Mumbai: Speaking on the topic 'Maharashtra - Accelerating Viksit Bharat', Fadnavis said that Hinduism is not just a set of religious rituals, but a system that kept a civilisation alive. "The world has seen so many civilisations grow for thousands of years and then perish. There are few civilisations that saw continuity: Bharat is a civilisation that has flourished without a break. We existed as a civilisational unit 10,000 years ago," said Fadnavis.
Africa Centre Planned in Navi Mumbai to Strengthen Global Engagement
The Chief Minister announced the setting up of a 54-storey African Centre in Navi Mumbai that will house on each floor the representative offices of every country in that continent. Saying that Africa will see the next demographic boom that will increase the continent's economic importance, Fadnavis said that India has an advantage in the way the world trusts the country. "The world does not trust China because of its capture of the economies of many countries. Countries do not fear India as they know we believe in coexistence," said Fadnavis, describing how Papua New Guinea wanted India to exploit its gas fields.
"The country's leaders told our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi during his recent visit to that country that Australia which is currently running their gas fields does not treat them equally. They do not trust China. They want India to come there. Where does this confidence come from? It comes from our Hindu ethos. We have never conquered any country, but have spread our ideas and philosophies across the world," said Fadnavis.
Strong Economy Key to Global Respect, Says Swami Vigyananand
Swami Vigyananand, sanyasi, scholar, and the founder of The World Hindu Economic Forum, said that the world will not care about India if it does not have a strong economy. He listed out the issues that obstruct the creation of wealth in the country. Vigyananand said that shortage of affordable capital; low adoption of technology; inadequate skilled manpower; capital and knowledge capital flight were the main challenges that India faces in its pursuit of wealth creation. He said that popular culture, including Bollywood, has demonised businessmen. "A study of 250 films showed that more than 60% of corrupt businessmen depicted in the films have Bania surnames. Another 62% depicted Brahmins as corrupt politicians. The same businessmen financing these films have ignored this demonisation of businesses. We have to respect business: creation of money is not easy," said Vigyananand.
Sajjad Jindal, chairman of the JSW group which is valued at USD 23 billion, said that India's economy is skewed towards service which constitutes more than 60% of the economy. "Manufacturing is less than 15% of our economy," said Jindal who added that India's youth is ambitious and entrepreneurial. "They are aware of the world. We have to work on manufacturing."
Jindal said that during the Davos summit last year, the JSW group signed MoUs to invest Rs 3,00,000 crores in Maharashtra. "Converting MoUs into executed projects us important and we can say that action has been taken on all these projects," said Jindal.
On the first day of the two-day forum, Hari Mohan Bangur, managing director of Shree Cement, presented a Letter of Intent to invest Rs 10,000 crores in Maharashtra.
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