Wednesday, November 17th, 2021
8:30 – 10:00 am EDT / 7:00 – 8:30 pm IST
This was the third webinar in the 2021-2022 Envisioning India series, co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Institute for International Economic Policy, a platform for dialogue and debate. We invited you to engage with us in this series of important discussions.
The Envisioning India series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Director Jay Shambaugh, Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ajay Chhibber. The third event of the 2021-2022 series featured Ambassador (Retd) Gautam Bambawale (Distinguished Professor, Symbiosis University, Pune, India) and Dr. Ganesh Natarajan (5F World and Lighthouse Communities) to discuss “Taking on China – The Imperative and Agenda for India.” Manjeet Kripalani (Gateway House) and Dr. Jaimini Bhagwati (CSEP) provided discussant remarks.
India and China were more or less comparable in terms of economy size and global influence in the past but the rapid growth of China in the last five decades has taken China to near super power status and an economy which is over four times the size of India (14 trillion vs 3 trillion USD). This has seen increasing belligerence from China in the last year or so and we believe that India must act and act on multiple fronts if we are to retain our position on the High Table of global affairs.
Six senior members of the Pune International Center in India came together over a one year period in 2021-21 to produce a book Rising to the China Challenge: Winning Through Strategic Patience and Economic Growth that has been recently published and widely read in political, diplomatic and economic circles. Our submission is that there is a need for significant policy responses and diplomatic moves on the one hand and a renewed focus on restoring economic symmetry with China on the other to restore some level of equilibrium between the two nations. Two of the authors, Ambassador (Retd) Gautam Bambawale and Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, will present the book.
In the talk, three areas of great importance will be addressed.
1. Redressing the economic imbalance by focusing on industry sectors where India has the opportunity to redress the huge disparity that currently exists in domestic independence and global position, sectors where we have the imperative and the ability to catch up and build much higher values in the years to come and finally areas where India can indeed take the lead and build jobs for the future.
2. Diplomatic responses needed from India by having new models of engagement with global nations of importance, China’s neighbors and India’s own neighbors to counter China’s growing dominance in world affairs.
3. India’s own domestic and international imperatives and policies and programs that are essential to set India on a path of sustained and significant growth as a democratic force of significance to the world.
About the Speakers:
Ambassador (Retd) Gautam Bambawale was a member of the Indian Foreign Service from 1984 to 2018. He was India’s Ambassador to Bhutan, Pakistan and China. Bambawale was stationed in Washington DC in 2004-07 during the Indo-US nuclear deal which transformed ties between the two countries. He has been India’s first Consul General in Guangzhou (China) 2007-09. He was Director of the Indian Cultural Centre, Berlin 1994-98. Ambassador Bambawale worked in the Prime Minister’s Office 2002-04. At the Ministry of External Affairs he was Joint Secretary for East Asia from 2009-2014. Bambawale has dealt with China for 15 years of his 34 year diplomatic career. He is currently Distinguished Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Symbiosis International University, Pune.
Dr. Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman and Co-Founder of 5F World and Lighthouse Communities. He is an investor and mentor to digital platforms and AI entrepreneurs in India and USA. Ganesh is a Board Director of SBI, Hinduja Global Solutions and Asian Venture Philanthropy Network and is Chairman of Honeywell Automation India. Ganesh is an alumnus of IIT Bombay and Harvard Business School and a recipient of IIT’s Distinguished Alumnus Award.
About the Discussants:
Manjeet Kripalani is Executive Director of Gateway House. Prior to the founding of Gateway House, she was India Bureau chief of Businessweek magazine from 1996 to 2009. During her extensive career in journalism (Businessweek, Worth and Forbes magazines, New York), she has won several awards, including the Gerald Loeb Award, the George Polk Award, Overseas Press Club and Daniel Pearl Awards. Kripalani was the 2006-07 Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, which inspired her to found Gateway House. Her political career spans being the deputy press secretary to Steve Forbes during his first run in 1995-96 as Republican candidate for U.S. President in New Jersey, to being press secretary for the Lok Sabha campaign for independent candidate Meera Sanyal in 2008 and 2014 in Mumbai. Kripalani holds two bachelor’s degrees from Bombay University (Bachelor of Law, Bachelor of Arts in English and History) and a master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, New York. She sits on the executive board of Gateway House and is a member of the Rotary Club of Bombay.
Dr. Jaimini Bhagwati is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), Chairman of the Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) Asset Management Trustee Company and Board member of IDFC Limited. Dr. Bhagwati was India’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and India’s Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg. He has held senior positions in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Department of Atomic Anergy and the World bank Treasury. His responsibilities at the World Bank included bond funding including execution of over-the-counter derivatives transactions. Between 2013-2018 Dr. Bhagwati was the Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at ICRIER. Dr. Bhagwati was educated at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi, Tufts University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.
