NDTV World Summit: India Needs To Spend More On Research, Says Suneeta Reddy

Apollo Hospitals Group Managing Director Suneeta Reddy said there is a need to spend more on research in India.

"0.7% of GDP is spent on research, but this needs to change. We need to think why its important for India...Unless we do the right research, and integrate it with other practices, such as Ayurveda, can lead to a healthy India," Reddy said at the NDTV World Summit.

Apollo Hospitals has signed an agreement with IIT Chennai to re-engineer medical devices at one-tenth of their costs. "Our next step is to bring technology, healthcare and bio-engineering together and also to look for solutions for new and old diseases. We want to make the solutions affordable for the large section of population, India and the world," she said.

Patients from 147 countries come to India to avail health services. "Our goal is to scale up and reach up to 500 million lives, using technology, AI, physicians, and using drones to deliver medicines across India," Reddy said during the session.

When it comes to feasibility, urbanisation has to reach villages and the only way to do it is by only using technology, Reddy said. While, the penetration of internet has already happened, the next step is to enable drones, she said. "That has a licencing issue. For technology works, we need to get the licences in place."

It is the right time for India to set up blue zones that will focus on holistic wellness, she said.

Without manufacturing, India cannot achieve its 'Viksit Bharat' objectives, according to Baba Kalyani, chairman and managing director, Bharat Forge Ltd.

"The disruption in manufacturing will start happening now, with the advent of new technologies, that we see coming in," he said at NDTV World Summit's 'Disrupting Industry For Good' session on Monday.

As far as artificial intelligence is concerned, in manufacturing, it is going to make an ordinary person into an extraordinary one, he said. This means that productivity and efficiency and quality of product will go up dramatically, Kalyani said. "AI will increase efficiency in terms of management, as you would not need so many people to manage the people."

The third and the most disruptive part is going to be the new industries that AI will bring in, according to him. "For example the whole biotechnology will become bio engineering, so it will be more engineering based, rather than biology based and India will lead that revolution," he explained.

On defence technology, the Bharat Forge chairman said "doing it yourself involves a lot of risk. We have outdid ourselves, as today India export artillery guns to other countries."

Kalyani went on to say that India has advantages today in terms of tech breakthroughs. No manufacturing company can survive without using AI, IoT, he said.

"We cannot just copy products from outside, other countries should now copy our products," Kalyani said. "Linear growth will not work, the growth needs to be exponential," he said.

To convince global players regarding India's tech, the innovation should be such that it is not there anywhere on the planet. Additionally, the price point is something that is very difficult to match for others, Kalyani said. Scale of manufacturing needs to be 12 times of where we are at. There are many areas where India doesn't make anything, he pointed out.

"We should not be happy about MNCs setting up shop here, just because they create jobs, this is another type of colonialism," he warned.

Disrupting industry for growth and development is absolutely crucial, according to Ajay Shriram, chairman and managing director, DCM Shriram Ltd. "Its good to see that this sort of disruption happening in all sectors of economic activity," he said.

Exposure gained by farmers is a testament to government's initiatives. The connectivity has made a lot of difference, as the farmers now are much more informed and connected, Shriram said at the session.

"Drones are coming in an extensive manner, where the machine is helping in spreading pesticides and fertilisers. The tech helps in taking images of crops, tells quality of crops, expected yield of crops," he said.

E-commerce is another aspect that are helping the farmers, Shriram noted.

"The interest from the farming community is high, they want to get better growth and development," he further said.

Ethanol is the green fuel, Shriram said. Pollution levels are much lower and it helps to reduce the import bill drastically. The positive side is that the government has moved pro-actively to push ethanol blending, he said.

"Now the government is saying that you can use wheat, maize, essentially anything that has starch," he said.