When Harvard batted for India

The Harvard India Conference 2011, titled ‘March of a Billion Aspirations', held on March 26-27 in Boston, brought together business and government leaders, academics and India experts who all lauded India's growth story while not ignoring the challenges the second most populous country in the world is facing.

Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon (right), Minister for Food& Civil Supplies and IT, Punjab, seen at the conference with Boston-based Amit Kanodia, Managing Partner, Lincoln Ventures.

The two-day India Conference 2011 was jointly organized by the students of Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. It witnessed the coming together of leaders of Indian business and civil society, students eager to learn about the nuances of India's march towards prosperity, and professionals who see much potential in India's growing economy and vibrant democracy.

One of the largest student conferences on India in the US, the Harvard India Conference aims to bring together various stakeholders in India's future under one roof. It has been growing year to year since it was first organized eight years ago.

Ajay Banga, President and CEO of MasterCard, in conversation with Nitin Nohria, Dean & Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School.

This year's conference theme ‘March of a Billion Aspirations' aimed to capture the dreams and aspirations of a billion Indians (recent census figures pegged the population at 1.21 billion to be exact), both within its borders and around the world. The name of the conference has been inspired by Gandhi Dandi March which led the way for India's freedom. The conference material used an image of a sculpture in Chanakya Puri, New Delhi, that captures the spirit of that march.

Subrata Roy, Chairman of SaharaGroup of companies, during his Keynote Address stressed man management as crucial to success in a business enterprise .

The Keynote Speakers this year included Subrata Roy Sahara, Chairman of the Sahara Group of companies, Ajay Banga, President and CEO of MasterCard, Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon, Minister for Food & Civil Supplies and IT, Punjab, and Tarun Khanna, Professor of Harvard Business School, who was instrumental in organizing the first India conference at Harvard.

Speaking at the Leadership Forum, Naveen Jindal, MP and Executive ViceChairman & Managing Director, Jindal Steel & Power Limited, said innovation is unique to Indian ethos and enterprise.

Panel discussion themes were: Leadership Forum, Management Education, Entrepreneurship, Media & Entertainment, Retailing, Investing in India, Green Energy, Infrastructure, and Healthcare. Panelists included Naveen Jindal, MP and Executive Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Jindal Steel & Power Limited, Arun Nanda, Director, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., Ranjana Khanna, Dy. Secretary General, FICCI US, Shahana Basu Kanodia, Partner & Chair of the South Asia Practice Group, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP, Nitin Nohria, Dean and Professor Harvard Business School, and Sascha Vijay Sippy, CEO of Sippy Films. Ajay Banga said he was upbeat about India's future. His advice was that we need to apply our minds to improving quality of life in India and not just stay focused on rising GDP. Employment for those entering the work force has to be created, wages raised before inflation hits to avoid social unrest.

- Anand Giridharadas, writer and columnist for The New York Times and International Herald Tribune, who has just published his bestselling book “India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking,” spoke about the remarkable changes in rural India he saw when he relocated from the US to India

Banga pointed out that even one person can change a lot, like Nitish Kumar has transformed Bihar after taking over as chief minister. NGOs like Pratham are also doing yeoman service at the grassroots level. “India grows despite its politics,” he said.

Panelists for ‘US-India Relations: Outlook for the next decade' included (from right) Manoj Singh, Global Managing Director, Deloitte Operations, Ranjana Khanna, Dy. Secretary General, FICCI USA, Shahana Basu Kanodia, Partner & Chair of the South Asia Practice Group, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP.

During the quickfire QA session with Nitin Nohria, Dean & Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, the top global executive showed how Indian he is at heart. He prefers Aishwarya Rai over Angelina Jolie, gilli-danda over other sports and India- China rivalry over Coke-Pepsi rivalry. He also admires Indian companies like Tata and Infosys and Indian institutions like IIMs.

Subrata Roy Sahara informed the audience that after writing a couple of books in Hindi on life philosophy, he was in the process of finishing a book in English also, titled ‘Life is Beautiful: Learn it and Love it.”

In his keynote address, which was circulated in advance also, Roy chose to dwell on simple but critical things in like. Professional and personal aspects of life need not be at loggerheads, he stressed. His view is that “it depends on you entirely to attain continuous progress in your career and (yet) to remain continuously happy in your personal life too.” But that depends on knowledge of life, of the psychological and emotional aspects of life.

Roy did share his success mantra with the audience which comprised the most brilliant students in the world. “We have to understand that in business the deep study of Human Management is much more important than the study of Business Management,” he said. This is because in any business, any product is devised by, serviced by, and purchased by human beings. He added that money or position as a motivator is limited. The best way of motivation is like a mother. The Sahara group founder said that in his or Subrata Roy, Chairman of Sahara Group of companies, during his Keynote Address stressed man management as crucial to success in a business enterprise . Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon (right), Minister for Food& Civil Supplies and IT, Punjab, seen at the conference with Boston-based Amit Kanodia, Managing Partner, Lincoln Ventures. Ajay Banga, President and CEO of MasterCard, in conversation with Nitin Nohria, Dean & Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School. oganization, he has always tried to generate self-motivation in the workers—sharing in their happiness and sorrows, teaching them about life and genuinely feeling as their guardian. He stated that he has continued to give regular lectures to senior and junior workers—“ 90 percent talk on human aspect and only 10 percent on business.” He claimed that it has worked like magic in his organization because when workers are self-motivated to a very high degree, productivity multiplies manifold.
Roy now believes that the chief of any organization, or of a major division or department, should be a good teacher of human life who can show the right path, never do injustice, no discrimination at all. He has also concluded from experience that 98-99 percent of human beings want to live with the domination of positive characteristics of their nature and they always push down their negative characteristics provided they get to live in a positive human environment.

Tarun Khanna said in his Keynote Address that India was high on innovation--doing things in a cost-effective manner and yet efficiently. It is truer in healthcare, for example, he said, while giving the example of a hospital in Bangalore doing heart surgeries at a fraction of the cost for the same procedure in the rest of the world.

In his keynote, Lant Pritchett, Professor at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, spoke about his research in two backward districts of central India, which showed that though unheralded, social churn was taking place in rural areas and that was good news. The results of his research, if replicated over the rest of the country, will be still bigger news. Dan Tennebaum, MD, India Capital Research, who has lived and worked in India (mainly Mumbai) since 1999, discussed the pros and cons of relocating to India. He and others speaking at the Investing in India panel agreed that India was good destination for investing. Anand Giridharadas, the Boston based writer and Columnist for The New York Times, who has just published his bestselling book “India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation's Remaking” after relocating to India for some years, said the change in people's minds in India was more significant than indicators like GDP growth. The penetration of television in rural and poor households is raising people's aspirations, for example, he said

Speaker after speaker also stressed the point that the so called Demographic Dividend can turn into Demographic Disaster if not managed well. Demographic Dividend refers to the fact that India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than 65% hovers below the age of 35. It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan. The demographic dividend does not and will not accrue automatically. Inclusive growth is a must to avoid the kind of revolutions simmering in the Middle East and North Africa currently. Speakers repeatedly referred to the theme of the conference, ‘March of a Billion Aspirations' (it is not March of a Million Aspirations) to make this point. On audience's prodding questions on endemic corruption in India during panel discussion on infrastructure, speakers said the problem is on the mend as Indian authorities too are seized of the matter. Red tape for doing business in India has also been cut. For example, during a panel discussion on Investing in India, Brij Singh, Founder and CEO of Baer Capital, said that his experience with SEBI (the regulatory body Securities and Exchange Board of India) was excellent, work got done promptly and without greasing any palms. During the panel on the future of Indo-US ties, Shahana Basu Kanodia, Partner & Chair of the South Asia Practice Group, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP (EAPD), spoke enthusiastically from personal experience as she was a delegate with President Obama's Business Executive Mission to India last November. “The strategic relationship that started about 10 years ago under President Bush has reached a new level under the Obama administration,” she said.

She observed that a related factor is the transformation of the image of Indian Americans from 2000 onwards with IT entrepreneurs like Vinod Khosla and Kanwal Rekhi and increased engagement in the political process. Today Indian Americans occupy some twenty prominent positions in the Obama Administrations, such as Rajiv Shah (USAID administrator), Vivek Kundra (Federal chief information officer), and Aneesh Chopra (chief technology officer).
The US India Business Council (USIBC), which had 100 members earlier, is 3,000 strong now, she pointed out.

[ BY A CORRESPONDENT ]