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Raghuram Rajan says Indian innovators have a ‘Virat Kohli mentality’: ‘Want to actually expand more’
Raghuram Rajan said that India was not reaping the benefits of democratic dividend.
Raghuram Rajan, former RBI governor, said that many Indian innovators are going to Singapore or to Silicon Valley to set up businesses as they find access to the final markets much easier there. He said, “We need to ask what is it that forces them to go outside of India to set up rather than stay inside India? But what is really heartwarming is talking to some of these entrepreneurs and seeing their desire to change the world. Increasingly many of them are not happy staying in India.”
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He added, “They want to actually expand more globally. I think there is a young India that has a Virat Kohli mentality. I'm second to none in the world.”
Raghuram Rajan on India's democratic dividend
The former RBI governor said that India was not reaping the benefits of democratic dividend. He sid, “That's why I said 6 per cent growth. If you think that's about what we are right now, take away the fluff in the GDP numbers. That 6 per cent is in the midst of a demographic dividend. It is much below where China and Korea were when they reaped their demographic dividend. And that's why I'm saying we are being overly complicit when we say this is great. This is not because we are losing the demographic dividend because we are not giving those guys jobs.”
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“That leads us to the question, how do we create those jobs? The answer to my mind is partly enhancing the capabilities of the people we have, partly changing the nature of the jobs that are available and we need to work on both fronts. And that leads us to the question, how do we create those jobs,” he continued.
What Raghuram Ram Rajan said on India's chip manufacturing
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Raghuram Rajan was critical of India spending billions of dollars on chip manufacturing as he said, “Think about these chip factories. So many billions going to subsidise chip manufacturing, he said, adding that a number of job intensive areas like leather are not doing good. We are going down in those areas. No wonder we have more of a job problem. The job problem was not created in the last 10 years. It's been growing over the last few decades. But if you neglect the areas which are more intensive, I'm not saying we need to now offer subsidised subsidies to leather examples, but figure out what's going wrong there and try and rectify that.”
