Speaking at the Times Now Summit 2022, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar emphasised that India would need the right kind of leadership in order to navigate the next half a decade that will be, according to him, turbulent.
The world is facing multiple challenges, yet India appears to be better off and has been acknowledged as a global bright spot by the International Monetary Fund.
When asked where India finds itself amid the global scenario, Jaishankar said that if conditions world over are tough, it cannot be easy for India.
The minister shared that he believes that the next 5 years would be stormy and to navigate such choppy waters, India would need the right kind of leadership.
“It is very important for India to have the right kind of leadership, to have the right systems in place, the confidence, the right judgment to navigate a very stormy path. I can confidently predict a turbulent hopefully half a decade,” Jaishankar said.
Addressing how such pressing times should be navigated by India’s leadership, Jaishankar said, “(we need to do so) by studying the economy, doing as strongly as we can, executing reforms we can do that should have been done a long time ago. We have to see that India’s rise continues amid the turbulence.”
In fact, that is the calculation that the world has of India, the minister said. Global institutions like the IMF have made the assessment that India will continue to rise.
Jaishankar said that since he deals a lot with the way foreign nations see India he can share that they do have a better perspective on India’s achievements than perhaps those in India do.
“They (foreign nations) see a lot of our achievements with greater clarity and objectivity than we do. They look at India’s vaccination campaign with marvel, they see that the kind of doomsday scenario (predicted in the wake of migrant movement during Covid-19) has been unfounded. Perhaps Indians don’t realise it but we have created a social safety net in the last 3 years. The last mile digital delivery, improved governance, ease to do business, the fact that the world is realising there is a concentration of manufacturing in one geography and the need to diversify also works in our favour. Our policies are designed to create a pull factor,” Jaishankar said.
