ET WLF: Top tycoons weigh up the India opportunity, explore ways to power a billion dreams

ET WLF: At the ET World Leaders Forum event in New Delhi on August 31, a session headlined "The India opportunity: Empowering a billion dreams" generated high interest owing to the issues discussed and the quality of the conversation.

The esteemed participants of the session were Gautam Hari Singhania, Chairman & Managing Director, Raymond Limited; Rohit Jawa, President, Unilever, South Asia & CEO & Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL); Preetha Reddy, Executive Vice Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals; and William Bissell, Managing Director, Fabindia.

Preetha Reddy explained how keeping people out of the hospitals and keeping them healthy has become THE mandate.


Shedding light on the emission issue, Reddy said that as an industry, 4% carbon emissions come from the healthcare sector. It is all about making a difference, Reddy added.

HUL's Rohit Jawa noted that India’s transformation has been breathtaking. In an interesting observation, he said that what is good for India is good for HUL as well.

The most important thing is to improve the employability of India's youth, Jawa said. 27% of the working poplulation in the world is going to come from India, he added.

The country has opened up to the desire to get a better life and we as companies have to make sure it happens, Jawa remarked.

We have got to take India with us, Raymond's Singhania said. We need to have inclusive growth as a lot of India is poor, he observed.

We have changed 3 million lives so far, Singhania underlined.

He added that he would make sure to ensure education for 100s and 1000s of students.

Believe in your country and 1.4 billion people of the country need to dream, Singhania signed off.