriculture neck cutting edge manufacturing which is beginning to happen

[00:24:24] so I think it also kick started that aspiration ambition it's a vision that we set aside

[00:24:29] and today I know it's it's repeated often but what's your perspective on the pride in

[00:24:36] seeing digital public infrastructure becoming almost a great template for emerging markets

[00:24:41] around the world yeah what how do you see that play out so we demonstrated the power of it during

[00:24:47] G20 and every country realized there were a powerful tool it was and many of them come in

[00:24:54] came and actually did fast payments etc while buying and therefore that both the definition

[00:25:00] of digital public infrastructure and the framework for it was accepted there was this has enabled us

[00:25:08] now to take DPI to the rest of the world so we'll be we have actually taken it to about 20 odd

[00:25:13] countries and this is the fastest way you can achieve progress on sustainable development goals

[00:25:19] by technologically leap frogging and therefore all these areas whether it's education health

[00:25:26] agriculture the way forward is to create digital public infrastructure where data is still owned by

[00:25:32] the citizens I think one of the most powerful exports that we will get at the national level

[00:25:37] now coming down to individual entrepreneurs we've had some really fascinating stories I'm hoping

[00:25:42] they come to even broader light since you talked about startup India and the prime minister

[00:25:46] sharing stage one of the selfies on that stage was taken by the founder of gray orange

[00:25:51] who actually solves warehouse automation in the US carbon clean wasn't there but they solve

[00:25:57] carbon capture in UK ultra human which I'm going to introduce later is making these

[00:26:03] rings and selling to 150 countries who would have thought that all of this was possible 10 years

[00:26:07] ago but the underlying question is slightly different do you believe for us to become a

[00:26:12] 20 25 trillion dollar economy a lot of that growth has got to be not waiting necessarily

[00:26:17] for Indian consumption both at the SMB and the consumer level to come up but our ability to

[00:26:23] become an export giant much like China's GDP first was built on the export capability

[00:26:29] insourcing all of that capability of that's manufacturing of that's IP and then selling

[00:26:36] it to the world at a higher dollar price and then that creates as you said the trickle

[00:26:41] down effect just as you saw in Kerala 30 years ago we need that to be seen here

[00:26:46] is that the playbook we are advocating now see no country in the world post World War II

[00:26:52] whether it was Japan whether it was Korea whether it was Taiwan whether it was Singapore and in

[00:26:58] recent times China no country in the world has grown without penetrating global markets that's

[00:27:05] right so the market for Indians is not the 1.4 billion people of India it is the five to six

[00:27:12] billion people who will be moving from poverty to middle class in the next

[00:27:19] five to six years yeah but it's also important to capture the markets of Europe and United States

[00:27:25] without capturing these markets and penetrating these markets it'll be impossible to go every time

[00:27:31] India has grown at high rates so eight to nine percent per annum it's because the exports have

[00:27:36] grown enormously and unless the exports grow and therefore the vision for every single entrepreneur

[00:27:42] of India young entrepreneur of India is not to look at the market of India but to look at the

[00:27:47] global market and to be a global champion and that's that's the reason that's clearly the

[00:27:53] reason why we need companies to think big think large and think globally and I think

[00:28:02] you hit the nail on the head I think there's things like DPI and I think you've spoken a lot in

[00:28:07] support of energy transition as well both EV solar etc these are spaces where you can see government

[00:28:13] initiative incentives and initiatives being pushed towards you know more PLIs production

[00:28:18] linked incentives so become a superpower in those areas that goes to the five six billion

[00:28:23] emerging you know middle class that's moving from poverty to middle class whereas the

[00:28:29] West doesn't seem unattainable anymore we I think we will build great world-class companies

[00:28:33] serving Americans and Europeans as much as we serve Africa absolutely yeah absolutely the

[00:28:39] challenge is that we need many many young companies first of all we need many young

[00:28:45] companies with that energy and dynamism to be thinking globally and to look at all cutting

[00:28:51] edge areas of growth so whether it's electric vehicles whether it's battery storage whether

[00:28:56] quantum computing whether it's green hydrogen whether it's battery storage all these are emerging

[00:29:03] areas of growth yeah and these are areas where young entrepreneurs must really crack it and

[00:29:10] they must get the size and scale to become global champions and that's how companies

[00:29:14] have become big across the world I mean the big tech or what you call it today all these were

[00:29:19] young entrepreneurs actually at one point of time so we need to really think globally and many

[00:29:24] of these companies are actually doing it this transformational work happening in energy transition

[00:29:29] in India and I keep telling people that we need the equivalent of a nasdaq 100 by 2035 where technology

[00:29:38] companies which didn't exist till 2015 at the transition the transformation of this dpi

[00:29:43] suddenly become the biggest country companies in this country we've not seen that transformation

[00:29:48] happen yet so if you want to be as the prime minister said if you want to be a vixit

[00:29:52] Bharat means that we are talking about being a developed nation which means that you have to

[00:29:59] take your GDP to about close to 30 to 35 trillion dollars by 2047 and that means you need to

[00:30:08] raise the per capita income from close to 2500 to nothing less than 14 000 dollars and that

[00:30:15] would mean a quantum jump in not merely the services sector which is important but you need to be

[00:30:23] transformational in manufacturing you need to raise your agriculture productivity you need to do

[00:30:29] cutting-edge work or new urbanization all this requires entrepreneurship of the highest variety

[00:30:35] I mean obviously the idea was to have you was to just spell this vision out for millions you

[00:30:40] know hundreds of thousands of people they're listening to you what what do you see as

[00:30:44] the short-term challenges to getting to that goal and you know are there new fascinating ideas we

[00:30:50] should expect from the government over the next five years to like keep injecting us with that

[00:30:54] energy as a company so if you want to be a 30 to 35 trillion dollar economy by 2047

[00:31:00] which is critical for India and the prime minister spelled it out that would mean that we

[00:31:07] have to really ensure that we are able to throw a lot of top-class entrepreneurs we'll also

[00:31:13] require a lot of 10 000 large companies you have very few large companies there's a large

[00:31:18] companies then create the ecosystem for ms me is tire two tire three tire four producers and they

[00:31:24] need there's a need for young entrepreneurs to become large and therefore my belief is that a

[00:31:31] lot of young entrepreneurs should really look at becoming big and for that to happen

[00:31:37] India also needs transformation in many many areas we need to increase our agriculture

[00:31:42] productivity which will not happen without technology which is very critical you need new

[00:31:48] urbanization new cities walk to work which is important and that would mean you need new

[00:31:54] areas of construction you need new technology in construction city construction etc and it also means

[00:32:03] that you need we India needs to improve on its learning outcomes on its health outcomes

[00:32:09] on its nutritional standards all this is very very important the human development index rising

[00:32:16] is very critical and the last point I want to make is which is very important to my mind is

[00:32:21] that our new education policy spells it out that we need to create skilled workers of tomorrow

[00:32:28] everybody need not get into going in for higher education that's right and aiming to become a MA

[00:32:34] or a PhD but we need skilled workers right after school and top-class skilled workers who will really

[00:32:43] you know add value to the Indian system awesome awesome no I can't ask for more inspiration I

[00:32:49] thought we'll kind of move towards the wrapping wrapping this up with three interesting people

[00:32:54] questions and shows the world like what your sort of leadership qualities are one is you've

[00:33:02] probably come across hundreds and hundreds of young officers and you know at IS

[00:33:10] Carter's how what do you look for what do you pick how do you build your leadership team I mean

[00:33:14] that's that's a charm of a leader like you it could you can't be doing everything yourself all

[00:33:19] of us know that as you know leaders of our firms but like what is that to spark or what are

[00:33:25] those two three qualities that have always worked for you in your long illustrious career

[00:33:30] well I delegate a lot which is why I'm asking sir no so I delegate everything to

[00:33:36] the team which works with me and I look for just three three things one is positivity and optimism

[00:33:46] huge amount of positivity and optimism the will to change and people who are not status

[00:33:54] coist who want to who want to transform the system and thirdly I look for people who think

[00:34:01] big in terms of the next 15 years so three things big thinking people people who want to

[00:34:09] change the status quo and people who are positive and optimum optimism full of optimism

[00:34:16] against all odds and those are qualities which are transformational to my mind awesome and

[00:34:25] you know I think that's clearly the only way to sell big vision and which is what your I think

[00:34:30] playbook has been build a large vision sell it see who can buy into it what is your sort of

[00:34:37] introspection led to as a as a leader what are what are your course skills delegation

[00:34:42] is one thing you mentioned what are the other things that you feel like have worked for you at a

[00:34:47] personal level well you got to be you got to communicate whatever you want to do well and

[00:34:53] your team immediate team and I saw this challenge during G20 they're working for the first time

[00:34:59] with officers from the foreign service and it was very important to build a team which

[00:35:04] which had the same objective of delivering the G20 for the country the prime minister wanted

[00:35:10] it to be very action oriented he wanted it to be inclusive he wanted it to be decisive and he

[00:35:16] wanted it to be ambitious now we had to deliver on that this opportunity comes once in 20 years

[00:35:21] and we had to do it to perfection now I had to build a team which could crack this and

[00:35:27] everybody with the same vision and therefore to communicate the vision to everyone and get

[00:35:31] everybody to act to that vision and then work towards a document which could achieve

[00:35:37] consensus and yet be very ambitious and inclusive so we did a lot of risk taking we did a lot of

[00:35:44] very aggressive negotiations we did a lot of brinkmanship but all that could be done

[00:35:51] because we were clear about the vision of achieving success for India amazing so we went

[00:35:56] through a similar visioning exercises in organization so I know exactly what you mean

[00:36:00] even to drive 10 leaders in a small organization required like two three days of dedicated

[00:36:05] brainstorming so this was about bringing consensus from G7 countries all emerging markets

[00:36:13] Russia China one paragraph on Russia China took us 300 hours of negotiation 16 drafts failed

[00:36:21] we had to do about close to 250 bilaterals but we were very clear that we'll achieve

[00:36:26] consensus at the end of it amazing that was going to be the last question how do you navigate

[00:36:30] the challenges of cross-border dynamism in or you know in between all of these folks because

[00:36:36] we are used to handling our own but we're selling the idea that Indians have to go conquer the world

[00:36:41] but how do you actually navigate the complexity of you know these cross-border cultural differences

[00:36:47] so be very clear that you want to be fair you want to be just but be very clear that

[00:36:53] you want to achieve this and work on principles which will apply to everybody

[00:36:58] don't get into this business of naming and condemning others but be clear that I'm going to

[00:37:03] work on principles so we were very clear that we are going to work for principles which is

[00:37:10] and we are going to be the voice of the global south that is what we did and you know if tomorrow

[00:37:17] 60 percent of the growth is going to come from emerging markets in the global south

[00:37:20] then speak that voice out and we did it very strongly fantastic sir so thank you again once

[00:37:26] again I think we covered a lot of ground a lot of different dimensions of who Mr. Amitabh

[00:37:31] Kant has been over 30 40 years I'm just going to wrap up with a fun rapid fire round and you know

[00:37:36] and thank you once again quickly what books have shaped you the most is there one particular

[00:37:43] book you tend to keep going back to well recent times I just read this book called the chip war

[00:37:48] which was very fascinating I found it of great interest and what it demonstrated to me is

[00:37:56] that all industries are going to be shipped by the chips in the future and therefore it's very

[00:38:02] important that India also does manufacturing of chips because tomorrow defends it mobiles cars

[00:38:09] automobiles everybody depends on yes so it's a fascinating book if you could travel back in

[00:38:15] time to and tell your younger self a piece of great advice what would that be well to be

[00:38:22] even more transformational to be even more risk-taking to be even more you see we're going to

[00:38:30] as long as you do things in good faith and good trust take all the risks possible I've taken a

[00:38:36] lot of risks in my official career I have done this because my intentions my motives were always

[00:38:44] you clearly stand out sir as almost like a classic entrepreneur within a very

[00:38:50] unanthroponial ecosystem so you know actually I really believe that a lot of more officers should

[00:38:56] be entrepreneurial within government they should start their career as startup of officers within

[00:39:02] the government fascinating and I know it's difficult to choose when you have so many but

[00:39:06] if you had to pick one of your greatest of favorite achievement what would that be

[00:39:12] there must be some emotional connect to one of them I think I really enjoyed working with

[00:39:16] traditional fisherman in Canada for four years that gave me a lot of satisfaction but the

[00:39:22] toughest one was to crack the consensus document on G20 both of the extremes yeah to

[00:39:28] fishermen to diplomat world leaders how do you unwind and recharge after a challenging day

[00:39:35] like what's your like go-to in the evenings like well every day I do about one and a

[00:39:40] half hours of exercise physical exercise I believe in sweating out so it's very important

[00:39:46] that all young people must sweat out so I do about hardcore physical exercise for about

[00:39:53] close to 90 minutes in the morning with a little bit of yoga woven into it awesome that's important

[00:39:59] but Saturday Sundays I play golf lovely lovely and your favorite holiday destination in India

[00:40:04] well I keep going back to some hill states but once in a while I go back to Kerala but

[00:40:10] I believe in going to the hilly terrains of India as well I go to Uttarakhand I go to Himachal

[00:40:16] all these areas have traveled traveled extensively the hills over the beaches and

[00:40:21] and scaling new mountains every day yeah well we'll try and do that thanks a lot again

[00:40:26] Mr. Khan it has been an absolute pleasure having you thanks for taking the time and

[00:40:30] speaking to our young entrepreneurs of this country they need a dose of inspiration

[00:40:34] and they need to know that it's even possible in government so thank you once again thank you

[00:40:37] thanks great pleasure so our friends at ultra human one of the their proud investor actually

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