India needs to focus on sustainable development and work towards improving the lot of its people at the bottom of the pyramid apart from its thrust on a higher GDP growth to be in the top league of nations in the next 15 years.
These were some of the observations made by industry leaders at a session on 'India at 75: My Vision for India', organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry at the Xavier Institute of Management- the top B-school of the state.
"To see India amongst the topmost nations in the country's 75th year of Independence, we got to take our share of global trade from less than 2 per cent to 10 per cent.
Moreover, we got to have a vision to see 30 Indian companies in Fortune's list of the top 100 global companies but more importantly, we also need to think as to how we can improve the quality of life of people at the bottom of the pyramid," said Rajiv Kaul, the former president of CII, sharing the vision of noted management guru CK Prahlad.
Speaking on the occasion, Anu Aga, chairperson of CII Industry-NGO partnership committee and director of Thermax Limited said: "We need to take some drastic steps to counter female foeticide which is rampant in the country. This apart, the country needs to actively demonstrate good governance and celebrate its religious diversity rather than just tolerating it."
Vijay K Thadani, chief executive officer of NIIT Limited and chairman of CII Education Committee, stressed on arresting school drop-out rate, enhancing enrolment ratio in colleges and universities and scale up penetration of information technology.
"Though India has 17 per cent of the world's population, it accounts for less than 2 per cent of the global GDP. India's GDP needs to be in proportion with its share of the world population growth and we also need to evolve an e-governance application which can become the global benchmark," Thadani added.
"We need to spot opportunities in our problems and focus on imparting soft skills as India needs 500 million skilled workers over the next twenty five years", said MV Subbaiah, chairman of National Skills Development Corporation and former chairman of the Murugappa Group.
