Retired JNU Economics Professor Arun Kumar on Wednesday said India needs high rates of growth over the next few years at 8.5 per cent to become a developed nation by 2047.

Speaking at Swadesh Conclave 2025’s Transforming Bharat through Commerce, Industry & Technology in New Delhi, Kumar said the income per capita should be $14000, it is around $2700 in India now. “We need high rates of growth at 8.5 per cent to grow demand and jobs and all of this has to be equitable.”

Speaking on the economic structure, he said employment is a big issue. Women also face unemployment. Only 6 per cent people work in organised sector, the rest in unorganised sector, and it is not contributing to demand. This is why the disparity.

If demand from unorganised sector goes up, even organised sector will grow fast. Currently, growth is dependent on 10 per cent of organised sector.

Decades ago, China focused on the rural areas and unorganised sector so that demand can be constant and drive growth. It has invested heavily in R&D and has reaped great growth. We need to do that also. For this, we need a good education, Kumar said.

US President Donald Trump is showing the raw, tough face of capitalism. The West won intellectual property rights through the WTO but the soft face of capitalism is gone. Now, the tough face will face a market crash like they did in the late 1920s.

Transformation through technology is being hastened by AI. It has changed blue-collar jobs in technology such as car factories and will threaten white-collar jobs now, such as journalists, doctors and more.

Physicist & JNU Professor of Econophysics Anirban Chakrabarti said an interdisciplinary approach is needed to combat challenges, including climate change which is causing cloudbursts and droughts at the same time. This will need experts from various sciences to come together.

He said there has been a boom in AI with students taking admission in courses to study it. It is important to understand all aspects of the entire system.

Explaining how AI can help, he said one can record data and use machine learning to see trends. “If we can predict price volatility via ML tools, it will help small farmers to decide what crops to sow. I can tell how market is moving and the volatility the farmers can face, help them make well-informed choices.”

He said many regulatory bodies including RBI, SEBI using AI-ML to predict trends etc so that India can be transformed into a developed nation by 2047.  

OTBL Chairperson (retd) Sushma Rawat thanked the organisers for holding the Conclave in an effort to bridge the gap between people over the transformation technology and AI can bring about.

She said she joined ONGC in 1989 as a geologist, was in ONGC to explore oil reserves and other group companies. Recalling the story of oil in India, she said oil was first in Assam’s Digboi in 1889 when they found sticky substance on elephants’ legs. It was a held belief in the West and among people that oil was only in Assam, India. After Independence, we struck oil off Gujarat in 1959 under the ONGC, she said.

Rawat called upon the dignitaries and attendees at the gathering to have belief in oneself and one’s nation. Recalling the transformation in technology across the ages, she said, “I had a 386 computer in 1990, then Sun Microsystems, now all talk is of AI, IoT, data analytics. The changes have been gradual and not sudden. For instance, the mobile phone is a guru and can answer almost all our queries. It will grow further exponentially.”

She told the youngsters at the event to remain curious and keep on learning.

Differing with Prof Arun Kumar’s AI predictions, Supreme Court Senior Advocate Shri Pradeep Rai said AI will not take away all the core functions of doctors, lawyers and journalists. AI will be of help but cannot investigate, for instance, like journalists can, he said.

Blinkit, Google Pay etc were things which could not be imagined in earlier times, all innovations brought through by technology, said Rai.

The virtual hearings in courts during the pandemic were done because of the availability of technology. It has become commonplace now, making distances a remote thing of the past, Rai noted.

The Senior Advocate said the monopoly of US companies will be a problem. He cited an instance where Google refused to share data with Apple until the court forced them to. Without data, there is no AI, he added.

Kerala State Financial Enterprises Ltd (KSFE) Managing Director SK Sanil said micro-finance institutions are needed for the welfare of the poor. Bangladesh’s Mohammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank have been a success in that country. The innovation which made a great impact won him the Nobel Prize. Micro financing can help the poor and the needy in the drive to transform the country.

In her address, Balaji Foundation Chairperson Smt. Rajshri Rai introduced the Swadesh Conclave, saying it is a platform for collective dialogue. She said this year is the sixth edition of Swadesh Conclave. Swadesh is the platform to talk about national interests. This year’s theme is Transforming India. She quoted Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Bol, saying everybody is entitled to airing their opinion and welcomed them to the Conclave.