Siril Amarchand Mangaldas presents CNBC TV18 The Thought League Season 3: A Glorious Decade, a Century of Service. Hello and welcome to Siril Amarchand Mangaldas presents CNBC TV18 The Thought League Season 3, a platform where pioneering minds come together to shape the future of law, business and society. In this edition, we turn our lens to a defining question: What will India look like at 100? As one of the world's fastest growing economies, India stands at an inflection point where industrial strategy, regulatory innovation, trade resilience, and generational change in business leadership will collectively determine the next century of progress. Joining us today is Mr. Sajjan Jindal, Chairman and Managing Director of the JSW Group, a global business leader who has helped shape India's steel, energy and industrial capabilities. From strategic global collaborations to the shift towards renewable energy and green hydrogen, his views offer a window into how India is building competitive strength in an evolving geoeconomic landscape. Alongside him is Mr. Siril Shroff, Managing Partner at Siril Amarchand Mangaldas, a legal voice who has consistently driven conversations on governance, sustainability and the legal frameworks needed for India's transformation. Together they explore how India can secure its supply chains, strengthen strategic sovereignty, accelerate green industrialization and prepare for generational transition in business so that industry and policy move in tandem. Gentlemen, thank you both Mr. Jindal and Mr. Shroff for being here and being part of this special conversation.
Mr. Jindal, if I can start by asking you sir and maybe just setting the stage for the next 30 minutes or so. What is your vision for India at 100? You know what I mean is our economy, businesses, what changes would you like to see to enable this vision?
First of all, thank you very much for having me on this program and thank you Siril for this very important program that CNBC airs. India at 100 is very clearly defined. Prime Minister Modi has very clearly defined India at 100 where India would be a 30 trillion economy and where India would be a Viksit Bharat, a developed country. So I think these are very important statements that the Prime Minister has set the agenda, set the goal of how the country should be in 2047 when India turns 100. These are very ambitious goals and I think we as an economy, as a country, need to really look at how to get there as the third largest economy and most populous country in the world when India is 100 years old.
Mr. Shroff, same question to you sir. How do you see it? India at 100.
No, I echo everything that Sajjan said in terms of Viksit Bharat, an economy that is in the top three economies of the world, slot number three is what we are all expecting. A lot of trillions, whether it's 30, 40, 50, whatever it is, but that's still a lot of trillions. But I sort of want to approach it from a slightly different lens. If you are a developed economy and if you are playing at that level of the game globally, I think there is a certain business culture and a civilizational culture that also goes with it. Approaching it from that angle, partly because of what my profession is, I want to see India becoming a kind of global rule of law leader as well. Part of the problem that the world faces with us is that we are seen as very unpredictable. We don't enforce contracts. Anything can happen anytime in India on a policy front as well. So I want India to be seen as an economy that is stable, a civilization that is stable, a system that is stable and predictable, which preserves the entrepreneurial spirit and ambition. Not many countries have the ambition that we do and what Prime Minister Modi has spelt out, and I want that all to be enabled by a culture and a system that supports it. There is no point being a rich country where nothing works in terms of policy and others. So the policy, the enforcement, the legal and the civilizational framework that goes with being a leading economy is what I would look forward to. Then you can say that you are a mature and rich economy.
Just to talk about that globalization bit and taking it to your sector, Mr. Jindal. Steel demand is strong here in India but you have in the past warned against the risk of India becoming a bit of a dumping ground for subsidized Chinese steel. This is not just steel but as this strategic competition between the US and China perhaps picks up and is going to be there for many years to come, excess Chinese capacity is going to find home elsewhere. So just your thoughts, Mr. Jindal, on this important issue.
No, so if we talk specifically on steel or actually on any product, China today, the big challenge that the global manufacturing industry faces is that China has huge overcapacity in every field. They have over the years built large overcapacity and because of that they are highly competitive within China. Their margins are very low but because they have a lot of government support and stuff like that, when they start to sell at depressed prices with an idea to kill the industry in another country, that is something which every country in the world will try to protect. Case in point is that there was a time when the Chinese were selling penicillin, which is a bulk drug that goes into manufacturing antibiotics and other drugs, and China just dropped the price. India had two plants, both in the public sector, and they could not survive because of the dumping pressure of China. The government of India did not put any anti-dumping or control because it was a pharmaceutical drug, and both our Indian manufacturing companies got shut. Then they jacked up the prices and India is now paying a higher price for the penicillin which we still import. So there are many such instances and therefore we should have a very viable or very effective system where we can control this dumping. So it is necessary as well without veering into protectionism, but important to protect strategic national industries against excessive dumping. Sometimes because they are finding markets, sometimes with a specific aim as you pointed out, to take competition out of the market.
Mr. Shroff, if you want to come in. I mean how do you do it without veering into protectionism? Because it's necessary to do what's the legal side to this?
So let me just sort of step back a bit in terms of what the world is experiencing and is kind of experiencing it on steroids in this calendar year is a geopolitical risk. Whether it's the two wars that are being fought or whether it's the uncertainty of tariffs or the way the US is kind of repositioning itself in global politics, it's like the perfect storm and it has made it very difficult for other nations to really find the spot and be stable about it in terms of their outlook or their domestic politics as well. I think this is what we are experiencing now and I don't think the story is going to probably continue for a bit. We'll see a lot of this happen in 2026 as well, which involves not only how you reposition your relationship with other countries or companies in other countries in terms of the contracting or the business framework, but also domestic politics as well and the policies that you evolve to change that. On the domestic side, you need to become much more competitive. Coming back to how should resilience, business resilience be built in this time of great geopolitical and geo-legal risk, I think it's a complex cocktail of many factors as well. This is the number one conversation that is facing corporate boards at this point of time or entrepreneurs as well in terms of how they navigate the future. But with these challenges, this is also the moment of great opportunity as well. So if you are nimble enough and if you can see some of these changes coming down the pike, this is probably one of the greatest periods of opportunity for Indian businesses as well. There are many who are embracing that opportunity. I think fortunes are being made. It is not an accident that India's capital markets is one of the most vibrant in the world. 25% or so of all IPOs which were made last year came from India and there's a reason for that. A lot of multinational subsidiaries are being listed in India as well. So in all this uncertainty and ambiguity, I think India is shining out as an example, as a kind of almost like an oasis of hope. We have all the underlying factors in our favor. We've got political stability, we've got democracy, demography. To succeed at this scale in a rule of law based democracy is not easy and I think we are doing it.
Mr. Jindal, Mr. Shroff, stay right there. We're going to pick up on some of the points you made and address more issues on the other side of this very quick commercial break.
Siril Amarchand Mangaldas presents CNBC TV18 The Thought League Season 3. A Glorious Decade, a Century of Service.
