HTLS 2026: High parameter of success is a disadvantage in terms of nepotism, says Imtiaz Ali

Speaking at HTLS 2026, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that there cannot be an effective foreign policy without much stronger national capacities.

He further stated that, to a great degree, reforging relations in the minds of every country is also key.

Speaking at HTLS 2026, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that there is a difference between foreign policy and social media.

When asked what the new order looks like, Jaishankar said it won't come out of the blue and will be an evolution of the current order.

"It will have a transition, and we are in the transition phase. We hope we have a much stronger influence from India and an Indian perspective. The new order would be more multipolar. Many more centres of autonomous decision-making.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said at HTLS 2026 that in the coming years, the ongoing turbulence in the world will manifest in different ways.

"You can't say that the US-China turbulence is driving what's happening in the Gulf or Ukraine. There are multiple causes. But the US-China competition is a big part of the overall disturbance," he said.

Jaishankar further stated that one part of it is when countries get caught in the middle.

Speaking at HTLS 2026, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that strong and steady leadership is important amid stormy seas.

Describing the situation he termed as stormy seas, Jaishankar gave some examples.

"Five years ago, it would have been inconceivable that, in an age of such globalisation and interdependence, we could have a major war. We have now seen that war enter its fifth year.

Similarly, what we are witnessing in the Gulf would have been difficult to imagine. The idea that countries would actually be firing missiles at each other, targeting bases, cities, forces and leadership, would have been something that nobody would have anticipated. People would have rated the chances of such developments as being close to zero. And yet, they continue to happen," he said.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar mentioned the two conflicts in West Asia, saying they were aggravated after October 7. "If you look at Central Africa and Sudan, things are pretty grim. If we say interdependent world or globalised world, these are not phrases," he said.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, in conversation with HT Editor-in-Chief R Sukumar, says that a lot of our concerns are deeply linked with whatever is happening in the world.

"If you look at the state of the world, it is hard to give a succinct explanation but a picture that I can draw is in a way of very stormy seas," he said.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has kickstarted the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2026 in conversation with R Sukumar, Editor-in-Chief, Hindustan Times.

The Covid pandemic and global wars were widely expected to choke international travel. But each time, it came back faster than expected, said VFS Global founder and CEO Zubin Karkaria at the 24th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

“Whatever geopolitics or whatever environmental conditions are there in the world, travel will always come back, and it will come back with a vengeance,” he added.

Crises cause only brief anxiety or logistical hurdles, during which domestic travel picks up, Karkaria said, adding that post-Covid “revenge travel” showed that the urge never waned.

A century ago, a quiet scholarly breakthrough unfolded in then Mysore, when R Shamasastry, a pioneering epigraphist, unearthed and translated Kautilya’s Arthashastra, an ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, economic policy, and military strategy, with manuscripts preserved on fragile strips of dried palm-leaf. Shamasastry is the great-great-grandfather of Caltech computer scientist and professor Anima Anandkumar, who drew a link between her expertise – Artificial Intelligence – and the storied history of her family.

“UNESCO recognised Arthashastra, an ancient text, as one of the treasures from India. And I have a really interesting connection that my great-great-grandfather discovered Kautilya's Arthashastra more than a century ago. Using AI even to understand our rich history, our culture, and our local traditions, is important. We shouldn't just be focusing on one thing, but making investments across the board — invest in technical research, in humanities, and really grow that knowledge and make that first digitised, use AI, and then build AI,” said Anandkumar. speaking on the opening day of the 24th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

Artificial intelligence will make applying for a visa faster and smoother, but for now, it will not be the one deciding whether you get permission to travel, VFS Global founder Zubin Karkaria said at the 24th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.

“It will make things frictionless. But it would not make decisions, especially for a person who’s entering a country,” said Karkaria, whose company processes visa applications for 71 governments. “It won’t take the place of a visa officer.”

Asked if AI could ever replace the human element in immigration, Karkaria did not rule it out. It would come down to legislation, he said. “In future, what will be the legislation of different countries allowing? Currently, the legislation of countries don’t allow an AI tool to take decisions.”

Local languages and accessibility are important when it comes to frontier language models, Anima Anandkumar, Bren Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at the California Institute of Technology, said at a virtual session of the 24th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Thursday.

“I saw a lot of startups—and not necessarily only in the language model space,” she said, pointing to space, batteries and similar hard engineering as India’s competitive strength in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). “That is also the real strength that we should not lose track of,” she added.

A distinguished alumna of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, she added that it’s important to think in a broader way and have investments across the board, instead of just focusing “on one thing”.

For decades, an Indian student going abroad to study was likely to end up in the US, the UK, Canada or Australia. That map is being redrawn, VFS Global founder Zubin Karkaria said at a virtual session of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Thursday.

“Traditionally, the students always travelled to the US, Canada, Australia, UK. And now what we are seeing is a shift to Europe,” Karkaria said. “There’s a growth of students travelling to Europe by almost 70% every year.”

In a virtual session of the 24th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Thursday, Anima Anandkumar, a California Institute of Technology (Caltech) professor, said she believes speed is only a part of the artificial intelligence (AI) story, and that AI also allows for better accuracy and reliability in scientific modelling.

"It's not just that it's faster with less reliable predictions. In fact, it's more accurate, more reliable at this point—what AI can do—compared to traditional models," she said.

Across economies, geopolitics, technology, business, and society, the rules of engagement are rapidly evolving.

The Hindustan Times Leadership Summit (HTLS) 2026 brings together influential voices to explore new realities and discuss how leaders can navigate a landscape where certainty is increasingly being replaced by adaptation.

The list of speakers at HTLS 2026 includes:

• External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar
• 71st US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken
• Chairman of Tata Trusts Noel N Tata
• Nobel Prize-winning Economist Joseph E Stiglitz
• Samajwadi Party National President Akhilesh Yadav
• Physician and Author Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Artificial Intelligence Expert Stuart Russell
• Film Director Imtiaz Ali
• Actor Ananya Panday

The Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2026 is set to take place on Saturday, November 14.

Previously, three virtual sessions took place over the past two days.

Two virtual sessions took place on Thursday, featuring VFS Global Founder Zubin Karkaria and Caltech Professor Anima Anandkumar. A third virtual session took place on Friday, where World Bank Executive Director Neelkanth Mishra said the Indian economy was on the cusp of structural transformation, aided by access to cheap capital and technology.

This year's summit will focus on the forces rewriting the way people live, lead, and shape the future.

The theme, "New Rules. New Realities", captures a world in which established assumptions are being challenged, and new possibilities are emerging.