Thousands attend the Economist India Summit 2015, through the eyes and ears of the 4 #SCInsiders

Founding Partner Standard Chartered Bank picks four opinion leaders on the social media platform to tweet their perspectives from the event, making #SCInsiders a trending topic nationally.

The morning of September 9, 2015 saw all roads leading to the Taj Palace in New Delhi, as prominent business leaders, senior policy-makers and eminent academics gathered to discuss the country’s most pressing political, economic and social issues. The Economist India Summit 2015 promised deeper insights into the state of the nation as foreign and Indian business representatives, key government officials and accomplished researchers took the stage and answered some challenging questions that were posed to them by the editorial team at The Economist.

The India Summit is an annual event that generates a thriving discussion not only at the venue but also among its followers online, owing to the nature of speakers who are among the key strategists who shape the country with their vision. Considering the stellar testimonials, the event has been garnering over its past few editions, and the promising programme that was laid out for this year, anyone with an interest in the future of India was sure to follow the event.

The Summit commenced with an opening keynote by finance minister Arun Jaitley. Then followed a panel discussion with the heads of IKEA India, Huawei India, and Standard Chartered Bank on needs of foreign businesses in India, followed by panel discussion on needs of domestic businesses with the heads of Bajaj Auto, Biocon, Essar Group, Mytrah Energy and Srei Infrastructure Finance. The sessions ‘India and the world’ and ‘Economic policy and the quest for growth’ had the likes of Suhasini Haidar, Arvind Subramanian and S.S. Mundra evaluate Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s term so far and his unexpected vigour and involvement in international affairs. “#DigitalIndia” emerged on Twitter as another enthusiasm-generating topic when the #SCInsiders shared their thoughts on the sessions ‘Technology, innovation and better government’ with panellists such as Minister of Communications and Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad and Parminder Singh, MD South-East Asia, India Middle East and North Africa region Twitter and others, and ‘New frontiers in Indian e-commerce’ with presenter Ananth Narayanan, CEO Myntra. The day closed with a conversation with Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

To make the Summit available to the larger public, Founding Sponsor, Standard Chartered Bank selected four #SCInsiders who kept more than 62,500 direct followers abreast of quips, quotes and exciting news from the event via their tweets. These #SCInsiders – nutrition expert and food writer, Nandita Iyer (@Saffrontrail), filmmaker and producer, Raj Kaushal (@rajkaushal1), energy researcher and founder of Disruptions Collective, Siddharth Singh (@siddharth3), and musician and programming head at Pepsi MTV Indies, Ankur Tewari (@AnkurTewari) – who are also popular opinion leaders on social media, were chosen by virtue of their successful careers in their respective fields, and for the diverse and unique perspectives they would bring to the table. Needless to say, they kept Twitter timelines abuzz, making “#SCInsiders” one of the top trending topics of the day.

Throughout the sessions, the #SCInsiders tweeted, quoting facts and figures and picking out what seemed important from their points of view. When Jaitley turned a somewhat unfavourable audience poll about dismal GDP figures in his favour by saying it is good for us to be restless, Tewari tweeted with welcome surprise that the opening keynote was “more funky” than he had imagined. The #SCInsiders felt that this feeling of restlessness in India with its GDP status pushes everyone in charge to perform. Tewari felt relieved knowing that corrective measures were being worked out to battle the perception of tax terrorism.

Kaushal and Iyer echoed Tewari’s sentiment. They felt comforted by the fact that Jaitley, Prasad and Sitharaman’s calm and candid responses proved that they are strong leaders with a progressive agenda on their minds. The #SCInsiders felt reassured that senior government officials/ministers were talking openly about issues. They were also encouraged by the fact that the ministers displayed a unity of vision despite different talking in sessions and some very complex questions thrown their way. Singh expressed happiness that the Finance Minister was starting to manage expectations of the nation well.

In the sessions focussing on India economy, the #SCInsiders’ moods remained buoyant as more and more speakers expressed their opinion that India is approaching the point where it will stop competing with China and be a leader in its own right. Iyer felt happy about India not just being a balancing power against China. As for the India’s business environment, the contrasting views of the foreign and domestic companies with respect to doing business in India was an eye-opener for Singh.

The most popular sessions of the day revolving around #DigitalIndia left feeling the #SCInsiders, who are presumably voracious digital consumers, very excited. The way the government is looking at connecting rural India with smartphones and bettering everyone’s lives through connectivity impressed Kaushal. “Digital India is transformation India,” he said. However, there was a word of caution form Singh. When Tewari tweeted, “900 million people with Aadhaar as of today. Touch of a button and you have all the details for all those people. #SCInsiders”, Singh promptly responded, “And for exactly this reason, India needs a privacy law so that this information is not misused.” For those following the session on Twitter their retweets and responses evoked mixed reactions.

Nevertheless, with the tweets coming from #SCInsiders to those who could not be at the event physically, the enthusiasm seemed to have proved infectious.It would not be wrong to say that it left almost everybody feeling optimistic. The accompanying video summarises the takeaways of the #SCinsiders from the Summit.