there's something about India we just
take it for granted
we know India a very very diverse
country a civilization which has been
around for 5000 years or maybe more we
don't know we all think we know but it
it's very difficult to understand India
when I when I started working in
software industry I was fortunate to
work with people from many countries I
worked with at least people from 30
countries covering most of the
continents this one thing that I
understood which is common in terms of
perception is that people have a very
tough time understanding India
understanding India's problems
understanding India's solutions so I was
talking to one of my American colleague
once and he asked me something how many
people come to your wedding or you know
your friend's wedding
I said maybe like you know we call like
what 400 500 people on an average but
maybe a thousand people turn up it was
like thousand people are you a VIP No
5,000 10,000 is also not that uncommon
and it was like first of all you guys
get married without knowing the person
for too long you know we come we try for
like years
but you guys like get married in like a
few days or sometimes few weeks and then
thousand people turn up aren't you
nervous you know I'm like he was asking
the kind of questions which made me like
okay I need to explain but long story
short I did explain but I learned two
things from that conversation number one
people have very tough time
understanding India because India is
very complex second thing is the scale
of problems in India and the scale of
solutions in India are extremely
difficult and extremely different so
having said that let me get into what I
am going to talk about I'm going to talk
a lot about numbers in the next few
minutes the scale numbers scale numbers
because I love numbers and I hope all of
you loud numbers and we'll try to do
that mr. Narayan Murthy is somebody that
we all look up to being the first
generation software engineer in India
I look up to him because he's the one
who created space for brand Bangalore
brand India one of the pioneers he said
something that made me think a lot
India right now is it the best phase in
the last 300 years economically
financially to eliminate poverty
something of that regard I can
understand if he said for five years
maybe like 10 years maybe 25 years but
I'm like 300 years that took coming from
a visionary it made me think a lot I
started I said okay I trust it but let
me get into some numbers to see on what
basis did he make the prediction so the
first thing that I went and saw was
about demographic dividend India entered
of the best phase of demographic
dividend in 2018 and it will last for
another 37 30 36 to 37 years what it
basically means is there are more people
who are earning than the people who are
dependent
you know this demographic dividend is
fantastic because India's median age is
only like 27 something China is 10 years
older than India Japan is like 20 years
older most of the big economies are
getting older and India has entered that
right phase and the international world
and this is a golden opportunity then I
said maybe a visionary like him has
considered this extremely important
aspect then I started looking into India
started looking into some of the numbers
some of the changes that are happening
there is basic India which is still
struggling and you know trying to get
away from the basics and there is the
second part which is the optimistic
India which is slightly above basic most
of the urban areas in all middle-class
India but they have their own
aspirations and then there is third part
which is the aspirational India so the
way I imagined this there going like it
gears the basic India is churning its
lifting the optimistic India optimistic
India is churning it's kind of pulling
up basic both of them are lifting the
aspirational India so let's take a few
minutes and go with my obsession with
numbers and then
to see on the scale that I talked about
how India is progressing why somebody
like mr. Narayan Murthi would make such
a good comment so I looked at basic
India India in the last few years
brought in the largest number of people
into financial inclusion in the history
of mankind
in fact three times the population of
Mexico which is the third biggest
populated country in the Western
Hemisphere that many people came into
banking
you know India's rural banking is going
up extremely well
India brought clean fuel you know
cleaner relatively to the kitchens of
hundreds of you know tens of millions of
people at least so when I looked at it
it was more like almost two-thirds of
the households of United States in
comparison if they got clean fuel in a
matter of like three four years that is
the amount of work that has happened in
India then I started looking into other
aspects you know the number of toilets
built which people in the world take it
for granted but in India it was a very
necessary thing the sanitation coverage
I looked at the amount of new toilets
that are built in India in the last
three four years it was like it's almost
like half of the households of European
Union in comparison so I was like wow
India Bharat almost three times the
population of Mexico into banking India
built enough toilets for almost like
half of European Union's homes India is
bringing clean fuel into almost
two-thirds of the households of United
States in comparison that started
clicking yeah there's something really
good happening then I started looking
into more you know the rivers getting
cleaned and so on one thing about India
is the unorganized sector which is
massive India got in the last few years
more people into insurance then you know
the second biggest country in the
Western Hemisphere Brazil more people
than the population of Brazil came into
insurance some kind of pension some kind
of insurance they have these are massive
things building roads for example the
rural roads in India the amount of rural
roads built in where we are standing
Bangalore City if I go in the same
latitude I
go around the world the entire planet
four times that many rural roads got
built in the last four five years polio
which was a big problem in India like
you know decades ago it's been eight
years since India had any polio major
issue so I started looking into these
basic things and I was like staggered
you know the villages got electrified
India is now almost 100 percent
electrified the number of households
which got electricity it's more than
almost their households that the biggest
country in North Africa Egypt if I go
and count all the number of houses in
Egypt more country more houses in India
got electrified in the last four or five
years so in the last five years ten
years twenty years India is making
tremendous progress the basic India is
lifting up the rural roads getting
constructed I was like wow we are doing
good then I started looking into but
again don't get me wrong there's still a
long way to go India's problems are as
big as the solutions then I started
looking into the second part which is
the optimistic India like people like me
and you mostly who have most of the
basics covered but what are we looking
at so digital India for example has
already brought in more than half of
India's villages into optical fiber
network the image of India was not at
digital India a few years back and now
it's like massive I'll give you two
examples swiggy which is one of the
companies we're in now you just take a
phone your order food it gets delivered
this is not something new it happens for
a long time in many countries the Suika
app did not exist in the beginning of
2015 it just came up in 2015 today it's
going huge and the estimates that I read
in news is that in the next 18 months
swiggy will probably be the third
largest employer in India after the army
and Indian Railways that's kind of
unprecedented Flipkart for example they
opened up right here in our city
Bengaluru City and in 10 years they sold
more than 77 percent of their stake or
something like that for more than a
trillion rupees 1 trillion rupees more
than that so these are things which in
I could not imagine if it was not
getting digital then there is much more
cashless transaction which was not
really a big thing in India till you
know 2016-17 it's so big now that
Indians have transferred more than 17
trillion rupees cashless cash to us in
the last two and a half three years
these are massive numbers and imagine
just imagine still half of India has not
come into digital fold and once they
come the kind of industries that it
creates the scale of innovations in the
scale of job creation the scale of
change it's going to be massive and now
I'm connecting with what mr. Narayan
Murthy might have seen demographic
dividend is their basic India is doing
incredible progress optimistic India is
building things at a much higher level
you know for the first time people can
actually go and see what their
government is doing they can go to web
portals like my GAO and then look at it
and then I started looking into more
details so India for example is building
you know roads getting people into
people into other firms and and then I
started looking into various other
aspects for example GST which we take it
for granted it's not just a Stax Asian
thing the trucks that were standing in
the interstate waters for days are now
going much faster I asked some of my
friends they said it takes two to three
you know it's two to three times faster
today compared to the pre tht era so
India is doing massive things massive
things at advanced level the optimistic
level also and for example loans take
for example the easy loans that India is
giving to intrapreneurs and most of them
are women
India is given more loans than the
entire population of the biggest country
in West Africa Nigeria so ok Mexico
Brazil Nigeria Egypt European Union
United States I look into all these nice
came to a conclusion by then something
massive is happening maybe we just get
lost in the other noise it's you know
it's something that's it's worth getting
into then then I started looking into
the aspirational India aspirational
India is
beyond the current needs because keep in
mind India solutions are so big I'm
giving all the big scales but India's
problems are also big more than a
million people come to job market in
India every month so if I compare India
with some small city countries like
Singapore or Hong Kong or in on small
countries like UAE and Israel more than
their population that many people come
the job market every year in India so
where do you find the jobs how do you
create the jobs because if demographic
dividend is not handled with productive
jobs the startups and you know the
infrastructure and other jobs it becomes
a disaster so how is India doing in the
aspirational part the five years ten
years twenty years is there a plan is it
happening then I started looking into
some of the projects like Sagar mala
I looked into herethe mala I looked into
all the startups my assumption is India
is right now using only 6% of its
waterways only 6% of the goods of going
through the waterways if I put it that
way and it has a huge opportunity
because India has more than 7500
kilometres of coastline more than 15,000
kilometers of waterway is possible and
it's cheaper it's much cheaper than you
know burning fossil fuel so these are
the areas when I started looking into it
then I'm very very convinced that once
the clusters are made for example this
is steel cluster then there is cement
cluster if India and work intelligently
creating all these economic corridors
and clusters we have a tremendous
potential for job creation because
remember all these millions who are
coming to job market need good jobs they
don't need ordinary jobs for example in
the aspirational India 20 years back go
back and see India did not really have a
big four-lane highway network today we
have six we have the Golden
Quadrilateral which covers four and then
there is a north-south and east-west and
as we speak India is building 44 more
highway corridors they are called
economic corridors these are things
which we miss on a daily basis but these
are the ones where
trillions of rupees of investment is
coming or will be coming because this is
where all those millions of jobs have to
come in so I looked at the basic India I
looked at the I looked at the optimistic
India now I'm looking at the
aspirational India every area for
example Airlines India brought one
aircraft every three days in 2018 one
aircraft every three days more people
took flights in India last year than the
entire population of Japan these are
scales of mind-boggling level the only
country which can probably compare India
is China in these areas no other country
can even come closer to the kind of
changes that are happening so when I
looked at that the clean energy India
solar power went up eight times in the
last few years eight times so India is
becoming a leader in many areas so when
I look into all those I also looked at
what did India lose this is what India
lost
sorry Nigeria India is not the number
one country anymore of the extremely
poor people and this is actually
something that is already showing result
so when I looked at all these when I
went back to mr. Narayan Murthi
statement I'm coming back in the circle
so the scale the numbers all these are
good but is he really saying what we all
understand is it really happening I'm an
optimist now I feel a visionary like him
probably understand what
Angus Madison the famous economist who
who wrote that three little over three
centuries back India had nearly 24
percent of the world's GDP we may not
get there you know in the next five
years or ten years but I think India is
in the angle it was at the very very
good stage then it came down various
reasons and it's picking up so I have
become a believer looking at the basic
India looking at the optimistic India
looking at the aspirational India that
it's making tremendous amount of
progress it's it's still a long way to
go but I think it's on the right track
using the demographic dividend and that
fight trillion ten trillion economy that
we talked about my
very well become real in my lifetime at
your life time thank you very much
[Applause]