l-to-r: Lord Desai, Lord Patten, Mukesh Ambani, Nand Kishore Singh, Montek Ahluwahlia, N/A and Barkha Dutt.

One of the perks of London is the free access you get to events at universities such as the LSE. On Tuesday evening (Jan 26th) and fittingly on India's 60th Republic Day, the LSE in conjunction with India's NDTV channel organised a panel discussion. The Old Theatre was packed with India's future leaders (at least I presume so) and a rich crop of politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and journalists that read like an Indian Who's Who. The purpose of the discussion was to launch a book titled Not By Reason Alone: The Politics of Change in India by Nand Kishore Singh, a former Indian Administrative Service officer (ie, bureaucrat) and current Member of Parliament in India's Upper House (the Rajya Sabha). Joining him on the panel were Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia (India's foremost economic policymaker), Mukesh Ambani (India's richest person), Lord Patten (the last British governor of Hong Kong) and Professor Lord Desai (of the LSE). Introducing the panel were Shobhana Bhartia of the Hindustan Times newspaper and Shekhar Gupta of the Indian Express newspaper. Moderating the discussion was Barkha Dutt of NDTV, the channel broadcasting the event.


Praful Patel, India's Aviation Minister, asking the panel a question. Seated to his left, Naresh Goyal, Chairman of Jet Airways.

I wasn't really bothered about the book or its launch. I was just excited to be in a room full of famous Indians (plus Patten). The discussion lasted just over an hour. The usual sound bites about India's growth potential and its hurdles were bandied about. Lord Patten seemed out of his depth about India and frequently made comparisons with China. They all made at least one interesting point, most of which I had already either heard or known, but it was still nice to pool these individual sound bites into a single forum (esp for further reference). The discussion is available for download as a podcast and the video will be available next week. Worth a listen!


The book launch. l-to-r: Shekhar Gupta, Ruth Kattumuri, Shobhana Bharti, Lord Desai, Lord Patten, Mukesh Ambani, Nand Kishore Singh, Montek Ahluwahlia, N/A, Prof Stern and Barkha Dutt.

More importantly, I was one of the few members of the audience who asked a question so I hope my five seconds of fame made it to Indian TV. I asked a question about the role the 20 million strong Indian diaspora could play in India's growth, to which Lord Desai promptly retorted: "STAY ABROAD!" Laughter ensued. Barkha Dutt got Mukesh Ambani and Lord Patten to answer my question. I felt good about that. :) Another who asked a question was Praful Patel, the Indian Civil Aviation Minister. Seated next to him was Naresh Goyal, the CEO of Jet Airways, India's best and biggest private airline company. Then there was a good question about the adverse selection of Indian lawmakers with a criminal record. It is a massive problem and I don't think it was answered properly. Le sigh.


Token photo with the author (Nand Kishore Singh) to prove I was there.

After the discussion I bought the book and got it signed by the author. And took a photo with him. I got the book signed for my dad and it's his next birthday gift. Overall an evening well spent, just a pity the iPhone doesn't take better quality pictures under artificial light.