My priority is to tame inflation: Sitharaman
Retail inflation soared to a 15-month high of 7.44% in July, due to spiralling prices of tomatoes and other veggies
FM, flanked by R Chandrasekaran, R Dinesh (CII chief) at B20 Summit
NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the government’s priority is to tame inflation to ensure sustained economic growth.
Addressing the B20 Summit India, being hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the minister said the GDP numbers for the first quarter, to be released this month, should be good. Observing that elevated interest rates for considerable time hampers recovery, Sitharaman said, “my priority is to tame inflation.” Retail inflation soared to a 15-month high of 7.44 per cent in July, mainly on account of spiralling prices of tomatoes and vegetables.
On growth, she said India has been able to accelerate the pace of economic reforms and the first quarter GDP numbers “should be good.”
The National Statistical Office is scheduled to release the GDP numbers for the first quarter on August 31. Sitharaman said “green shoots’ of private capital expenditure can be felt on back of the government’s push for capital expenditure in the budget.
She also spoke about climate financing and reforms being undertaken by the government to attract foreign investments as they are vital for economic growth.
AI will create more jobs in India: N Chandrasekaran
Artificial intelligence will create more jobs in India as it will empower more people with little skill or no skill to perform higher level jobs, B20 India Chair N Chandrasekaran said on Friday. In a panel discussion at the B20 Summit India 2023 here, Chandrasekaran, who is also the Chairman of Tata Sons, said India has made a “fantastic breakthrough” towards data privacy and protection by taking a techno-legal approach.
Seeking to address concerns over privacy and jobs with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), he said, “Actually in a country like us, it (AI) will create jobs because it will empower people with the little skill or no skill, will empower them with information skill so that they can perform a higher level of jobs.” He cited the example of a nurse and said due to AI “the nurse will be able to take away the workload of a doctor and that’s the way we are going to scale up”. Chandrasekaran, however, stated that the impact of AI will play out in different markets and different segments of the society differently.
“We talk about a country like India, we say that hundreds of millions of people have to have access... Additional 250 to 300 million people are coming into the market. They have access to information, they have access to goods and services in their own way, they start consuming, it just multiplies the whole GDP to a different level and then their per capita income goes up and we will see the benefit for a very, very long time,” he said. On the other hand, he said the ageing economies are also going to face longevity and all these people have to be taken care of and they don’t have enough human resources to provide the kind of service that needed to be provided to support these people once they get aged.
“Again, AI will come in handy or play a very very important role because a vast majority of the things that need to be taken care of can be done by AI. So the benefits are going to be different to different segments and in different markets but everywhere (AI) is going to create jobs, it is going to empower people to do high levels of jobs,” Chandrasekaran asserted.
‘60 pc of world’s arable, uncultivated land in Africa’
Africa’s arable, uncultivated and fertile land can offer solution to food crisis, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chair of B20 India Action Council on African Economic Integration, said, adding adopting Africa as a place to do agriculture can potentially change the world. He said Africa economic integration is gaining momentum, and expressed hope that the Africa Union will soon become a permanent member of G20. Mittal asserted that African voice in G20 is “absolutely important”.
“Sixty per cent of world’s arable and yet uncultivated land is in Africa... today we have all seen the crisis that the world is going through on food production...Just adopt Africa as place to do agriculture, perhaps some value added agriculture...the entire world can change,” he said, speaking at the summit.
