The India Conference at Harvard held on February 17^th and 18^th at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School was a smashing success. The theme of the conference was ‘India Rising’. The event was organized by Indian /Indian American students in various schools at Harvard University. The event was attended by over 900 people from all over the country and students from all universities in and around Boston.

The co-chairs of the event were Ananya Chhaochhari, Taniya Bajaj, Ishaan Poddar and Shruti Agrawal. Day 1 of the conference focussed on economics, policy, social issues and government.

The lead speaker was Madhabi Puri Buch, Chairperson, SEBI. She talked about the rapid growth of the securities from B to B market to B to B to C market as SEBI has access to bank account of every investor. SEBI works with industry closely in which all 50 mutual funds use a common platform for transactions. Its goal is to develop a viable business model where operating a Rupee 250 per month Systematic Investment Plan will be profitable.

Indermit Gill, Chief Economist, World Bank, had a slightly different view of India Rising. He was more concerned about the low Per Capita Income rather than its GDP. He said, ‘People say it is India’s time, he thinks India is running out of time.” For the past 20 year, the private investment has not increased, all the growth has been in public investment. Significant increase in debt, even though it is in Rupees, is good for stability but not good for growth.

The panel on Evolving Role of Media in India talked about the fake news which is promoted by social media. Organizations and legacy media have norms, standards and ethics and people should look at them for in depth news. When asked about the decline in newspaper readership, Girish Agarwaal, Dainik Bhaskar, mentioned that it was true in US but in India readership is not only strong but, in many cases, growing. The significant increase in price to about $3 per day is one of the mistakes made by US newspapers and the leading cause for its decline in readership.  

As part of Driving India’s Sustainable Manufacturing Revolution, Sudhanshu Mani of Indian Railways, talked about ‘Give Trust a Chance’. There is a general lack of trust between government and private sectors. Manufacturing has been around 14-15% of the GDP for a few years. What has been done for highway infrastructure need to be replicated in other sectors of the economy.

'Even though significant advances have been made in India-US relations, US has never had a trade deal with India,' said Ambassador Ken Juster. 

On the issue of Building Bridges: Gender, Allyship and Social Change, Vibha Bakshi, Film Director and Producer, Responsible Films, said, “Sensationalizing is easy, Sensitization is very hard.” Her goal in making films is to leave the viewers with Hope. “It is difficult to get empathy from police as their mind set is the same as the society in general. We need role models for men.” As to what has changed in the past decade is the ‘Conspiracy of silence has been broken after Nirbhaya.”

On the issue of 33% reservations for women in parliament, Swati Maliwal, Rajya Sabha Member and former Chair of Delhi Commission for Women, felt it should ne 50% only then issues related to women will take center stage.

Urvashi Sahni, Founder, Study Hall Education Foundation, mentioned that there are over 33,000 NGOs in India in the area of Education. 80+% of the student went to government schools 30 years ago. Today that number is 50%. This shows the lack of faith in the system. There is a shortage of 1.2 million teachers in the country. As far as gender inequality is concerned, it was built over centuries, it can’t be solved overnight but we have to keep working at it.

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