The Indian Institute of Management Calcutta in association with The Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry was privileged to have Dr. Partha S. Ghosh, Policy Advisor, Strategist, as its maiden speaker at its "Thought Leader Lecture Series 2018-2019" on 5th October 2018 evening at the Chamber premises. "India in 2047: Could it create a platform for a more positive future in the second century" was the topic on which Dr. Ghosh spoke.

Mr. Debasish Gupta, President, IIM Kolkata Alumni Association introduced Dr. Partha S. Ghosh as his batchmate from IIT Kharagpur of 1966 batch. He is a policy advisor and a strategist for Corporates and Governments. He is known worldwide as an innovator of Business and Economic models and currently enjoys advisory relationships with multiple organizations in several nations. Earlier Mr. Ghosh was a partner at McKinsey & Company and is the founder/Managing Director of Strategy/Policy advisory firm Partha S. Ghosh & Associates.

Dr. Ghosh felt that there was a need for some strategic diagnostics in order to have a national strategy in our country which has a population of 1.4 billion and hugely diverse one with over 1642 languages. The country does not have a desired brand. Each of the developed countries like China, Japan, USA have created brands. Dr. Ghosh felt that there were five major issues to be tackled namely climate change, anti- globalisation, the new economic order, cyber economy and new strategy in this new world.

Dr. Ghosh observed that if a comparison was made on India's performance in 1950 versus what it is in 2018 on a few significant parameters, it would be seen that it had gone down significantly on each of these viz. Balance of Trade, Human Development Index and Access to clean water. Korea and South East Asia were doing well.

India during the last 70 years, as its country strategy, had done many experiments but each of these have remained incomplete. To name a few - the concept of mixed economy, capital intensive growth, nationalisation, opening up of the country etc. All these major policy decisions never proved correct.

Dr. Ghosh felt that evolution comes from freedom. He defined three different stages of freedom the had country attained till now.

i. The first stage of freedom was freedom from superstitions and social evils like 'Sotidaha' in Bengal spearheaded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy.
ii. The second was the stage of awakening and and liberation of the kind brought about by Swami Vivekananda especially in the global stage.
iii. Then came the political freedom in 1947, post which the cultural opportunism continued.
Dr. Ghosh identified six strategic zones on which work will be have to be done

i. A different way to manage politics has to be thought out.
ii. The governance process set by the British seems to be continuing. We have to think of a governance culture which is supportive and helpful
iii. Need for inclusive education to learn to break systems of command and control which is prevalent today.
iv. There has to be major rural up-scaling. Decentralised economies should emerge. Rivers should become modes of mass transportation
v. Artificial Intelligence to come up in a big way. A multi- lingual country like India can hugely benefit through AI by real time translation of speeches and discourses across the country in all Indian languages.
vi. Social Engineering is an absolute necessity for a stronger India in 2047.

Dr. Ghosh concluded by saying that we need to leverage the vedic society. 80% of our country's population was living 100 years behind as the world had moved forward. He called this a 'time-zone' advantage. The country also enjoyed a 'diversity' advantage. Thus he felt that the country had the instruments to move ahead. The question was if we can create a strong base which could create a symphony in the country's march towards an 'Indian Brand'.