In the second technical Session titled “India Towards Global Leadership- People and Processes”, first speaker of this session was Prof. S.S. Sharma. Prof. S.S. Sharma started his talk with the thought of orientation of people and emphasized that the starting point of any business should be “value” based. Topic for the talk was “Lean Thinking” for Business Excellence. He explained that the lean deals with purpose, people, process and PDCA for business excellence. He also mentioned that for global leadership and sustainable leadership, competence is needed. Waste elimination and working from customer’s perspective are two orientations of lean thinking. Knowledge, experience and creativity are required for business excellence for global leadership. He mentioned about Jack Welch from GE, who believes in creating customer value. Reducing cost, minimizing lead time and maintaining high quality is required for sustainable and profitable global business. Seven deadly wastes mentioned by him were overproduction, waiting, transportation, over processing, inventory, motion and defects. He discussed push and pull approaches of production system. A case on Wartsila India- O& M Business shared by him highlighted that potential problem prevention, a robust planning & execution and key functions of management (Retainment, Improvement and breakthrough Improvement) are key for global sustainability. At the end of his address, he also shared a video of Arvind Eye Hospital.

Second speaker of this session was Prof. Chanda Jain, who discussed the topic “Yellow car in Blue Light”. She emphasized, that one should got to work on himself first. She also discussed that more important is doing what is needed, rather than doing what is doable. She emphasized on role of Emotional Intelligence and Self Introspection to emerge as a leader. Lastly she discussed that happiness is the key to performance.

Third speaker of the session was Prof. Anuja Roy. Prof. Roy addressed the audience on “Hard Power vs Soft Power”. She discussed the importance of soft power in providing connectivity and getting applauded from others. Other areas to be focused were political pluralism, overcoming poverty and being yourself, along with the hard power is required for being a global leader.

Next Speaker of the session was Dr. Namita Dixit, who addressed the audience on the topic “Waste Management in India- Present Position and Future Perfect.” She started the discussion by highlighting the different types of wastes with high percentage in present scenario. For waste management, she advised that waste can be used for reusable purposes. If waste is not managed in near future than health, socioeconomic and climate conditions will be effected. She suggested on ban on plastic, using biodegradable plastic, mandatory composting, energy generation from organic waste is other sustainable innovation. She also emphasized in following the practices used by USA and Europe, in India as well.

These sessions were followed by the expert talk by our special speaker of the Business Summit, Prof. C.K Sabharwal, who shared that by 2025, 70% increment in food production is required. Though India has arable land but production is quite low. He mentioned that Indian agriculture is facing a double challenge of declining income and profitability and declining interest in agriculture. The two pronged solution is increasing productivity and profitability and creating a new generation of framers. Prof. Sabharwal mentioned that the key challenges in front of framers are small land holding and agriculture landholding pattern. He mentioned that the unviable “farm to market” business model is the root cause of problem. Other problems related to agriculture were low and imbalanced fertilization, Crop residue burning, poor water management and poor crop rotation. He also mentioned that mechanization and credit system should also be improved. Root cause of problems related to agriculture is lack of knowledge, poor hand holding and implementation of practices, poor bargaining power and poor infrastructure. He discussed that the global trends in agriculture are connected agriculture, through yield map & monitor, crop Insurance and fertilization. Precision Agriculture, Vertical Farming, Aerophonics, Hydrophonic, Leaf Sensors, Geobots, Duckweed, sugar beet and vacuum packing.

The main take away from the prominent speakers and their deliberations were - 1. To be global leaders, right mindset is required, 2. India needs to be mindful of the global challenges being faced by humanity in its pursuit for global leadership, 3. India need to search its strengths at the right places with open mind., 4. India must take recourse to lean management and waste management.

In all audience applauded the discourse and its outcome and felt enlightened with the day long deliberations.