Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit: 8,500 MoUs, 25 lakh Jobs and Rs12 lakh crore pledged!!!

The year 2009 has been looked down as one of the dark years in the history of mankind because of the Global Recession and Financial Meltdown. Yet every day brings with it more opportunity and with this same hope, Gujarat geared up for The Global investors' summit from 11th -14th of January.

Is this the first such Summit?
Over the last decade, under the able leadership of the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, there have been 3 different summits. These summits showcased Gujarat as the new hub and slowly but steadily over the years, people have found faith in Gujarat’s capability to be a place for their investment.

The first of the three previous Vibrant Gujarat Global investors' summit was held in 2003 and generated around $16 bn in MOUs. The next one held in 2005 showed a slight improvement with $24 bn pledged in the event. But the summit held in 2007 was the one that took the breath away and the confidence that the people showed in Gujarat brought in investments of almost $152 bn.


Thrice Bitten Yet Not Shy

When we look back at the numbers, we realize that though huge numbers were pledged, a lot of investment is yet to come. But more alarming is the fact that Foreign Direct Investmet (FDI) constituted a meagre one per cent of the total investment pledged during the summit in 2007 with just a few foreign companies who came for exploring the new opportunity.

Narendra Modi with this team realized this bottleneck and hence before the summit, the planning this time was done such that officials and ministers went on tours to several corners of the world, hard-selling the state and its pivotal location along the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). This along with showing people the strengths of Gujarat like port connectivity, uninterrupted power supply, integrated value chain, skilled human resources and huge agricultural produce. This coupled with the strong and dynamic leadership (with a history like Tata Nano and many more) makes Gujarat really an attractive option for investment. Narendra Modi also spoke about the R-A-C-E formula, which he thinks can convert the global economic crisis in to an opportunity, “Lower Risk- Alertness- Low Cost and high Efficiency can really work wonders.”
The efforts seemingly didn’t go in vain as the world has looked forward from the riot-ridden state of Gujarat, with Narendra Modi as the Muslim mass-murderer to looking at Gujarat as the land of opportunity and the same Narendra Modi as an industrial protagonist and visionary. So much so is the effect that in 2009, even the Islamic countries and the so-called Muslim world too now sees this tainted state and its government in a new light. Among those who have confirmed their participation are representatives from the League of Arab States. This 22-nation outfit includes members like Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen. Apart from this, there are also delegations from Malaysia, Maldives, Oman, Brunei, Iran, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah among a lot more countries which have confirmed their participation.


Bearing the fruits of Patience and Persistence
The groundwork for the 2009 Summit had been going on since a long time and in Nov 2008, Narendra Modi addressed a consortium of leading industrialists in Mumbai. With Modi's spiel of pro-active governance Modi bolstered his new image as darling of the business community. He stressed upon things like what is Government and Governance (an extension of Government) and how Gujarat has moved even farther away from Good Governance to Proactive Governance, which is beneficial to all the parties involved (i.e. public and private enterprises along with the common man) and how mass-movements help make highly impossible tasks feasible.

From 11th January when the event began, the inauguration happened with the following video which was received with a huge round of applause and the hard work that was done by the Gujarat Government and the state seemed to bear fruits as the event saw a lot of people coming forward with their proposals. The Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors' Summit was attended by businessmen, entrepreneurs and multinationals from various sectors of over 45 countries. As the heads of business queued up to get an audience, it is ironical to believe this is the same Narendra Modi who had been denied a US visa because of the 2002 Gujarat violence and this is the same state of Gujarat, which the countries feared from investing in saying that the communal situation in this state is very delicate.
Some of the things which struck a chord with me, and also probably with the business acumen are the facts how Modi proactively green-lighted Ratan Tata's ambitious Nano project in a few hours flat. Not only did he get the infrastructure and the sanctions , but he almost set the red carpet for this highly famous project and bagged it without compromising on any grounds. Also in the November summit he said how he appealed the Prime Minister to look at the exact problems India will face due to the Global Turmoil and then said, “I am a Gujarati, I can only think like a Businessman.” He continued that if India is not in a major trouble, we should look how we can make the most of these global financial restructuring opportunities.

This was evident from the figures that were announced when Narendra Modi concluded the event stating that 8,500 MoUs, with proposed investments of over Rs 12-lakh crore, were inked during the two-day event. What is more heartening to hear is that fact that in the times when people are being scared of losing their jobs, the investments pledged during the summit were expected to generate employment for 2.5 million people.

On the last day of Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit, MoUs were inked in the sectors like chemicals and petrochemicals, agri-business, food processing, textiles, environment, social sector, urban development, auto, information technology, miscellaneous engineering units and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The major amount that came is looks as follows:

The wait is still on – But with VGGIS Gujarat Is On Its Way

Though huge numbers have always been cited not all the money has actually come into the state since 2003, 2005, 2007 and hence we cannot expect the whole of 12 lakh crore to flow into the state immediately. But with the high figures being quoted, the persistence of Modi Government and even a fraction of money flowing into the state will bring huge progress with it. Gujaratis are known for their business acumen and with further opportunities opening up, people will have a lot of new unexplored possibilities to grow. With ambitious GIFT project, very soon Gujarat will be a hub of the Global Finance and Technological endeavors.
Modi also said that the 2011 summit would be even bigger than this year. “I want to make this summit as big as the World Economic Forum, in terms of content and size.” Already Japan (with its JETO) had partnered the 2009 Summit. Also Sri Lanka extended joint tourism opportunity and it is also worth a mention that Sri Lanka for the first time in its history signed an MoU with a state instead of a country. The next 2011 Summit is going to see a lot of participation from other countries like Kenya, Uganda and Nepal among the others which will join the mainstream.

All in all, as rightly said in a recent Hindi Flick “Picture Abhi Baaki Hein Mere Dost”.

Slumdog Millionaire - A Review

I had wanted to write a review on this movie for quite some time now and finally, I managed some time off my schedule to write another post.

Slumdog Millionaire
Cast: Dev Patel, Irrfan Khan, Anil Kapoor, Madhur Mittal, Freida Pinto, Azharuddin Ismail, Ayush Khedekar

Director: Danny Boyle

Composer: A.R. Rahman

Written By: Based on the book, "Q & A" by Vikas Swarup

Overall Rating: 9.0/10.0 (A wonderful movie to watch)

This is a movie about Jamal Malik, a young illiterate slum teenager who works as a side-back chai wallah (tea serving assistant) in a Call Center, who apparently gets selected in “Kaun Banega Crorepati” – The Indian version of “What Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and strikes it BIG as if he is a whiz-kid. This acts as a shocker to the expectations of a lot of people and he is sent to jail for further investigation of how he could have answered questions when he has no other General Knowledge. There we see a horrifying behavior as the local police torture him and even electrocute him in the process of their interrogation. The whole atmosphere depicts mistrust and sarcasm, but more importantly it shows the jealousy as people don’t like the other guy to climb on top of them just like that.

That is where the story begins and unlike a normal movie, the whole plot unfolds in form of flashbacks and how Jamal has answers to even the toughest of questions posed onto him, not because he read a book, but because life taught those very answers to him, the HARD WAY. Almost the whole story is his depiction of his life with the show recap going on and the Police inspector (Irrfan Khan) asking him to justify his knowledge of the answers. The story very beautifully takes us to the sub-urban parts of Mumbai, the very slums where people spend their lives just trying to earn enough for meeting their basic necessities.
A fragmented biography emerges: he's an urchin, born to a mother who's slaughtered in communal riot, when he is just a kid. Later he is picked up by a person who claims to be affiliated with some orphanage, but then ultimately turns out to be a brutal demon who forces young children into begging. As the story goes by, we come across adventures both awful and exhilarating through a society that is becoming flashier, hypo critic and more urban as time goes by. More than anything, it is a tale of an ordinary slumdog’s life in the Shining India, without the glitter, the tale of what happens beneath the feel-good filters that we have placed before our eyes when we see our society.

It is almost a horrifying Fairy-tale with shocking brutality, very deep commitment of love contaminated by sexual abuse and dreams of wealth and luxuries with crushing poverty. The acting done by all the characters is of very high level indeed and the storyline keeps you glued. Small instances that make you stifle at first sighting form the very fabric in which the film is embroidered. Things like Jamal could answer a question about film actor Amitabh Bachchan, because of his mad love for the Bollywood legend, which is shown by the fact that he jumped into a public latrine just to get a sight of Amitabh and even managed to sneak in for his autograph. Very beautifully is also depicted the sibling jealousy that Salim (Jamal’s elder brother) fosters and this coupled with his love for his younger brother form a complex combination which make the movie sad and painful at times. The story also has Jamal’s childhood love Lathika, whose character adds another note of happiness and pain at different instances blending the story with the much needed feminine touch.
All in all, with the fear that I’ll reveal the plot, I wrap this review up to say that the movie is definitely worth a watch. The cinematography is absolutely superb and the pace of the movie is just right. The name A. R. Rahman in itself is sufficient to say that the music is breathtaking and defines both the happiness and pain wonderfully well. To me, the movie says one thing very loud and clear, there is one and only one “Life-line” in this life of ours, and that is “LIFE ITSELF”. Couple it with hope, and we can win any show.

Philosophy apart, the movie has been looked upon for the Oscars as an underdog, but the movie itself shows that if a slumdog can do it in the Game show, why can’t the movie itself repeat the same in the world? Optimistically speaking, the movie’s winning 4 Golden Globes does say a lot.


Final Verdict:
An illiterate slum kid from Mumbai goes on air in the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and comes off like a whiz-kid. Who would like to see that?
Final answer: You would.