HTLS 2025: PM Modi sets 10-year deadline to ‘get rid of colonial mindset’ | Highlights

Speaking on one of his key priorities as CJI, Justice Surya Kant stated that he would be working towards sensitising the district judiciaries in order to improve timeline and predictability in the system.

“For this, we plan to introduce training programmes through the judicial academy platforms and high court platforms,” said CJI at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

Speaking to Hindustan Times' National Legal Editor Utkarsh Anand, CJI Surya Kant stated that in 2025, the judiciary is facing new challenges, such as the rise in digital arrest and scam cases.

“No one thought that there will be cases of digital arrest. We need to have training programs regularly, and update our judicial officers with the newer challenges and how to deal with them correctly,” said CJI at HTLS 2025.

Born in 1962, Justice Surya Kant rose through the Hisar courts to become Haryana's youngest Advocate General at the age of 38, and then to the Bench in 2004.

Elevated to the Supreme Court in 2019, Justice Kant has authored critical judgments across constitutional, criminal and administrative law, and served on key Constitution benches, including the Article 370 case and the recent presidential reference on gubernatorial powers.

Justice Kant, who is widely regarded as a consensus-builder, combines sharp legal insight with a deep social conscience, a key trait shaped by his early struggles and lifelong commitment to justice.

Kant took over as the 53rd Chief Justice of India on November 24, 2025, succeeding Justice BR Gavai.

Speaking at HTLS 2025, CJI Surya Kant stated that his first priorities as Chief Justice of India will be to work towards a “predictable timeline and the unification of the national judicial policy based on early resolution of pending cases.”

Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, CJI Surya Kant stated that as he worked towards being a lawyer, he realised the “growth takes its own time”.

“Growing up in a village, I learnt that growth takes it own time. It was a long journey full of struggle, and the lesson I learnt was that I must have patience and I must wait for my turn. That, I must say, taught me the lesson of patience,” he said at HTLS 2025.

After Nirmala Sitharaman, the next speaker on the stage is Chief Justice of India Surya Kant. Justice Surya Kant took over the as the 53rd Chief Justice of India on November 24, 2025.

Prior to his elevation as judge, Kant was a Senior Advocate and also served as the Advocate General for Haryana. The CJI will be in conversation with Utkarsh Anand, National Legal Editor at Hindustan Times.

When asked about the weakening of the rupee against the US dollar, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman added that the rupee will find its natural level.

“When a currency weakens naturally, there is a very strong nationalist aspect to currency, opposition parties can raise issue -- you said rupee will find its natural level, do you not think it is a little high?,” asked Hindustan Times editor-in-chief R Sukumar.

'Quite tempted to say lot of things, rupee, currency exchange rates are rather too sensitive, not escaping the comment, we raised it much better while we were in the opposition... inflation rate was so high back then, economy was fragile and when your currency also takes a hit it is no body's bright spark," the Finance minister responded.

When asked about the policies of freebies by state government, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the practice of freebies is quite concerning, not because of the practice but because of budget constraints.

“I am so much concerned about it not because they are giving freebies but because the budget cannot afford it I am more looking at it as some of them borrow for something - a heavy baggage... I don't want to say counselling or advising, I've been having conversations to make sure that if they need some help from the Centre, not in terms of money, but in terms of setting up, sharing, we structure their debt,” said Sitharaman at HTLS 2025.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said the government's next focus of reforms includes an overhaul of the custom duty system, much as the income tax regime has been simplified.

“We made sure that income tax is no longer a tiresome exercise,” she cited as an example, recalling that the I-T regime was often termed “tax terrorism”, speaking at the 23rd Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on December 6, 2025.

“The commentary used to be that income tax rates are not the problem — ‘yes, we want lower and lower rates’ — but it is the tax administration which causes the problem,” the senior BJP leader said, in conversation with HT Editor-in-Chief R Sukumar.

She said the administration of tax became “painful, sometimes agonising”, which resulted in the “not-so-nice coinage, tax terrorism”. Read more here

When asked about the weakening of the Indian rupee against the US dollar, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the rupee will have to find its own.
Earlier this week, the rupee hit an all time low of over ₹90 against one US dollar. Despite the concerns, RBI and the Centre have stated that the factors are “playing out” and the weakening is not worrisome.

“I think the factors are playing out... Before you ask me, so is the answer for Rupee versus the Dollar. Rupee will have to find its own," said the Finance Minister.

“We have had trouble with our borders which has always been through both state actors and nonstate actors, particularly at a time when J&K was coming and economy was picking up under the central rule of the elected government. We have actually gone into granular details of looking at the J&K economy," says Sitharaman while talking about how Jammu and Kashmir economy revived at HTLS 2025.

Speaking at HTLS 2025, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman after the income tax system, the Centre will be working to cleanup the customs system.

”We have brought down custom duties in the last two years steadily. Custom is the next big assignment," said Sitharaman.

HTLS 2025: Speaking on the recent changes for the income tax slabs, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the Centre is working to simplify the system.

"Income tax should no longer be seen as a tiresome exercise", she said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

HTLS 2025: Day 3 of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit has begun with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as the first speaker. The union minister will speak on an array of topics from income tax to GST with Hindustan Times editor-in-chief R Sukumar.

HTLS 2025: Day 3 of the Hindustan Times Leadership summit will begin shortly, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be opening the summit. The Finance Minister will be in conversation with R Sukumar, the editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times.

HTLS 2025: In another three years, the world will cross the 1.5°C threshold, with only 130 gigatons of carbon dioxide space remaining. Despite this warning, at COP30 in Brazil last month, wealthy nations—responsible for four-fifths of historical emissions—resisted discussing their financial obligations while 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists ensured the final agreement never mentioned the words “fossil fuel.”

Speaking in an online session at the 23rd Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, University of Amsterdam professor Joyeeta Gupta rued that there is not enough attention to the rapidly shrinking emission headroom. “That’s one of the big problems—we are not taking this storyline that there is very little CO2 emission space left seriously”.

HTLS 2025: On the final day of the summit, HTLS is lined with prominent speakers, such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, actor Hugh Grant, Aamir Khan and several others.

Speaking on the first day of the HT summit, Chhattisgarh chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai said Naxalism remained a major obstacle to the state’s development. He added that the Centre was committed to eliminating it nationwide by March 31, 2026.

“Naxalism was a very big obstacle to the development of Chhattisgarh. The government took oath on December 13, 2023, and after the formation of the double-engine government, our forces began fighting Naxalism vigorously. We received the blessings of Union home minister Amit Shah, and our jawans are fighting with great enthusiasm. Union home minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have resolved to eradicate Naxalism from the entire country by March 31, 2026, and our jawans are fighting very strongly,” Sai said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

OpenAI's Srinivas Narayanan, who has earlier worked at Meta, spoke of OpenAI's plans in the future, including talks of an IPO on the first day of HTLS.

While speaking on the global attention the AI platform is receiving, he said, “While all the attention is interesting, we're also heads down (in work). But I would add that some of our best moments happen when we have launches that are really moving the needle for the world.”

Here's the lineup for the final day of the summit -

9:45 am - Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman

10:15 am - Chief Justice of India Surya Kant

10:45 am - Actor Hugh Grant

11:35 am - External affairs minister Dr S. Jaishankar

12 noon - Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman of Bharti enterprises

12:35 pm - Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah

1 pm - In conversation with Amol Muzumdar, coach of Indian women's cricket team and cricketer Deepti Sharma.

2:30 pm - Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath

3 pm - James K. Galbraith, professor at the University of Texas.

3:30 pm - Micheal Kugelman, Senior fellow for South Asia, Atlantic council, Washington DC; and Kate Sllivan de Estrada, Associate Professor, International Relations of South Asia, University of Oxford.

4 pm - Pushmeet Kohli, Vice president of Science and Strategic affairs at Google Deepmind.

4:30 pm - Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta

5 pm - Actor, filmmaker and producer Aamir Khan.

6 pm - Closing remarks by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be the first speaker on the third and final day of the Hindustan Times Leadership summit. The finance minister will be in conversation with R. Sukumar, the editor-in-chief of Hindustan Times.