Business Mandate (July 2023)

EDITOR

Gp Capt R Vijayakumar ﴾Retd﴿, VSM

READERSHIP OUTREACH

Gp Capt Dr R Venkataraman ﴾Retd﴿

Sundar R

Vakeeswari M

DESIGN

D Rajaram, Tayub Refai

Thriving on Change

As we conclude another successful financial year at MMA, I express my sincere gratitude for your unwavering support. It is my pleasure and privilege to be associated once again with this special edition of the digital Business Mandate MMA has grown from strength to strength, carving a niche for itself as a multidisciplinary group focused on delivering high-quality management programs that benefit not only its members but also the wider public Ranked as the number one organization among its peers in India, MMA remains committed to fulfilling the vision and mandate set forth by its founding members I extend my heartfelt thanks to the MMA members, past presidents, managing committee members, and secretarial staff for their contributions in achieving this milestone

Among the management fraternity, the MMA Awards for Managerial Excellence stands as one of the

 The rapid advancement in generative artificial intelligence

﴾AI﴿ and its ability to replicate human intelligence in writing computer code and much more has taken us all by surprise.

most prestigious accolades, celebrating leaders in businesses, entrepreneurs, and professionals for their outstanding all-round performance These awards recognize excellence, innovation, service, and commitment to stakeholders, and also acknowledge the remarkable business models driven by individuals who think differently, serving as an inspiration to all The award applicants were subjected to a rigorous evaluation process using a unique and scientific

Gp Capt R Vijayakumar (Retd), VSM

methodology devised by Deloitte, our consultant for the awards

MMA extends its heartfelt congratulations to the winners of the 21st MMA Awards for Managerial Excellence: ESAB India Ltd (Manufacturing Sector), MEL Systems and Services Ltd (SME Sector), ZOHO Corporation (Services Sector) and University of Madras (Educational Institutions).

Generative AI

The rapid advancement in generative artificial intelligence (AI) and its ability to replicate human intelligence in writing computer code and much more has taken us all by surprise Generative AI is currently taking the tech world by storm. With its capacity to create new and unique content ranging from text, images, videos, music, AI-generated commentary at Wimbledon, and more AI is revolutionizing businesses across various industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, IT and design, advertising, and marketing.

In this context, MMA organized a one-day conclave in association with EY & KAS on June 28, 2023, at the MMA Management Center. The conclave featured international thought leaders and industry experts as speakers These speakers are optimistic that India can lead a global shift from AI to augmented intelligence, aiming for a better world. I am delighted to present you with the article covering the inaugural session for your reading pleasure You can watch the full conclave here

How to Make India Water Resilient?

India's water crisis is a ticking time bomb, with some predicting that the country will be unable to meet half of its water demand by 2030. Even today, NITI Aayog, the government think-tank, states that 600 million Indians face high water stress Cities across

India struggle to provide sufficient potable water to households, especially during the summer and drought years, and the situation will worsen with the increasing effects of climate change. Solving this problem seems like a herculean task

In this context, MMA, in association with the Sundaram Climate Institute and KAS, organized a seminar on the theme "How to Make India Water Resilient " The event featured experts in the field of water management and climate change In this issue, we cover the thought-provoking insights shared by Mr. Amit Chandra, Chairman of Bain Capital, and Ms. Mridula Ramesh, CEO of the Sundaram Climate Institute and Executive Director of Sundaram Textiles

I highly recommend watching the inspiring keynote address by Dr. Rajendra Singh, water conservationist and environmentalist, popularly known as the "Waterman" from Rajasthan You can watch the entire seminar here.

India's Defense Strategy Taking Shape

We are delighted to witness the progress in India's defense plan of integrated tri-service theatre commands, which is finally taking off. The enabling Bill has been introduced in Parliament, and the Indian Defense Forces are prepared for joint theatre commands and enhanced collaboration. India has always prioritized full autonomy in times of war and peace as a fundamental principle of sovereignty

While we seek to strengthen our operational capabilities in partnership with the US, it is crucial to maintain a favorable tooth-to-tail ratio, supported by advanced technology, to safeguard our national interests. Whether in times of conflict or peace, India's autonomy must remain non-negotiable.

The Exodus of Wealthy Individuals

The recent estimate of the increasing number of affluent Indians leaving the country is not a cause for celebration According to a recent report, approximately 6,500 high-net-worth individuals are expected to leave India this year. Such departures occur due to various reasons, but one underlying factor may be discontent with the current state of affairs in their home country In India, punitive tax rates beyond a certain income threshold and tighter restrictions on transferring funds abroad, contrary to the spirit of an open economy, might be contributing to this trend It is disconcerting that a significant number of our prosperous citizens prefer to live elsewhere. Offering dual citizenship could potentially allow them to retain their Indian passports, an aspect that should be considered to attract and retain talent. We must strive to improve our ranking in terms of domicile preference.

Is Glamour Waning for Startups?

The excessive euphoria surrounding the growth of large and valuable companies fueled by venture capital (VC) investments is gradually fading away India will continue to present significant and intriguing problems that excite entrepreneurs; and addressing many of these issues will require applying fundamental principles of business building

During the era of easy money, numerous illconceived ideas received funding, valuations skyrocketed, and the importance of achieving good product-market fit was often overlooked The availability of easy money led to two critical mistakes. First, there was a mistaken belief that the size and ubiquity of a problem were sufficient to rapidly build large and profitable companies Many assumed that high customer satisfaction and repeat business equated

to excellent product-market fit The reality is that no fit exists until these factors translate into a price point that ensures business profitability.

Startups aiming for success in the next phase must cultivate a deep understanding of the challenges faced by a large number of Indians They also need to harness their imagination to create cost-effective products and solutions. Entrepreneurship should enable individuals to embark on their journey of destiny

In this context, an event organized by MMA on "The Making of a Champion" featuring Mr. Viswanathan Anand, Mr. Geet Sethi, and Mr. Viren Rasquinha holds great relevance These exceptional champions, with a total of 14 World Championships between them, offer valuable lessons that entrepreneurs can learn from. I encourage you to read the article, watch the videos, and find inspiration

Be Watchful!

The Sensex hit a record high recently reaching 65,000 mark surpassing its previous peak reached in December 2022 The return of foreign portfolio investor interest, after the impact of money squeeze in the west has been reassuring. Still the market’s recent rise has enough volatility to betray some nervousness among investors. The market remains vulnerable to global adversities and monetary issues, and expansion by the US have had unforeseen effects Therefore, it is critical for investors to stay alert In this context, an event organized by MMA on “A Guide to Wealth and Happiness” is very relevant, and stresses on the need for investors to be calm and cautions

If you take 100 people in the world, 18 of them are Indians But if you take 100 water drops in the world, only three of them are from India So those 18 people have to make do with almost three water drops. That's India's problem. Parts of India are worse than dry regions like Rajasthan Cities have less water and more people. The water available per person per day is falling, and it is falling fast.

Indeed, many people say that by 2030, India will be unable to meet half of its water demand That's already evident across the country. This year promises to be what is called an El Nino year, which is a year with typically low rainfall Some of the major El Nino events in the past have resulted in famines that have killed millions of Indians. We forgot it, but less than 140 years ago, millions of Indians died in an El Nino year. So what does that mean?

Need for Data

When I left McKinsey, I joined the textile company that my mother runs, where we were implementing TPM

According to Ms Mridula Ramesh, CEO, Sundaram Climate Institute, it is possible to work within the existing limitations to develop practical solutions to ensure water resiliency in India. "How to Make India Water Resilient" a report compiled by her was launched recently

(Total Plant Maintenance) The one thing that TPM emphasizes is data If you want to solve a problem, you can't do it sitting in an air-conditioned room, on an easy chair. You have to get out there. With water, I didn't have the data to understand the problem That's why Sundaram Climate Institute began gathering data on water and waste, which, to me, are the most important issues for India to address in its climate battle. 

With water, I didn't have the data to understand the problem. That's why Sundaram Climate Institute began gathering data on water and waste...

There's a piece of good news if you want to see the cup as half full. India's water largely comes from the monsoon; and this feature is common across geographical regions So lessons from one city are applicable to others.

Our study focused on Madurai. Over five years, we spoke to 2,000 households. That's important because if I had spoken to only 30 or 100 households, we would have obtained very different answers If we hadn't collected data year after year, the answers would have been different. The situation we found in 2018 was different from the situation on the ground in 2020 The water in one neighbourhood differed from that in another neighbourhood. The water in T. Nagar in Chennai is very different from that in Sowcarpet

Need for Storage

Again and again, storage, especially water body storage, becomes important We spoke to thousands of people to gather groundwater data across water bodies and understand why some water bodies are very

effective in recharging groundwater while others fail India recently released its first census report on water bodies across the country. In Tamil Nadu, we found that nearly half of them are not in use So why have they disappeared? What are the key questions we're trying to answer? Where does a typical Indian city get its water from? How is that water used? What risks does it face? And what can we do about it?

Our data is from Madurai, but many of the realities in Madurai apply to other cities. Most cities in India rely on a combination of water sources, including rivers, rainfall, groundwater, private water sources, and treated sewage. Rainfall, which is one of the main sources of water for many Indians, is highly variable. India probably has one of the most seasonal rainfalls in the world We experience very few rainy days, and most of India's rainfall occurs within 100 hours. But can we go without water for drinking or washing purposes on the remaining days? The one thing we need then is storage

Climate makes the water supply even more volatile, seasonal, and increases demand.

Dysfunctional Rainwater Harvesting

We conducted a survey of 2,000 households to assess the functionality of rainwater harvesting systems The results were surprising, considering Tamil Nadu's early legislation mandating every household to have rainwater harvesting. We found that half of the households we surveyed did not have a functional rainwater harvesting system They had something that met the requirements on paper but didn't actually work With our water bodies disappearing, it's like cutting off our leg before starting a marathon. Losing water bodies has severe consequences

We face both perennial and seasonal water demands. During periods of abundant rainfall and when rivers are full, water access is possible. However, during dry periods, access becomes limited Cities across India are now looking to build water supply systems by sourcing water from distant locations. For instance, Mumbai is going 200-300 kilometers away, and Delhi is also exploring similar options

Paying for Water

In dry years, like the summer of 2019 in Chennai, only half of the households received regular water supply. So, what do people do when they don't get municipal water? They tap into groundwater. Around 60% of households rely on groundwater, while the poorest 40% resort to buying water The idea of free water is deceptive. These households spend around 500 rupees a month to meet some of their water needs. Essentially, they are burdened with an El Nino tax every few years, which they can't afford.

Subsequently, compromises are made. If they can only afford 25 liters of water per day or per week, they will prioritize giving it to their newborn child while letting their two-year-old suffer with whatever dirty

water is available. This is why India loses numerous school days due to diseases like diarrhea The poorest segments of society pay the highest price for water

What about sewage? Countries like Israel and Singapore treat and reuse their sewage. I consider sewage a hidden asset We produce it every day, and it's not dependent on seasons, like rainfall However, India treats very little of its sewage and often releases it into rivers. The condition of the Cooum river is a clear illustration of this reality If we treated sewage, we could achieve water resilience.

Measure to Monitor

Managing demand is crucial for solving the water problem. Do households have water meters? While my house has one, very few households actually have a meter to measure their water usage Without knowing how much water they are using, it becomes challenging to manage and address the issue effectively. You can't run a company without knowing its revenue, similarly, understanding water demand is essential However, most people have no idea about their water usage In our survey, only those who collected water in pots and faced scarcity knew the exact amount they were using. When I give speeches, I often ask the audience how much water they use, and most don't have a clue.

Nevertheless, we found some interesting patterns. People with flushable toilets consume more water compared to those with common or non-flushable

In our survey, only those who collected water in pots and faced scarcity knew the exact amount they were using.

toilets Similarly, those with access to borewells use more water than those without We also discovered that 3% of the people we surveyed had dry borewells, indicating they were already living in a water-scarce situation and used the least amount of water

With Growth Comes Demand

Combining these findings, it becomes evident that wealthier individuals tend to consume more water As India's population grows and cities become wealthier due to urban migration, urban water demand is projected to increase by 20 to 30% in the next five years However, corporations don't have sufficient funds to build the required infrastructure, and people aren't willing to pay for good quality water provided by the government Pricing options become limited Therefore, any solution must address these realities

Many people argue that the government should develop effective water policies. However, when we asked people if they would consider water as an election issue, even during the drought in Chennai in 2019 when water scarcity was severe, it was not a significant concern for voters. These are the constraints we face

Considering the problem at hand, our studies indicate that we need storage facilities. We should also explore treated sewage as a potential water source. However, people are unwilling to pay for water, and it is not a voting issue. With these constraints in mind, what can we do?

The Need to Collaborate

We need to collaborate with various stakeholders because this is not a journey we can undertake alone. It requires funding, corporate involvement, implementation organizations, and research institutions

to work together Those providing financial support are aware that there are many demands competing for their resources. Therefore, it's crucial to allocate funds wisely.

Our ancestors constructed numerous water storage structures throughout the country Surprisingly, recent government reports indicate that nearly half of Tamil Nadu's water bodies are not in use. It remains unclear why such a mistake was made initially

Water tanks play a crucial role in groundwater replenishment, which is essential for maintaining water resilience in cities. For example, in T.Nagar, long ago, there used to be a large tank where the Madras Boat Club held their regatta However, it has now vanished, and the area faces flooding and water problems. I live in Chokkikulam, Madurai, where we ran out of groundwater after extracting it from a depth of 550 feet The Chokkikulam lake is long gone Constructing water tanks is vital for building water resilience in India.

Rejuvenating Water Bodies

We also examined satellite data to understand why some tanks perform better than others. We identified three factors: the inlet or feeder channel is critical for maintaining a healthy tank, the land use pattern (green and blue areas), and the number of months the tank holds water each year. However, community connection remains the underlying factor The surrounding community must care about the tank During our visit to a crowded neighbourhood, we encountered a small town where the community prevented people from approaching the tank and even requested visitors to remove their slippers as a sign of respect Unfortunately, in many cities, the community isn't even aware of the existence of a tank in their vicinity.

Where does this community connection come from?

Consider your family why are you connected to them? It's because you receive something from them, such as love, food, and protection. Similarly, in rural communities, the connection to tanks stems from monetary benefits, water for livestock, fishing rights, and sacred significance. However, in cities, these factors no longer hold. Tanks are seen as a nuisance and valuable land People wouldn't sacrifice land to create a lake. However, opportunities exist. Many organizations are working on water body rejuvenation. But before performing interventions, it's crucial to understand the issues through comprehensive assessments. Just like you wouldn't undergo heart surgery without conducting tests, you need to evaluate what's wrong with the tank to determine the appropriate interventions After implementing the necessary actions, re-evaluation is essential to ensure the desired outcomes are achieved. Collaboration with various organizations can facilitate this research Our report is open source, so anyone can access it and follow the process. It involves conducting before and after tests for interventions, enabling prioritization of efforts

Therefore, our approach suggests intervening where necessary, focusing on areas with low groundwater levels and particularly vulnerable tanks. There are also areas where intervention is unnecessary Just do nothing and you can save valuable resources.

The 4Ps

Partnership and Prioritisation are the first two steps. The third step is Preaching or raising awareness. The fourth P is Prosperity.

When we asked people about their role in managing water, most admitted they had no idea If people don't

take responsibility for their water usage, addressing the problem becomes challenging Since water is not a voting issue, policies may not be effective.

Many households are unaware that sewage can be treated and reused. These are potential opportunities for improvement In urban areas, residents don't realize that having a functional tank in their neighborhood can contribute to increased groundwater levels and flood resilience How can we promote prosperity? Our study demonstrated that an urban tank, with appropriate infrastructure, can provide a minimum of 100 jobs. Developing walking paths, cycling paths, benches, selfie spots, Wi-Fi hotspots, and performance spaces can attract food stalls and create employment opportunities The Kodaikanal Lake supports approximately 1,000 jobs. Similarly, the Vandiyur Thepakulam, which we supported in our study, went from zero to 123 jobs Building connections between the urban community and water bodies is essential.

Decentralized sewage treatment is also necessary. Treating just half of the sewage in Chennai can significantly impact the city's water balance. Though the water problem is serious, we believe it is solvable within the constraints we face by focusing on community connection and sewage treatment

In summary, solving India's water problem requires collaboration among stakeholders, prioritizing interventions, raising awareness, and promoting prosperity Water storage structures, treated sewage, and community engagement are vital aspects of building water resilience. While constraints such as unwillingness to pay for water and lack of voting support pose challenges, by working within these limitations, we can develop practical solutions to ensure water resiliency in India. 

An estimated 1 in 40 people in the large region of Syria have died since 2011. Even more stunning: 1 in 3 people have been displaced. The impact of this has rippled well beyond Syria and has drawn in players and superpowers from all over, reshaping geopolitics.

In Sudan, in recent times, the displacement is around 1 in 15 people, still a very scary number I have given a few speeches recently and I am scheduled to give a couple more in coming days and before anyone thinks I have mixed up my speeches let me elaborate that the common thread between these incredibly sad stories is the issue of water scarcity made worse by

climate change This, combined with local undercurrents and inequality, have ignited tensions between communities and farmers, leading to violent clashes, and ultimately causing mass displacement and death

These are two horror movie trailers that underscore the vital importance for us to address our lurking water crises. First, we must agree that we have a problem that looks similar I need not elaborate on the tensions between states, which are sometimes deep-rooted in unresolved issues. Lay on top of that, growing inequality and agri-distress, which has the potential to cause significant disquiet in rural areas In the world of social media, aspirations are now much higher and it is easier

for dissatisfaction to spread. But what is the underlying water-related crisis? According to NITI Aayog’s own data, nearly half our population faces high-to-extreme water stress:

• Unsustainable extraction of groundwater has led to declining water tables in 2/3rd of our states to precarious levels

• Consequently, our Per capita water availability has rapidly fallen by 2/3rd to under 1,500 cubic meters

• We are now witnessing far more frequent droughts and floods on account of climate change.

Even urban areas are increasingly experiencing volatility in municipal supply something Mridula has written about and in some cases, relying less on fresh surface water supplied by Municipalities for all of the year By way of example, I was in Jalna, the steel and seeds capital of Maharashtra yesterday; it gets 1-2 days

of municipal water every month for under 2 hours a day for the past decade this, despite having just experienced one drought in that period!

If our problem with quantity wasn’t enough of an issue, around 70% of India's surface water is estimated to be polluted or of poor quality, and this is and will increasingly affect the health of humans, animals and flora/fauna in times to come.

Now, with all this, if the current pattern of demand continues, given we are aiming to build pipes to ALL houses, and our GDP per capita is now projected to grow robustly, about half of the national demand for water could remain unmet in a decade.

I believe a radical and urgent change is needed in the approach to water management for us to address this looming crisis and make India water resilient.

In my view, this approach needs to have four major pillars Mridula often writes about ancient wisdom and what we can learn from what Therefore, not much of

 While I am generally not in favour of subsidies, I believe this one will help significantly lower water use in agriculture and importantly save the other one which has bankrupted most of our states —farmer electricity dues.

what I am also going to say is new, but based on my experience, I believe that our execution needs to shift in high gears on these pragmatic pivots for us to achieve our goal.

Recycling

The first and most critical way to make India water resilient is by being smarter about how we recycle our water be it harvest our rainwater or process our wastewater I dream of a not very distant day when rainwater harvesting is not bypassed by greasing palms while executing every construction permit, residential, commercial, or industrial, and we have 100% compliance Chennai is currently one of the best cities in this regard but while it needs to do a lot more, other cities are scratching the surface.

This will not be adequate, and recycling of wastewater will become an imperative and is already showing promising results in multiple countries Singapore and Namibia are two examples where around 1/3rd of water demand is met from recycling wastewater Singapore is perhaps most famous for implementing a successful water recycling program. Singapore’s NEWater is targeting this number to go up to 55% by 2060 Our work in peri-urban India is showing us that treated household wastewater has the potential

to keep lakes which were once part of a rural landscape full throughout the year This will help these waterbodies, which are becoming crowded by housing and filled with treated wastewater, act as critical lungs for these rapidly urbanising spaces

Between rainwater harvesting structures added to new constructions and voluntarily implemented in old ones, recycling of wastewater and traditional supply of freshwater, we should be in a much better position to deal with uncertainties and achieve water resilience in most areas.

Demand‐Side Management ﴾Crops, Micro‐Irrigation﴿

The next area we need to focus on is demand-side management. Here, the sector that requires maximum attention is agriculture given that it consumes more than 80% of our freshwater resources Studies show us two things:

a) Bulk of this consumption is due to inefficient practices

b) Again, Mridula has pointed out in her books and research that human errors, some of it dating back to British times and then extended to bad policy making post-Independence, has resulted in poor choices for where we grow, what crops to grow, etc

Therefore, micro-irrigation practices need to be promoted much more aggressively by the government through subsidies While I am generally not in favour of subsidies, I believe this one will help significantly lower water use in agriculture and importantly save the other one which has bankrupted most of our states farmer electricity dues It will also materially boost productivity of our farms which is well below other comparable countries for no evident reasons. According

to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), drip irrigation can save up to 30-70% of water compared to traditional flood irrigation methods. Where used, in states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, this has proven to result in material water savings, and farmers have reported substantial increases in crop productivity. This is even more true for water guzzling crops like sugarcane, with farmers in Maharashtra who use drip irrigation for sugarcane cultivation reporting water savings of up to 50% and yield increases of up to 30%. We need to consider making farming of all water guzzling crops covered by these methods in a mission mode

The second part of this solution requires sensible policy and human behavioural shifts to ensure crop choices by region take into account water as a key input The blind push during the Green Revolution for cultivation of wheat and rice irrespective of the agroecological conditions due to the assured price and buyback offer by the government needs to be rethought given it is a major contributing factor of water crises, health crises, subsidy crises and pollution crises. Only by looking at things holistically will we be able to encourage more region specific choices both as government and consumers. The Millet mission is a great beginning and needs a huge thrust.

Supply Side Management ﴾RWB, Ridge to Valleys etc﴿

The third pillar is supply-side management. We need to remember that India is running out of sites for further construction of large dams at a time when the water table is falling in many areas. Also, these solutions take time, are hugely expensive, and cause displacement which is very difficult; and we have to often deal with environmental challenges which are now a very big issue. There is mounting evidence across the

globe in favour of “nature-based solutions” for water storage and supply. Our own National Water Policy (NWP) places major emphasis on supply of water through rejuvenation of catchment areas, which needs to be incentivised through compensation for eco-system services, especially to vulnerable communities in the upstream, mountainous regions

I can give you one example our Foundation has been working with various Governments and NGOs to rejuvenate waterbodies for the past 7-8 years. This has resulted in helping form a policy which has led to rejuvenation of over 5000 water bodies across Maharashtra through a scheme called the Galmukt Dharan Galmukt Shivar (GDGS Scheme) over the last 6 years Encouraged by this, last year, we successfully ran a similar program for NITI Aayog in 3 states across 6 aspirational districts and are now expanding that to 5 states this year

In this model, partnership is critical, starting with community participation farmers cart the silt paying for around 65% of the entire cost in exchange for addressing their water security and getting good quality silt that is rich in soil organic carbon, all of which turbo charges their income. The state and donors like us come in as partners to fund the balance 35% cost and work with NGOs who help run the program on the ground

 The blind push during the Green Revolution for cultivation of wheat and rice irrespective of the agro‐ ecological conditions due to the assured price and buyback offer by the government needs to be re‐thought

The recently concluded Census of Waterbodies by the Ministry of Jal Shakti shows the huge scope of this solution. For example, Maharashtra alone has around 94K functional water bodies. Imagine the impact of rejuvenating even half of these could have on water security and boosting farm income Importantly, given it costs just Rs. 3 Lakhs to add 1 crore liters of Surface Water and a multiple of that via recharge, the cost of such a project would be less than that of building one decent size dam. The Maharashtra Government recognizes this and is moving in that direction.

Innovation

While we do all this, the mandate to ensure India becomes water resilient is massive, and this is why innovative solutions be it policy, or technology becomes important We should constantly be on the lookout for these and wherever we find something promising we should explore scaling them quickly.

Promising technology innovations to watch for could be in the area of desalination and waste water treatment. A good example of policy innovations could be what South Africa has recently done with putting in place a system of water pricing that aims to balance economic, social, and environmental considerations

They have introduced a progressive water tariff

system that takes into account the affordability of water for low-income households while ensuring that higher consumers pay a higher price for their water use. This approach encourages efficient water use and crosssubsidizes water access for low- income communities, promoting equitable and sustainable water management. We should study how such approaches are working and run our own pilots to explore scaling a solution that we think could work here

Conclusion

As I conclude, I would like to say that we need to recognize that we live with the threat of a water crisis that is, in many ways, already playing out However, as the Chinese proverb goes: “Within each challenge lies an exciting opportunity one for growth and transformation ”

As Nelson Mandela said, "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

The solutions, as I outlined, are before us, as is ancient wisdom of how our ancestors managed water so well and those who didn’t saw their dynasties perish So friends, let adversity be the catalyst that ignites our own resilience, our determination, and our desire to collaborate If we do so, we shall certainly overcome this crisis and make our beloved country water resilient. 

Every one of you has used AI today in a direct or indirect way, without realizing it. If you use Gmail, you’ve already used AI, because AI is being used to keep your Gmail saved from spam If you shopped on a site like Amazon, you probably got some recommendations from the service, powered by AI. AI has already been embedded across many of the products and services you use Like electricity, you may

With its ability to create new and unique content ranging from text, imagery, videos, music content and more, generative AI is revolutionizing businesses across industries ranging from manufacturing, healthcare, IT, arts and design, advertising, and marketing Recently, some of the top experts in the field had come together to facilitate our understanding of business applications, limitations, regulatory considerations and use cases of AI tools

not realize it However, the field of generative AI has ignited the imagination of the world, primarily because there are some AI-based services that are now available to consumers. Bard or ChatGPT has allowed us to ask questions and it seems to converse with us like a human being does, with fully formed sentences and excellent answers. You can write code. There are other tools where you just give a text prompt and you can get a complete picture generated

Three Major Platform Shifts

We have been privileged to witness three big technology platform shifts that have fundamentally altered human civilization. They have changed the way we interact with each other, the way we consume information and the way we conduct commerce First was in the 90s when computers that were sitting on desktop suddenly could get connected to each other through the amazing thing called the internet. The browser that was created in 2004 allowed us to access all the information very easily. The second shift

“Unleashing a wave of innovation…”

Mr Gopi Kallayil

Chief Business Strategist ‐ AI, Google

happened starting 2006 when mobile phones, especially smartphones started appearing in our hands and the world shifted towards mobile computing Now the third one is taking place, which is AI, work on which has been going on for the last several years. Since last year, we could see it, feel it and touch it. This will create thousands of companies, entrepreneurs and new ideas Problems will get solved

Artificial Intelligence is any computer system that mimics or amplifies our incredible human ability called natural intelligence AI can play board games and translate languages (like Google Translate) We can have very, very complex systems like ChatGPT or Bard that engage in conversation. Even more sophisticated systems are now coming up in diagnosing health conditions.

Will AI replace us? No, it will amplify our efforts. It'll make us smarter and be able to move more quickly and solve problems on a scale that we could not The analogy I want you to keep in mind is how humans did

 Will AI replace us? No, it will amplify our efforts. It'll make us smarter and be able to move more quickly and solve problems on a scale that we could not.

movement and motion. When we were young infants, we crawled around the living room of our parents. When we got a little older, we learned to walk Then we learned to run. Then our parents put us on a bicycle and using our own muscle power, we could go farther and faster The bicycle amplified our movement in motion Similarly, AI tools we're building, will amplify our cognitive ability.

Four Buckets of AI

What can these systems do? What are they capable of doing now? The future falls into four buckets.

1. They can synthesize vast amounts of data.

2 They can make predictions They can look at patterns, come up with logic and tell us lots of things that will happen in the future, like the movement of a stock index or weather or copper production

3 They can create new content like how humans create using our right brain capabilities.

4. They show capabilities of human conversation. When we converse, we listen to the words, look at the gestures and the facial expressions and then respond to them. The systems are beginning to replicate some of the conversation capability However, they only do it with words They can't read emotions, they can't see and understand our gestures. But in future, those capabilities may develop, looking at the way generative AI is going

Let me put those into two categories. In the brain, we have the right side that does creative thinking and the left side does analytical, logical thinking Similarly in AI, there's an entire category of systems that seem to mirror the right side and that is generative AI. One of them is conversational AI, a system like Bard. It's built on large language models There are other systems that mirror the left side of the brain and they are analytical and predictive AI. For example, there is a feature in Google Maps called eco-friendly routing. It can suggest the most fuel efficient route, for different types of vehicles. We tested this in Canada and now it has been rolled out in US and eight countries in Europe

Images, Music and Movies

Using Google Imagen, we can get images from text. If I want the picture of a chrome plated duck arguing with an angry turtle with a golden beak, I can get it in 20 seconds. Using Music ML, text to music creation is possible. Experiments are also going on to create movies from text, using a combination of Imagen and Phenaki Now the quality is not so great These are early days but those are solvable problems. In the future, this will get scaled up, so we can create lots of audio and video contents

Google has been at AI for a very long time In fact, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google declared as early as 2016 that we are an AI-first company. Every few years, roughly a decade or so, Google shifts its focus to a new platform When we started in 1998, we were a ‘search first’ company. Around 2006-2007, when mobile phones became widely adopted, we shifted our focus as a mobile-first company and built our products around mobile From 2016, we saw where the world would be headed in AI and became an AI-first company.

Three Audiences

At Google, we want AI to help three audiences: consumers; communities and companies. We want all our consumer products that you use work better. There are 15 products with at least half a billion people using them Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Lens, Google Translate, etc. Second, we are looking at big social

problems and trying to solve them. With Alphafold, we are trying to solve the protein problem in the world. Protein is essential for animals, plants and humans

There are 200 million proteins in the world and only 4% of them are well understood. We used AI and over a four year period, documented every single protein and it's available in our open database called alphafold A million biologists, scientists and pharmaceutical technicians are using it to conduct the research. Third, we're helping companies grow by improving the marketing significantly by AI We help companies to become more efficient by using AI and manage contact centres 24x7.

Working on AI, there is so much of promise. But there are also a lot of risks and we understand this We want to take a bold approach with AI, but also a very responsible approach. We work under seven core principles to guide all our work in AI We're very open and transparent about it

Unleashing a wave of innovation, we will solve many problems that exist in the human condition. We will increase quality of life and also lift a lot of people in their economic level This will be to the benefit of all, if we manage it all very, very carefully. So, as Google founder Larry Page would ask us, “Are you uncomfortably excited?” 

The whole field of generative AI, in some sense, can be reduced to five fundamental facts, which I believe are the most significant today. AI as a technology has been there for a very long time, while generative AI is something which we know of today

The word AI was actually coined by John McCarthy, around the time India got independence. It's more than 70 years old. AI in many ways is a philosophy rather than a technology The technologies are the ones that sit under this AI umbrella machine learning deep learning, neural networks, algorithms and so on.

The 5 AI Facts

AI has come out from the background and probably for the first time into the hands of ordinary people like us That is why we say that this is something which is amazingly powerful That's the reason why 100 million users have ChatGPT in two months. The next fastest app was TikTok, which took about nine months. Facebook took four and a half years There's a

“Generative AI will not replace you, however, a person using it will.”

Mr. Jaspreet Bindra

Author, Founder & MD, Tech Whisperer Ltd.,

 Working on AI, there is so much of promise. But there are also a lot of risks and we understand this.

 Generative AI hits the cognitive jobs or the higher end jobs first.

That's why, in India, we may have a minimum effect on jobs...

wonderful tweet by someone which says that in technology, there are decades where nothing happens And then there are weeks where decades happen.

1. This is Generative AI. Use it to generate, don't use it to search.

Someone said that Google is a search engine and ChatGPT is a thought engine Think of it as something which is creative. Generative AI is built on large language models. These models are trained on massive amounts of language, text conversations, paragraphs, etc. ChatGPT3 is two generations behind. We've had ChatGPT 3.5. After that, we have ChatGPT 4. When ChatGPT 3 was trained, all of Wikipedia was just 0 6% of its training data So you can imagine the sheer amount of words and language that has been fed into it to train it.

A chat GPT or Bard pretty much makes up stuff as it goes along It sometimes hallucinates It's not optimized for facts or truth. It's actually more optimized for believability or plausibility. It's actually what we humans do That's why we feel a little bit of kinship with these new, human like technologies

2. Generative AI will not replace you, however, a person using it will.

Kent Beck is a legendary Software Engineer He wrote that he was reluctant to try ChatGPT In his tweet, he says, “Today I thought about that relevance.

The value of 90% of my skills just dropped to $0. The leverage for the remaining 10% went up 1000x I

need to recalibrate ” Most of the white collar jobs can be replaced by AI A report by Goldman Sachs says that AI will affect about 300 million jobs across major economies. About 7% of jobs will disappear. If you're a low end coder, a journalist summarising your stuff and calling it news, then your jobs will go

30% of jobs are safe and these are menial jobs. If you're a farmer or a construction worker or a nurse who's working on compassion, then nothing is going to happen to your jobs A bunch of new jobs will be created. We still don't know which ones they will be. Every technology has created more jobs than jobs lost. Net-net, there are always more jobs created It's up to us whether we use generative AI to enhance our jobs or become lazy and let someone else who uses it to take that job away from us. Generative AI hits the cognitive jobs or the higher end jobs first That's why, in India, we may have a minimum effect on jobs, while the developed economies will have the maximum impact from generative AI It will vary across industry, it will vary across function But the key thing is that it will not replace you. Someone using it could replace you. So don't fear AI. You have to fear a human being using AI.

3. The horizontals are interesting but the verticals are useful

We see many horizontals in Generative AI like ChatGPT, Bard, and LLaMA. These are interesting and they do a lot of things But the really useful stuff will be the verticals which are industry and domain specific.

4. Generative AI will be as transformative as were search, internet, email or phone

Every 10 years or so, a fundamental platform shift happens. We are at the time of a platform shift. It's going to reshape technology, industries and big tech.

 In AI, we have something called the alignment problem which is about how you can embed in AI values that are aligned with human beings.

There's a new tech company called Nvidia. It’s a trillion dollar company, which emerged out of nowhere on the back of generative AI. We're going to see some of these newer things reshaping the world.

5. General Artificial Intelligence is not equal to Artificial General Intelligence

We talk about super intelligence where technology becomes as intelligent as or more intelligent than human beings. There's a lot of conversation happening in this Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Geoffrey Hinton and others are talking about it What we have today is not artificial general intelligence, at least for now. In AI, we have something called the alignment problem which is about how you can embed in AI values that are aligned with human beings. My view is that within human beings themselves, the values are not aligned. We don't agree on democracy We don't agree on what truth means We don't even agree on what facts mean So the danger is not with a super intelligent AI, but with us not agreeing with each other. There are lots of ethical issues around AI We're talking about regulation, plagiarism, bias and fake news which are environmentally very destructive. For the first time ever, the creators of this Generative AI industry are the ones who stand up and say, “Regulate us ” We will see a lot of action in this space. 

At TCS, I lead the generative AI initiative alongside a lot of emergent tech initiatives One of the biggest questions our customers ask is: What do we do with AI? It's a phenomenally good tool to give me a route from Delhi to Chennai, to tell me all the restaurants where I can eat and the temples I can go to A lawyer was bold enough in the US to create an entire legal submission based on ChatCPT, but only to be thrown out, because the judge realized that some of the case references which ChatGPT had given did not exist at all. It cooked up an airline that did not exist. This is a fascinatingly good technology and it is ripe But the biggest question our customers in industries are asking is: What do I do with it? The natural inference is that it is good to converse. So the first immediate thing that customers think is it will replace contact centers Generative AI is a good tool in areas where you can verify the answers and you are comfortable with the response. How can you control the response when you expose it into a wider ecosystem? These are the challenges that enterprises have.

“This technology works on probabilities.”

Mr Sankaranarayan ‘Shanky’ Viswanathan Vice President & CTO ‐ Business Solutions, TCS

Need for Training

This technology works on probabilities. You ask technology a question from what it has been trained to answer If it is unable to find an answer, it keeps trying to build a language as a response, which is closest to the answer that you have. The probability might just be 17%. It doesn't care, because that is the best response it could give So, let us not worry that this machine will lie at any point in time, if you are able to train this model with sufficient data.

The second big challenge customers have is bias. We were operationalizing a mortgage with an insurance provider in the US Ironically, we realised that a lot of insurance recommendations were more attuned to working class white men. Immediately there might be a regulatory body pointing out the inherent bias The fact is that it is not an inherent bias. We need to understand and appreciate that the general corpus, the Wikipedias of the world, will have a lot more articles on white male than a tall, dark, handsome Tamilian sitting in Chennai We must feed information and data to ensure that this bias is suitably managed and controlled.

Third, you have to be extremely prescriptive You must ensure legitimacy when you prescribe Again, it is all about probabilities. There are methods to ensure that the large language model starts to zero in on the right answer, rather than give any of the vague answers There are a lot of training methods for that These technology concerns which exist, can be mediated through processes, procedures and adjacent technology. So making it viable within your organizations is a viable prospect. We must understand, appreciate and embrace the beauty of the technology rather than anything else.

Need for Guardrails

Generative AI’s response has a bearing on the way

you interrogate or interact with it It is not feasible for you to go and educate everybody in your organization to do things in the right way. So sufficient guardrails must be put within your enterprise or organization to ensure that such deviations do not cause serious harm

We must use it for creative purpose Most of our customers right now are using it for its conversational capability because it converses very well. The second big usage that we see is anything which entails knowledge search For example, in your HR department, a lot of people ask you about the PF or LTA conditions. If you give all the information to AI, you don't need a person answering these questions There is a phenomenal opportunity to leverage anything related to document extraction and summarization. It does it in a phenomenally good, secure and predictable way. No challenges at all But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Tacit Knowledge

The biggest opportunity generative AI is going to unravel is in data analytics. An investment advisor looks at a huge amount of charts and then gives his recommendations A shop floor mechanic who looks at a huge turbine problem comes and looks at all the preconditions and parameters and says what you have to do to fix that. What we have done so far is, we have automated the intelligence being presented to people, so that the right action can be taken in a phenomenally good way. The most important thing is to understand that the space between our ears is what defines how actions are being taken That is what I call tacit knowledge. While plumbing is the same, you still want the best plumber to come to your house. Because you know that experience and tacit knowledge exist To fix your turbine, you want the person who's seen this problem multiple times to come and solve the problem.

The reason is, this inherent knowledge is never captured in a company We must be able to formalize, define, capture and document knowledge. More often than not, our industries are still knowledge driven. They are run by experienced people who know what calculated action is to be taken.

Knowledge as a Capability

What if we are able to disrupt this knowledge value chain? Generative AI or large language models are not about predicting the next best word like a WhatsApp message Language is the best form of documenting knowledge Language is the form of communicating knowledge. Generative AI, when you feed data, insights, intelligence and more importantly, the actions which have been taken in the past, has a unique ability to discern and distill knowledge and save it It will be able to cross the knowledge gap and then discern and determine the right action to be taken.

Just visualize this You capture knowledge across your workforce, create a knowledge corpus as a capability and make it available for anybody in the world in your type of organization. That to us is the biggest difference Generative AI will make For example, a shop floor person goes and stands in front of the turbine and tries to figure out the problem. It is not about just his knowledge It is about the collective knowledge of every shop floor mechanic, from what happened in the past and it is available to them in a digital fashion.

So the biggest shift that generative AI will create is that knowledge as a capability will be made available to every industry in a similar category. Don't just focus on collaborative automation or knowledge extraction. Generative AI provides a unique opportunity for you to reimagine your enterprise It is not about automation

or productivity improvement You can completely reimagine the way your shop floor will work using multiple technologies together.

The Convergence of Three

There are three very important technologies which converge to make this a reality. The first is compute. The compute capability of chips will become so pervasive that they will be existing in a watch, in a cell phone, and in an IoT device. Each of these chips can potentially run one large language model on its own and deliver specific outcomes

The second big technology is 5G 5G is not about downloading YouTube videos fast. It’s about having have pervasive systems of connectivity, to bring intelligence to life and collaborate with any of the systems of knowledge

The third big disruption which is happening already is the convergence of cyber and physical systems. What we mean by cyber physical systems is that most of the robots are built for robots to exist on their own Humans will collaborate with technology and systems and robots.

Last but not the least, digital twins will give real time avatars of everything that is happening around you. That gives the context; Generative AI gives the knowledge. Cyber physical systems ensure people and machine work together in a completely different way against the ubiquitous connectivity enabled by 5G We must thus look at multiple, concurrent technologies together to reimagine our industries. Generative AI is the biggest piece of the jigsaw puzzle, primarily because it is not about automation. It is about a knowledge driven enterprise. Knowledge is going to be enabled as a capability within your respective industries These are, therefore, absolutely exciting times 

Viren: This is a question for both of you—Anand and Geet. What is the role of parents in your journey?

Anand: I learned how to play chess from my mother and I was quite fortunate. Typically, most chess players of that time learned from a family member or close friends If you were lucky to have someone in your family who knew how to play chess, then it increases the odds that you might play chess. It was very serendipitous. My mother and her younger brothers played chess So there was some background I was six years old One day, I saw my elder brother and sister playing. I wanted to join and of course, as the youngest, my mother said, “Okay, I'll show you how to play.”

Then a few days later, they saw that I kept on coming back to the chess board This might have been a bit of a surprise to them. I can see it myself. I teach my son something and you never know if he is going to forget it in a day or continue My mom bought the first chess book for me I would look at it but it was total mystery. Then they found the first chess club. My

Olympic Gold Quest ﴾OGQ﴿ is a not‐for‐profit organisation co‐founded by sports legends Mr Geet Sethi and Mr Prakash Padukone The mission of OGQ is to help Indian athletes win the Olympic and Paralympic games Mr Viswanathan Anand, Indian Chess Grandmaster & Former World Chess Champion; Mr Geet Sethi, World Champion, Billiards & Snooker; and Mr Viren Rasquinha, Former Captain, Indian Hockey Team & CEO, Olympic Gold Quest, discuss the challenges of players and their conditioning

sister’s college happened to be right opposite the chess club. My mother took me to the chess club and I joined it As I was very young, my mother was concerned because the general profile of a chess player was someone who's much older and she wanted me to be safe. A couple of people at the club said, “Okay, Don't worry We will look after him and make sure somebody plays against him ” That's how it began Maybe my parents thought at that stage, it was just one more hobby. I was playing other sports in other places but Chess was the thing that I was most attracted to Every Monday evening, every Thursday evening and the whole of Sunday, I would go there and just play blitz all the time Then the first few competitions started coming when I was seven or eight

I went to the Philippines for a year but I was still only in fifth standard. Once again, in the Philippines, when we landed, my mother immediately found out where I could play chess She would take me to every tournament, accompany me to the venue and make sure I got through. There was a Chess TV show during the

day and they would give a puzzle at the end. But I would be at school during the show My mother would write down everything and after I came back home from school and finished my homework, I would look at that puzzle. So my parents were very, very committed. My father was very supportive as well, though he didn't know anything about chess.

By the time, I came back to India and was in ninth standard, it was becoming tricky, because I started to travel everywhere to compete My parents could see that I was really keen on the game and pretty good at it. I was one of the top juniors in the country. I'd had a breakthrough year and was even one of the top players in the men's game They might have been nervous at that stage. But I'm grateful that it never occurred to them to try and warn me off from playing Chess. It's not a nice feeling for children, if they don't feel that their family is totally behind them The most important thing is to hold your tongue. Even if you're uncomfortable, just let it go. I was very lucky with the timing of many things that happened to me When I did

my 10th standard exams, I became a national champion. A few months after my 12th standard, I became the World Junior Champion and then later grandmaster

When I finished my B.Com, I was already in the top 10 in the world. Of course, later on, my parents said “We always knew about you ” Honestly, I don't think, it would have happened without the support from the family. My mother was the reason I got into the game. When a lot of people would tell me not to play Chess so fast, my father had the sense to tell me, “Play fast and you can't be otherwise.” I kept doing that and it turned out to be one of my strengths.

Viren: Fantastic Anand I remember you were called the Lightning Kid By the way I have a nine year old daughter. So one thing that stays with me is to bite my tongue and not to say anything.

Geet: Let me pick up from what Anand said When I was in 10th standard in 1976, I won the first ever Junior National Billiards championship that was held and I had played exactly for two years. In 78, I won the

juniors again, but I didn't win the seniors So finally I won in 81 in Chennai, defeating Michael Ferreira The role of parents is absolutely there. My dad was a very wise man and he came from a lower middle class kind of a family When a person like Anand at the age of six sees a chessboard and keeps coming back to it, I think parents get a sense that this something abnormal and can see when you are so deeply committed to a particular sport I used to play every sport in schoolvolleyball, cricket, basketball, table tennis and badminton. I was a state level swimmer.

But when, at the age of 13, I started playing billiards, I just stopped playing every other sport I was playing seven or eight hours a day and was living in the billiards room. I was not just passionate but kind of obsessed in the game. My parents recognised it and were a little lenient My brother was supposed to be in the top 10 in the class, but for me, my dad said, “It's okay if you try and get anything over 60%” So I used to stop playing it two months before my board exam and put my cue aside and just study I would get just above 60. Really, it was a deal and I kept it up. So that was the support part of it. He just allowed me to flourish, though he would never come and watch me play

But I think parent's play a very, very important role, once a child wins a junior or a senior national championship at a very impressionable age. Looking back, I think my dad’s greatest contribution is what he did to me or how he behaved and interacted with me after I won a big national championship. The year was 1976. I was doing my 10th standard. I went to Jamshedpur to play the first ever junior nationals held and I came back as the winner with a massive silver trophy. Earlier, I had won cups in TT and they used to be so tiny

Now carrying this huge trophy through a 48 hour

a junior or a senior national championship at a very impressionable age.

train journey from Jamshedpur, I reached Ahmedabad and my dad was at the station with his Lambretta scooter. He hugged me and picked my bag. I took my cue and sat behind him on the scooter with the trophy in the middle, between him and me He drove the scooter proudly and we reached home. My mom took aarthi for me and had made some lovely suji ka halwa and a great meal It was about 11 in the morning My dad was sitting quietly by the side My mum finished with all her indulgence and I thought I should win more titles, so I would really be pampered. I ate my meal and my dad did the most amazing thing, as I see in retrospect.

He casually told me, “Beta. Can you polish my shoes?” In fact, we used to polish our shoes togetherMy brother and I used to sit down with dad and would polish our school shoes and dad would polish his shoes to go to his office the next day. It was the most natural thing and I said, “Sure dad Which one - that brown or black?” He said, “The brown one,” and I started polishing his shoes. If I look back, every time when I came back with a big trophy, he would either ask me to polish his shoes or wash his scooter or clean the carburettor He just kept me grounded with these very subtle acts. When you're growing up, it is so easy to think, “Oh, I'm kind of God's gift to billiards!” and get carried away

 But I think parent's play a very, very important role, once a child wins

~ Geet Sethi

Viren: Nine world titles. So, there must have been a lot of very clean shoes in your house (laughs!) What has been the most memorable moments for both of you in your long career?

Anand: For me, my world titles are definitely memorable, because each one literally is the payoff for years and years of effort. And the sad thing is, it gets over and five minutes later, you think, ‘Yes. That's it.” If I had to select one, I would select my match with Boris Gelfand in 2012, simply because in that whole match, it felt like I was just surviving from day to day and then only in the tiebreaker, I was able to win. But there are moments I remember more fondly There will be junior tournaments from school, of which, I remember some games, only because I beat somebody I really disliked It's a beautiful feeling and it lasts longer than the world title wins! (laughs)

The most pleasant experience is when something unexpected happens. So many times in my career, I've hit a wall where I might go a long time with mediocre results You think you can't get any worse and spend months trying to get out of the hole. Once you hit the bottom, then the only way is up and you will come out. So over time, I became more relaxed in these situations

For example, I was going to play the World Chess Championship in 2017 in Riyadh. When I was going there, I had just come off with the last place in a

tournament in London It was totally irritating as there was no need to be in the last place Every time I thought about it, I got angrier. Anyway, I went to Riyadh when I was not even supposed to go there. My original plan was to go on a holiday But then somehow, somebody called me and reluctantly I went there thinking tenth place would be nice. After the three day tournament, I suddenly found myself as the winner It is much better to have a good one after a bad patch Finding the light at the end of the tunnel is beautiful and memorable.

Geet: I won my first world title in 1985. When you win the first world title, it always has a special place The World Championship used to be held every two years at the time. In 87, I defended my title in Belfast. Then I went through a very bad patch between 88-89 and 92 For three years, I was playing at a very high level of performance and then my game dropped off a cliff It took me three years to rediscover my game. I unlearnt my old technique, built a new technique and finally came back in 92, and won the World Professional championship. I defeated Mike Russell in the finals and in that, I made a world record break of 1276. That stands out to me

Viren: As a sports person, very often, you will lose more than you win, especially in the initial days of the journey to become a champion. What's your mindset when you go through a bad phase? How do you come out of it? Is there some go-to process that you follow?

Anand: Generally, it's a process It's very difficult to force because you're fighting with your brain and it's got a mind of its own, so to speak. It's similar to the stages of grief First is to come to terms with what has happened- the sense of loss or whatever. That takes much time and then you take responsibility. This is very important Because very often when things go wrong, it will seem to you that you could have done better But then the question is, “Why does it go wrong anyway?”

 The most pleasant experience is when something unexpected happens. So many times in my career, I've hit a wall where I might go a long time with mediocre results.

~ V Anand

I have to work backwards and accept that Then you come out of it and come to terms with the whole thing and then things work out. The last stage is very crucial. I have found that it almost always correlates for me with a huge drop in expectations, where I cease to care about the result.

Typically, after a very bad result, I disconnect from the game and want to go on a holiday. I do not even read about anything that is happening in the world I've done this consistently. Before the world candidates’ tournament in 2014, I did not even look at Chess for one and a half months The farther you get from the thing, it often allows you to reset and get back in We train a lot to be on autopilot. But once in a while, we consciously have to push here and there and see what comes out Then at some point, it will work and you'll feel lighter and you start playing again So you can't expect to do the same things and get different results. You just have to keep experimenting.

Viren: In matches, when you ' re down by a big margin, what’s your mindset?

Geet: Billiards and snooker are in that sense very brutal, because it's a four hour game. Sometimes the finals used to be over eight hours. When you're playing a final against a really good player, he could be making a break of 500 or 600, or 700 He's occupying the table for almost 30 minutes. He's playing beautifully and the crowd is appreciating it. The scoreboard is right in front of you A flood of thoughts can come to your mind So what I did very early on was to question me as to why I chose to play the game. I play the game because of some kick that I get while playing it We will go to places just to watch excellent sport being played, whatever it may be. When I'm playing against one of the best players in the world, why can't I just enjoy the game? And so that's what I did I just started getting

involved in the act of my opponent’s play. You forget all the negative thoughts and you are just appreciating. I'm a great believer in positivity and positive thoughts

The minute I start thinking negative, I am going to go low. I enjoy the opponent's game and keep saying, “My chance will come and he's damn good. I'm equally good ” So the bank balance of practice and the confidence that you have attained over the last 5 or 6 or 7 years of performing to that level, gives you a high subconscious confidence

On the expectations of the audience, I'll share a small story. In my first Junior State championship, I was playing the finals with a young kid, who was one year younger than me and I was trailing by 300 odd points It was a club My mom walked in and I could I see her She was damn excited. She talked to a few people about the score and I could see her sad face. I don't know what happened to me I just got up, walked around the table, went to mom and I said, “Mom Please get out of the billiard room.” That was the first and last time she ever entered a billiard room. The point is, as a kid of 15 or 16, I didn't want the additional burden of expectations You don't play to get a smile on the face of the audience or your supporters or your family members. You play for the joy of playing and I think that's a very important point

 The minute I start thinking negative, I am going to go low. I enjoy the opponent's game and keep saying, “My chance will come and he's damn good. I'm equally good.”

~ Geet Sethi

Viren: I remember when I was in ninth or tenth standard, the hardest thing to do was to get a smile on my mom ' s face when she saw my marks in my chemistry paper. My mom was a doctor and dad an engineer. My elder brothers were engineers. But I couldn't understand any equation in chemistry. They thought afterwards that I better become a good hockey player (laughs!). Tell us about your iconic battles.

Anand: For me, probably it would be battles with Kramnik. I remember seeing him for the first time in 1989. He was 14 years old and much taller than me. He was a huge guy He came in a T shirt and shorts From time to time, he would even go out for a smoke during the match. In 89, it was still allowed. He made an impact visually itself and he seemed nice and friendly. We drew our game and spoke a little bit

Then three years later, there was suddenly word about a Russian kid whom I'd forgotten. Once again, we played in the same tournament. I was playing in the main tournament and he was playing in the Open Tournament, which he won He's one of the first players who never became an international master. He went straight from the previous title all the way to Grandmaster Gary Kasparov in an interview said, “This boy is absolutely the future of chess. I have never seen anyone as strong as him.” When I wondered who he was and looked at the name, ‘Kramnik,’ I couldn’t connect the dots But once I saw him, I could recognise him

Our rivalry started in 92. Very soon we were second and third. Our rating was always just a little bit apart, till our World Championship match in 2008 Even after that, I only thought of him as a rival He retired in 2019 It didn't last long and he's back playing online. With him is my longest rivalry. I have then had rivalries in stretches with Karpov, my first big rival For three, four years I was battling him everywhere Then, it was Kasparov. That was more of a triangle with Karpov, Kasparov and Kramnik for a couple of years. Then

Topalov suddenly became one of the best There were these on-off rivalries At the end of that, there was Magnus Carlsen and it was much shorter. The birthdate of my rivals span from 1951 to 1990. Karpov was born in 1951 and Magnus is 40 years younger than him Viren: That's a testament to your longevity in the game.

Anand: I also feel that Kramnik is one of my best friends Even during the rivalry, I always had a soft corner for him He also reached out and helped me in a couple of very difficult situations. He gave a lots of good career advice.

Geet: I played players from different generations

For my first world title, I beat a guy called Bob Marshall, an Australian who was 74 years old. He was exactly three times my age of 24. He came out of retirement to stop Michael Ferreira from beating his world record of 4 titles He had a steel hip and steel in both his knees We both played the finals together in the world championship that I won. And then of course, Michael Ferreira who was double my age in that same tournament. I had a fair bit of rivalry with Michael through the 80s. Then in the 90s, it started with Mike Russell and what a great player he was- a British player, fabulous player, absolute master with a great delicate touch and stupendous concentration. He had a street fighter mindset. In the 90s, I kept beating him but then in 2000s, I just could not beat him in any final except once, I think in 2003 in New Zealand That was a great rivalry

Viren: What is the role of luck in sports?

Geet: My personal take on luck in sports is that in the game that you're playing, luck will even out. In cricket, you give a lollipop catch to somebody and the guy misses it and you'll go on to score 100 That's great luck. But that will even out because somewhere down the line, you will give a very difficult catch and a guy

will run 25 yards and then dive and catch it But for me, more important is the luck that comes in life, in how you have progressed and in the people that have come across at just the right time, at the right place. I think the universe arranges itself in such intricate patterns to see that something good happens to you It happens to all of us. We should remember that. I'll give you a story about how a very significant luck happened to me and because of which, I got so much competence and my career really took off.

The year was 1984. I wanted to go to England to play in the professional circuit in England. I was working for a company called Tomco and was going through a little bad patch in my game My President walked in and seeing me with a long face asked me what the problem was. I said I'm not playing well and want to go to England to play and get international exposure. He just picked up the phone and called the travel desk and arranged return tickets to London, for me and two more of my sporting colleagues

1800 rupees was my salary and 8000 rupees was the ticket cost. We had the tickets but still needed money to stay in England. We were three of usyoungsters wanting to go to England We collected about 700 pounds and said that once we ran out of that, we would return to India.

We went to England and lost in the first tournament We took a coach and went to the next tournament next week Every weekend, there was a tournament and by the fourth weekend, we were down to our last 100 pounds. We thought it was time to go. So with our bag and cue, we were walking across the car park, going towards the town center, to take a coach to Heathrow airport.

As we were walking across the car park, just about

 Every weekend, there was a tournament and by the fourth weekend, we were down to our last 100 pounds.

~ Geet

20 yards ahead of us, there was an Indian looking guy who was just closing the boot of his car and about to drive away. He turned around and called us. We walked towards him. He said, “I saw you guys. You are playing very well ” I said I'm a national champion and introduced my friends as the national snooker champion and the national snooker runner. He introduced himself as Praveen Patel and asked us where we were going We explained we were going to Heathrow to take a flight back to India as we had run out of money. In a split second, he said, “That's okay,” and opened the boot of his car, put all our bags in, shut it down and asked us to get into the car

As he started driving, he started chatting “I've come from Kenya. I was a refugee here,” he said. We were telling our story. We thought he was taking us to Heathrow but he went past Heathrow into Luton and parked outside his house. His wife opened the door. He told her in Gujarati, “These are my friends. They will stay with us ” She said, “Oh, Brothers Come, come ” She got us meals

It was a two and a half bedroom house. Praveen Patel had his mother and brother staying with him. He was recently married and he had just one bedroom to stay in His living room was 10 by 10 with a small little dining room, which was eight by seven. It was a very small and modest house. Patel told us, “You have come from India.

~ Viren

You got to practice. You have to play and win. I will help you ” We slept in that 10 by 10 drawing Room

Next morning, he took us to the local club and paid the charges for our table. He shelled out 12 pounds that day. Over the following days also, we practiced. Then there was another weekend tournament, a big one Till then, we were eating burgers and sandwiches and fish and chips. Suddenly we were getting lovely keema gravy and roti at home Our laundry was being done We were in so much comfort and could practice our game In one of the tournaments, I won and got 3000 pounds as prize money. That was loads of money.

Now just look at this guy. If we were walking out three seconds later, he would have shut his car door and would have been off to Luton. That three seconds gave us chance to be with him. It gave us confidence to play on to win tournaments In 1985, I won the World Billiards championship and Om B Agarwal won the World Snooker championship in Dublin. That I think is luck. I do believe that all of us get this break. We need to remember it and articulate it We need to keep repeating it We keep saying, “Oh, in that tournament, my knee broke I was so unlucky. I missed my flight,” and so on. We look at all the bad luck that happens and we never remember the great luck that happened Just to end the story, Praveen Patel at that point was an unemployed car mechanic and this is what he did for us.

Viren: What a wonderful story! I just want to say a few words about OGQ It is a not-for-profit organization We look after the training and preparation of some of India's best athletes from the best young talent and prepare them for the Olympics and Paralympics We currently look after the training of almost 365 athletes We focus on individual Olympic sports and also coach for badminton, boxing, shooting, archery and wrestling. We support athletes by trying to ensure that they have the best coaches-Indian or foreign, the best training facilities, be it in India or abroad and we ensure they have the best equipment in sports We've also put together a team of world class doctors, physios, nutritionists, mental trainers and everyone in the background to help these athletes. I'm really proud to say that in the last three Olympics: London 2012, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, India won a total of 15 medals and the training of nine of the 15 medal winners was supported by OGQ.

Three and a half years back, we started supporting Paralympic athletes -athletes with physical disabilities We currently support 84 para athletes, several of them on wheelchairs, some with amputated upper limb and some with amputated lower limbs We do not support them because of their disability We support them because of their abilities. These are exceptionally talented young athletes. It's been such a beautiful and humbling experience to support the Para athletes at the Tokyo Paralympics. India won 19 medals.

The training of 10 of those 19 medal winners was supported by OGQ. In 2022, there was the Birmingham Commonwealth Games Athletes supported by OGQ participated and won 17 medals including 12 gold medals. It takes just six grams of gold to lift the worth of a nation That's the weight of pure gold in an Olympic gold medal And that's what we strive for at OGQ This

 We've also put together a team of world class doctors, physios, nutritionists, mental trainers and everyone in the background to help these athletes.

organization is founded by Geet Sethi and another legend Prakash

Padukone

Geet: At OGQ, we provide dignity to the athlete Imagine runners going to a championship without shoes. Or if they have the shoes, they don't have the necessary clothing Imagine shooters going to a very big tournament without preparing because of the lack of pellets. We have brought into focus the fact that the athlete is the final stakeholder in the Indian sporting scene- not the sponsors, not the parents and not the political system. I believe that the political will has changed in such a lovely and positive manner and we're living in great times for Indian sport As we move ahead, I'm genuinely confident that in the next 10 to 15 years, we will be in the top five sporting nations in the world.

Viren: You have always mentioned about the pride and the power of sports as a tool towards nation building.

Geet: Yes When an athlete stands at the Olympic podium as a gold medal winner, the flag of that nation goes up and the national anthem of the country is played out and it instils a very powerful emotion That emotion is reserved not only for that athlete who has won it, but it also rubs off on all of us. We must strive to increase the frequency of that emotion The sporting identities of nations are formed at the Olympic platform

Anand: Like Geet said, I have learned to look back on my journey with gratitude. I had a very similar experience when I met an elderly Spanish couple. They practically became my second parents and I moved to Spain because of them. I had a German friend I met in India and a Dutch friend. I've stayed in their houses for months Having said that, in my career, I have made a lot of mistakes There were a lot of people helping me, but a lot of things I had to do on my own.

One thing that I realized was I'm not very good at

all in certain things A certain number of mistakes around that happen To some degree, they shape your character. I'm not necessarily a good organizer. I do my best when I'm allowed to be thinking of chess all the time and not being distracted From that perspective, imagine that there was an organization like OGQ that can support you in all sorts of practical ways. It feels like calling a friend and there's no embarrassment anymore asking for help

Viren: What advice would you give to young athletes or individuals aspiring to become champions in their chosen fields?

Geet: Whatever field you are in, you must enjoy that. Go and love that and keep improving in that field.

Viren: How do you maintain a balance between personal life and demands of being a champion in your life?

Geet: When I was in the thick of competition, there was no balance You are so passionate and obsessed with the sports and the people who love you will understand that. Your parents, later on your partner and then finally your children will understand you If there is balance, there is no excellence. In sports, excellence is necessarily a function of being unbalanced

Viren: How do you stay motivated and continue to strive for excellence, even after achieving remarkable success in your career?

Anand: You need new goals All goals, after a while, will bore you It is very nice that we have the urge to find new ways of doing things and keep challenging ourselves. It's nice to experiment. The changes are coming constantly and at the same time, it's nice because we have new material all the time There's something new to learn. That's the motivation. And besides, over a lifetime of playing chess, you have your ego and you want to go there and play a good game 

What does specificity and sensitivity mean in ophthalmology? In the medical field today, tests are just increasing and diagnostic procedures are proliferating They're getting better and also expensive. How does a doctor choose a particular procedure? I'm not talking about treatment at all. I'm only talking about diagnosis it is getting pretty expensive these days That is when they (the doctors) look at sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity means the ability of a test to accurately identify a person with a disease or a disorder, and Specificity reveals that a person does not have a disorder Both should be of a high percentage before you can pick up a diagnostic procedure and apply it to a particular patient.

True positive is when a person, who undergoes a test, has got a disease and the test accurately diagnoses it. True negative is when a person does not have a disease and the test also confirms it. False positive is when the person does not have a disease but the test has wrongly diagnosed the person; that's pretty much risky. In the same way, false negative is when a person

Diagnostic technology today is now becoming highly sensitive and specific, such that we are able to detect a disease years before it reveals itself in a patient and starts to cause visual impairment. Dr. Arulmozhi Varman, renowned ophthalmologist who has been at the forefront of utilizing advanced diagnostic technology to improve patient care, elaborates on how science and technology reach out to the patient in delivering appropriate care in a timely fashion

who has got the disease is diagnosed as not having the disease. We don't want sensitivity less than 92%. We need to understand this about every diagnostic test and then look at the demographic prevalence of the disorder and apply the test to that particular demographic group. Then you will get better positive results.

Also, we want to have more and more non-invasive tests MRI is absolutely safe but if you put in a dye to do an angiographic test, then it's an invasive procedure. When you put a product into the body, there are people who react to it We want to have more and more tests which are absolutely non- invasive but which can give you results that were obtained only by an invasive procedure.

Three Eye Diseases

Let me discuss about three diseases:

• Keratoconus

• Glaucoma, and

• Diabetic retinopathy

India today has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of diabetics in the world Unfortunately, we also have a whole lot of diabetic complications. The diagnostic tool that's common to all of these is something known as optical coherence tomography (OCT) We know CAT scan, which is computerized axial tomography, where we use X rays and get slices. In OCT, we use light itself and this light source can give sections of the eye, just like you would see on a CAT scan or MRI It gives unbelievable results

The accuracy here is about three microns. One micron is 1,000th of a millimetre and you can look at the retina which has 10 layers Normally, to see the 10 layers of retina, you have to have a particular tissue, which is taken from a person who has already passed away. You have to put it into a section and put it under a microscope Only after this, you can make it out But with OCT, you can make out the 10 layers one by one

Each layer has got either cells or nerve fibre bundles. Today, this technology can count the number

of cells on the retina and tell you the count per square millimetre, from which you can know if there's a dropout of cells or the nerve fibres. That's the level of accuracy we get and it's totally non- invasive.

The Doppler Effect

When you stand on a railway track, the train comes in with the horn on. As it comes, the tone gets compressed and as it leaves it gets elongated. You can trace a moving object using this Doppler Effect and that's how we do Doppler of the carotid or the vertebral arteries and find out the blood flow there. Thanks to the ingenuity of human brain, we use the Doppler using light source and you can delineate the blood vessels brilliantly.

There are people who develop the disorder known as keratoconus Mostly, this is inherited disorder It comes out in the teens or at a later age It can be worsened by allergies and by active rubbing of the eye, but otherwise, it can present itself as a natural course of the disorder To diagnose keratoconus, we have been

looking at the eyes sideways or make the patient look down to spot for a funny looking bulge To be able to catch this bulge on a slit lamp or with the naked eye, the bulge has to be almost one or two millimetres. That means, the disease is already very advanced That was how it was done when I was doing my PG in the 80s.

There was another way of looking at it. If somebody has a high cylinder power that keeps changing and a poor vision, then you say that person has got keratoconus. This disorder is pretty prevalent in India and in the Middle Eastern countries also.

Now with the OCT, the resolution is three microns. When there's a 10 micron difference in the thickness of the cornea or by looking accurately at the shape of the cornea, you can catch the disease at a very early stage. It’s a totally progressive one and as it progresses, vision drops and eventually we had to do only keratoplasty

We take out that cornea, use a donor cornea and sew it on. That was pretty much a difficult surgery with not so good outcomes But now we can prevent this from occurring by doing certain treatments, which will strengthen the cornea and prevent it from becoming weaker and bulging. That's called Collagen Crosslinking. The diagnostic machine gives raw data Algorithms had to be developed to get to the diagnosis. So we had multiple groups of scientists working on this to come up with algorithms

We can get accuracy to the specificity of 98% and sensitivity of 92%. That's really good. So early diagnosis would help preserving vision and preventing surgical intervention

Lasik Treatment

What made the diagnosis of keratoconus bloom and fructify into something that's phenomenal is simply because a lot of patients were willing to undergo laser

 We can get accuracy to the specificity of 98% and sensitivity of 92%. That's really good. So early diagnosis would help preserving vision and preventing surgical intervention.

treatment that is Lasik or now SMILE, to remove the glasses using laser. You can do it on a person who is 18 years plus who is wearing glasses and if the person's cornea is stable and if everything is good, you do a five minute laser procedure and no glasses are needed for lifetime. When they started looking at the cornea very carefully, they started catching keratoconus

So, unless there's money in something, the industry does not do any study into a particular pathway. Keratoconus by itself was not a money spinning entity. A research cannot start off unless it is going to be funded. Funding does not come in, unless there's a future to the product. That is how, keratoconus could be diagnosed as a spinoff from Lasik

Diabetic Retinopathy

Then let’s come to diabetes. India has the largest diabetic population in the world. The Western literature says that almost 30 to 40% of people with diabetes tend to develop diabetic retinopathy. While the Indian demographic data says the percentage is a little lower, on an average, around 20% of people with diabetes develop retinopathy

This has to be caught because this is a silent disease. At least in keratoconus, the patient will have blurred vision Here, it's absolutely silent By the time the vision starts to blur, it is too late Most often, it is

 If you have a patient whose sugar is well controlled and he or she has only three to five years of known diabetes history, maybe the chance of development of retinopathy is low.

very difficult to do anything about the vision already lost and you can prevent further loss of vision by treating appropriately.

Diabetes affects blood flow. Whether it is the eye, the brain, the heart, the foot or the kidney, it is only the blood flow that is impeded at the capillary level and not at the large vessel level. Once that occurs, blood starts to leak out there. New capillaries try to form to overcome the blocked areas but these are not as structurally strong as the normal capillaries. The normal blood vessels start to leak serum, then blood, followed by other complications They're not able to supply oxygen to the tissues, in spite of new vessels forming and the old vessels are blocked. That's the underlying pathology. The advantage is that the retina is the only place in the human body where blood circulation can be physically observed This assumes a huge amount of importance. Though we can look at the blood flow and the structure, we won't know how the blood is flowing through it We had to inject a dye called fluorescein into the eye and take serial photographs. This is called fluorescein angiography. We were not doing it frequently, because it is an invasive procedure Some people develop allergy to it and can have even a cardiac arrest sometimes. Though

the risk is one in 10,000, still, that's a risk It is also not practical to do these tests frequently

Now we can see the blood flow using OCTA (OCT with angiography), which uses the Doppler principle and light instead of sound It's far more accurate and far more details are available You can do this once in 24 hours, if you wish to, for a patient and it’s absolutely risk free. So we really have a non- invasive procedure, which is brilliantly accurate to diagnose early retinopathy.

Dilemma in Application

Then it comes to how many patients am I going to put on this machine?

Are we going to put every diabetic patient on this? Or are you going to put only people who you think, have some kind of a problem by looking at the patient with the microscope? It is a very difficult question to answer. Then you have algorithms for this. If you have a patient whose sugar is well controlled and he or she has only three to five years of known diabetes history, maybe the chance of development of retinopathy is low. Anybody over 10 years of known diabetes should have this test done every year That's no question at all Anybody between five to 10 years and poorly controlled diabetes, should have this test done every year.

In spite of all that, if I do 10 patients, I'll probably catch two or three patients with the disease That means we are doing more procedures than what is probably warranted. That's how we it look outwardly. But when you do serially on a person every year, you can catch the person's disease very easily down the line So this is where cost comes into play. A low-end machine with low resolution costs only 75 lakhs and the high end machine will cost 1 5 crores The patient has to bear the cost The doctor is only looking after the machine and

using it for the betterment of the patient

The Management Conundrum

How will you apply the algorithms? And how ethical are you going to be in applying the algorithm? You will find that in India, there is no multi-speciality hospital with a thriving ophthalmology department, except for one or two in the whole country. Management specialists running the hospitals merely go by the returns and do not sanction funds But if I start using these sophisticated machines, my overall practice changes. More number of patients get diagnosed and then they may go for another procedure If they go for surgery, it becomes safer and the results get to be superior. So the whole system changes. That’s how we must look at it.

The cost of getting this kind of test depends on the centre and would be anywhere between Rs 2500 to Rs 5000. You must take it as insuring your eyes for Rs. 2500 a year. Of course, apart from eyes, we have got many other organs in the body, and medical insurance unlike in the US or Australia does not cover the cost of investigations. But once you do that, your premium is going to shoot up and the number of premium paying capable patients or population is still low in India A sobering thought is you need finance to do anything.

Healthcare is Driven by GDP

Two decades ago, both India and China were considered poor countries. India has been having the SMILE technology for about 10 years and the total number of SMILE machines in India are about 35 I bought the first generation machine eight years ago and mine was the fourth in the country. I have bought the upgraded version, which is the second in the country. It looks good But China has 550 machines

 I bought the first generation machine eight years ago and mine was the fourth in the country. I have bought the upgraded version, which is the second in the country. It looks good. But China has 550 machines.

That means the GDP is running the engine Another aspect is that the oriental race has more minus power than anybody else. That's the second point. Eight weeks ago, I was in Singapore for a user's meet. A Chinese guy came up and made presentations and the number of surgeries they have made were mind boggling What really puts the scale at an even keel is they charge two and a half times of what we charge our patients. So finally, whatever we want to do in technology, technique or delivery of anything to the patient, there has to be finances. And that can only come as our GDP keeps going up

Glaucoma

The eye is a fluid filled structure. There is a continuous manufacturing and circulation of fluid and that's slowly going out through another pathway The balance between the two keeps up a certain pressure which is normally between 12 to 18 mm of mercury. Anything higher is not good Lower is not a problem but too low is not good at all When it goes higher, there is a pressure effect. The optic nerve bulges. As the pressure keeps increasing, the nerve fibres keep dying out Slowly the patient may lose vision on the sides, while the central vision is still good.

How does somebody get glaucoma? Most of it is genetically predisposed If one person in the family has glaucoma, the chances of the siblings having glaucoma are very high and of the next generation are 50% lesser but they are still there It can be easily detected, provided one makes a visit to the doctor

When you lose fibres on the top, you lose vision at the bottom and vice-versa. The person cannot see the lower half, but can see up and look straight When they go down the stairs, they'll have difficulty; otherwise, they may not even know that they have a problem. The field test is the diagnostic tool and it is considered the gold standard

Its prevalence is next only to cataract This is the most common blinding disorder in the world. In the darker skinned races, it is more prevalent, particularly because our irises are thicker and have more pigments and we are more prone to glaucoma, than a lighter skinned person. The conventional computerised testing procedure is pretty much cumbersome, particularly because most of the patients have glaucoma in their 60s, 70s and 80s. The machine also gives giving false positive and false negative results. So it can be quite confusing and getting accurate results are sometimes difficult

How do we diagnose glaucoma early with OCT?

With OCT, you can actually count the number of cells and the number of nerve fibres and it gives you a graph and an algorithm that tells you if you have or don't have glaucoma. OCT can catch glaucoma one to two years before the person comes up with a field defect. This is highly sensitive and highly specific It is very tempting to use it on a large number of patients But then, we would like to look at patients who have funnily shaped disks, aged above 45 and patients with a family history and then put them on this Here again, a large number

of patients would come out as negative, which is good, but he or she needs to get these tests repeatedly done That's again a burden on the pocket but there's no excuse for that and they must do it.

ERG or Electro retinogram has pretty much been there for 30 to 40 years The machines are very expensive and cumbersome to use. You have to put multiple electrodes and it will take 30 to 40 minutes. So the patient will really feel uncomfortable But now, you can do the same electrophysiology with just two electrodes and it's fantastic. It doesn't give you just the raw output. It gives it to you on a number and a colour scale

AI, the Next Stop

There are a lot of issues that come into play, and finally, all of it boils down to applicability of a particular test to a particular group of people and how to make it cost effective. There's only a particular level to which the cost effectiveness can be done by the doctor. The paying capacity of the general population has to increase. When economy improves, health improves, wealth improves and everything improves. So in summary, advanced technologies are available for early diagnosis of potentially blinding diseases They have high sensitivity and specificity. They are totally safe and non-invasive. They are rapid tests and will take less than 10 to 15 minutes There is no great discomfort

Now artificial intelligence is coming in As I told you, the retina is the only place where you can look at the blood vessels. You can now see how blood is flowing AI is now able to compute miniscule micron level changes on the retinal vasculature and predict if the person is going to develop renal disease, cardiac disease or neurological disease. Google is working on this 

Will exclusive ophthalmologic diagnostic centres in public space, just like the scan centres available now, help in bringing down the diagnostic cost?

There are centers like that in Chennai itself but that does not make it any cheaper and does not reduce the cost to the pa ent eventually What we all have to work towards is increasing the paying capacity of the general popula on.

outlet will not be able to diagnose it They can only tell you if the vision is normal or not So it would be much be er to visit an ophthalmologist and get a proper eye test, par cularly for anybody over 40 years of age.

Can cataract be prevented?

Cataract is an aging process It varies across races For the Indian race, cataract occurrence between the age of 65 and 75 is the most common It could come earlier or later But the point is, you cannot prevent cataract It can be dealt with

Does yoga help in preventing eye diseases like cataract and glaucoma?

Yoga will make you healthy and be er health will reduce a lot of diseases But, I don’t believe that yoga is going to reduce the chances of developing cataract or glaucoma

 The common misconception is that we are getting rays from cell phones and laptops. There are no rays coming out from any of these products.

Are contact lenses safe? How often are they to be changed?

Contact lenses are safe if they are clean; unsafe, if dirty The person who's using it either has not been trained to maintain it or has become lackadaisical in the maintenance. That's where it starts to go haywire Usually, we prescribe monthly disposable lenses To be 100% safe, you can use daily disposable lenses but it’s a li le expensive and absolutely safe. But contact lens is only a temporary solu on If you are looking for permanent solu ons, go for Lasik

How safe is it to do eye testing in optical retail outlets? Why does the government permit this?

Yes, it is safe and you can't get into any trouble because of that, because tes ng vision is just one part of tes ng the eye If you come to the doctor, the vision will be tested, intraocular pressure will be tested and the op c nerve and all the structures of the eye will be looked at by the doctor If something is not alright, then further tests will be done So you're able to stop a problem at the first level. But imagine a person has got early glaucoma. The op cal

How do computers, mobiles and other devices impact vision?

The common misconcep on is that we are ge ng rays from cell phones and laptops. There are no rays coming out from any of these products All over the world, myopia is on the increase and which is corrected with minus power glasses Why is that on the increase? One explana on that is given is that evolu on wise, we were hunters always looking at the distance and that brings in

myopia Today, we look closely at the text books, laptops and mobile phones To counter this, a growing child needs at least one to two hours of natural sunlight exposure. We must encourage our kids to go out and play and get more exposure to sunlight

The reason why a doctor normally advises not to use a cell phone is it is too small and because it is smaller, we bring it closer and that causes eye strain. It is be er to work on a laptop or a desktop computer than working on the mobile We have to learn to live with these products All of us are going to use computers a lot and people in the so ware industry must follow the 20:20 rule. Every 20 minutes, get up and stop working. Look at the distance for 20 seconds That's what we want you to do

Twenty‐five years ago, I've sent my people to get trained there for one whole month and we tried to replicate it here But none of these exercises can reduce the glass power. Let's be very clear. But these exercises really do wonders for non‐specific discomforts There's no harm in doing that and it probably does some good But if your aim is to reducing or ge ng rid of your glasses, it doesn't work.

How safer is Lasik? If safe, why do many ophthalmologists wear glasses?

How do you promote patient education?

We have a whole bunch of YouTube and Instagram videos for pa ent educa on That's the easiest way to reach out to the popula on.

In Pondicherry, there is an organization that can treat the eye problems through a simple two weeks session using ball and oil. Is it useful to take the session?

I wear glasses and that’s for reading Anybody over 40 needs to wear glasses for reading. Lasik is safe and it works as of now, with close to 99.8% success rate, for distant vision. Not for reading and that’s why most doctors con nue to wear glasses My daughter‐in‐law has Lasik done by me My daughter has undergone Lasik and it is very safe as long as your cornea is fit to undergo the treatment Lasik is about 30 years old Now we have got something called SMILE, which has taken out all the small niggling issues in Lasik. There are different technologies available and depending on the technology that's used, it can cost anywhere between 50K and 60K 

Mr Vijay Parthasarathy

Brand Specialist, Mind Coach and Motivational Speaker

Afew weeks ago, you might have seen in the media a story about a young man, 27-yearsold, who went to retrieve a ring his sister had dropped on the tin roof Unfortunately, while trying to retrieve the ring, he got electrocuted and had to have all four limbs amputated. Fast forward a year. He did not lie down in bed but cleared the toughest exam, the CAT, and was on his way to IIM, Ahmedabad This incident made me realize that we may not have control over what happens to us, but we have 100% control over how we respond to it

There is a commonality that runs across all great organ‐isations: They have a structured set of systems and processes institutionalised as a template a magical stairway the Golden Ladder.

In 2020, thousands of companies collapsed due to Covid-19, and major disruptions occurred However, there were a select few who weathered the storm of not just one but multiple crises like the Spanish flu, the bubonic plague, and the Great Depression. They keep growing What is it that they do so different to stand apart from the rest? Having been privileged to be a part of them like Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Colgate Palmolive, The TATA group, Unilever, I recognised that there is a commonality that runs across all of them. They have a structured set of systems and processes that they have institutionalised as a template. I refer to this commonality as the Golden Ladder, a path that leads to being unstoppable

The Golden Ladder is a magical stairway, ascending which allows organisations to overcome any adversity and calamity It has two legs The left leg, which the majority of the world focuses on, includes education, technology, experience, expertise, products, benefits, features, and money. It's like chasing a magical rainbow, heading towards the end of the horizon that may or

may not exist Interestingly, most of the world operates on flawed business models without realizing it They operate on the left leg.

On the other hand, legends of the world embrace a different business model That's the first thing they do differently While the majority of the world remains unaware of the relevance and importance of the other leg, the right leg, it is actually the most powerful instrument we possess without an instruction manual It is the mind This mind can propel us to the heights of success or the depths of despair depending on how we use it. The legends recognize the power of energizing, powering, and anchoring these two legs together in a symbiotic manner. This is what makes them ascend the Golden Ladder.

Golden Ladder is a Process

Every single legend that I have talked about in ‘The Golden Ladder’ has been on this planet longer than the combined longevity of the four organisations Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft That is the power they

bring. Every individual in the world deserves an opportunity to be at a place where he/she can be unstoppable. My objective is that we must try and provide this opportunity. The golden ladder is just a process towards the final destination which is to be unstoppable

We would have come across phrases like "the power of visualization" or "the power of the subconscious mind" but it is of no use if we don't know the exact process to follow in order to achieve them I have attempted to provide a detailed five-step visualization

 Every individual in the world deserves an opportunity to be at a place where he/she can be unstoppable. My objective is that we must try and provide this opportunity.

process that allows you to manifest every desire you have It's important to note that I didn't stumble upon these concepts overnight; rather, I learned from the true masters in every field over the course of several years. I witnessed their achievements and experienced the results in my own life I had a first-hand perspective when a company's market share plummeted from 37% to 7% in just three weeks, only to rise back to 35% within a year I also witnessed a successful corporate CEO, aged 45, succumb to anxiety disorders and depression, but then bounce back stronger than ever in less than three years

There is a commonly held belief that what we experience between the ages of zero to seven defines us. I invite you to challenge that notion. There is a possibility that there could be a secret code capable of reprogramming the subconscious mind, enabling you to achieve the impossible. I genuinely believe that we owe it to ourselves to constantly strive to become the best version of ourselves and pass that legacy to future generations By making incremental changes, we can make a significant difference in the world. 

Indians are good, have been trained in the art of handling paradoxes apparent contradictions where something is true but the opposite is also true. In many cultures around the world, you're taught to choose between contradictions Whereas in India, we live with them I think it's a product of our rich history, culture, diversity and everything else.

Vijay talks about three qualities that can give the shield of protective armour and has given examples of Phil Knight, Steve Jobs and Viktor Frankl The three qualities are resilience; mentorship and coaching; and humility. Resilience is the ability to plough through difficulties It's very tempting to give up at some stage But success comes to those who plough through things.

Mr Muktesh "Micky" Pant

Former CEO, Yum China, Washington DC

Many Indian executives have succeeded in America, the most recent example being Ajay Banga. It's a pleasure to watch the largest technology companies in the world by far Microsoft, Google and IBM all being run by Indians. I believe that

I remember when I was thrown into the world of management, we were getting two distinct streams of advice One stream of advice said that you must listen to everybody, learn from everyone, ask a lot of questions, see what others are doing and copy the best behaviours Equally, in the discipline of marketing, we were told that we must have a point of view, know what we're doing and be firm. These are apparent contradictions In Western and other cultures, people will often choose one or the other style In fact, they are not contradictory. At the highest level, they're complementary. You develop resilience if you have both a good point of view and the ability to listen to other people

Work on the Strengths

Humility is recognizing that we are not perfect, that we don't know everything and that we should not be afraid to change our minds. But we do need a strong working hypothesis of what we're going to do. From my personal experience, when it comes to running a

company or a brand or dealing with people, there are broadly two approaches in any situation. The first approach is to take the strengths that are working and to build on those The other approach is to identify the problems and fix those problems. In my experience, the first works and the second fails

Strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin I've had many executives who are for example, creative and they're not analytical. You can say they're not analytical and it's a weakness. They can never make a CFO but they can make a very good marketing manager because they are creative. If you take that person and send them to courses to understand analytics and to teach them how to be more organized, it often fails If you have a rabbit, don't try to teach it to swim. Find somebody else to do the swimming.

I found that in life and also in brands, particularly when I was running KFC Everybody used to criticise me from my family to my friends as to how I can sell fried chicken that is supposedly bad for the heart. I told them that Colonel Sanders who invented KFC at the age of 66, lived to be 90 and he used to eat it every day He had heart trouble and it was 60 years ago when heart medicines were not that advanced. The fried chicken’s strength is the great taste and the weaknesses is the

health implication If you remove the strength, you lose the weakness also So I realized that instead of focusing on the weaknesses, I must focus on my strengths. We must have an idea of what we want to do, but we must be open to other’s coaching and mentorship 

Mr Supratim Bose

Global medtech leader & management consultant, Former Group Chairman, Johnson & Johnson, MedTech Asia Pacific, Singapore

When Ted Lovett wrote the seminal essay on marketing myopia, many people, for the first time, were prompted to ask the question, "What business are you really in?" I have come from a company that was well diversified like Johnson & Johnson. Today, I am the CEO of a robotics company. When I look at the robot, the first thing that comes to mind is, "What business am I in?" The robot looks exactly like what you see in Star Wars movies It has forearms and assists surgeons in performing surgeries.

Coming from the medtech industry, initially, we focused on the technical aspects of the product, trying to understand its features and how it would outperform others. However, as we delved deeper into understanding our purpose in this business, we started asking, "How does the patient benefit, and what do patients say when using medtech products?" We were accustomed to speaking with the surgeons who used our products and hospitals where our products were implemented At J&J, they say, "We are in the business of saving human lives and restoring the joy of life."

 Strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin. I've had many executives who are for example, creative and they're not analytical.

Now, think about it When you perform surgery on a patient or implant a device, you are essentially working to restore the patient's joy in life. This is closely tied to emotions When you visit a hospital and see a child about to undergo surgery, simply holding the child's hand and providing reassurance that everything will be alright that is the business we are in This mindset should be applied to every child seen in a hospital, transforming the way we perceive our own businesses. For many of us coming from scientific and technological backgrounds, the IQ aspect is well

understood We can utilize various formats and graphs to explain things However, it is crucial that we train our people to understand the human aspect. By doing so, we will quickly identify the true nature of our business Surprisingly, the product features and benefits should only constitute about 5% of what we do The first step is to create awareness and convey that the person is in the best and most capable hands because we are in the business of saving lives

It is the responsibility of medtech companies to train physicians, and robotic surgery training is one of the most critical aspects that must be undertaken before anyone can perform robotic surgery on a patient The next step is to explore how we can extend these benefits to more people. We must adapt to healthcare systems worldwide. In the US, healthcare expenditure accounts for almost 18% of the GDP, while in India, it is around 3%. However, we must remember that we continue to do this work because we want to create better outcomes for patients Affordability becomes a factor to consider In short, for each one of us building a business, if we answer this question of ‘why we are in the business?’ correctly, we will ensure the long-lasting success of our endeavours 

 However, it is crucial that we train our people to understand the human aspect. By doing so, we will quickly identify the true nature of our business.

Mr Babu Krishnamoorthy: Naval Ravikant is an Indian born American, who has made it big in the US Silicon Valley He is very much a part of the success of Silicon Valley over the last two decades and has made some priced bets on companies like Uber and hundred other companies. Man's quest in life is to find money, because money provides the security that we all need The other quest is to find happiness If somebody has money and happiness, he or she doesn't need to look for anything else. The book is a distilled wisdom from Naval Ravikant’s tweets, compiled and elaborated by the author. The book is divided into two parts: the pursuit of money and the pursuit of happiness. While we believe that money begets happiness, the author says that both are entirely different We see a lot of very rich, yet miserable people.

I defined retirement as a period of financial freedom in some form But the author defines it into three distinct categories and says that you achieve retirement when either of three conditions is achieved. First, you are able to generate a set of passive income

Getting rich and being happy may seem out of the world, but these are skills we can learn Mr Babu Krishnamoorthy, Chief Sherpa, Finsherpa Investments Pvt Ltd led the conversation with Mr Chandrashekar Kupperi, Founder ‐ ANOVA Corporate Services Pvt Ltd and Mr Rajesh Devaraj, Co‐Founder, Uniform Craft Pvt Ltd

without having to go to work. Second, you reduce your needs to a point where you lead a monk like existence and whatever you have is enough for that need Third, you enjoy the work so much that money becomes very incidental. The pdf version of the book is available as a free download.

Mr Chandrashekar Kupperi: There are three big things in life wealth, health and happiness We pursue them in this order. But Naval Ravikant says that the importance is in the reverse order and the most important trick to be happy is to realize that happiness is a choice that we make and a skill that we develop It means everything comes from us. When we develop skill, we can make it a habit. To my knowledge, when we take an action, there are only three results The first result is, it can exceed the expectations, which is super exciting. Second, it can just meet the expectations. Third, it can fall short of expectations The book says give your maximum attention to the first choice, accept the second and leave the third. Simply put, change the changeable, accept the unchangeable and exit the

unacceptable areas which may not be your cup of tea

He also talks about happiness as an emergent property of peace. All of us go through certain helpless situations in our life We need to learn to be peaceful I want to quickly share an incident.

Arrange the Mind

I went to Hyderabad to meet my cousin and we had to meet a common friend On the way, my cousin wanted to drop an uncle, who was just moving into a senior living home. This elderly person got into the car. He was a 70 year old gentleman with tremendous corporate experience and amazing fluency in English. He was sharing his experiences and also spoke about the generation gap I realized he was so happy When we went into that senior living home, a lady came and asked him, “Sir, can I show you the room?” The elderly man said, “No, I'm going to simply occupy the room. Just give me the key ”

My cousin hesitated and said, “Uncle Can we look at the room to see how the furniture is arranged.” But

 You can take a good decision and have a bad outcome if you were unlucky or you could take a bad decision and still get a good outcome if you are lucky.

~ Mr Rajesh Devaraj

uncle just looked at my cousin and said, “My happiness does not depend on how the furniture is arranged It depends on how I arrange my mind.” He thanked us and said, “Happiness is not something that I postpone for the future It is something I design for the present Happiness is something I decide even before the event happens.” This was so touching and revealing.

Mr Rajesh Devaraj: I have always been fascinated by the interplay of skill and luck You can take a good decision and have a bad outcome if you were unlucky

~

or you could take a bad decision and still get a good outcome if you are lucky. We must figure out and learn from mistakes and go forward. The book talks about getting rich without getting lucky It also says that you must start with specific knowledge and be accountable.

Caught in the middle

In 2001, I was part of a delegation which went to Germany for a trade fair. There, all the large stalls of 3000 to 4000 square feet were occupied by companies making premium products and just showcasing one particular product category. They were specialists, so to speak. The smallest stores had ten different categories that were packed into a small area located in alleys Seeing that, it was very clear to me that I must be a specialist and not a jack of all trades.

When I came back to India, I set up a company called Fineyarns It was a trading company I wanted to be part of the supply chain that supplies to specialists in Europe, because I knew they were sourcing from India. We positioned us in a niche area. It was a good starting point I researched to see who the manufacturers were, find our own talents and buy fine contents. The business took off but in 2007, there was a global event and the dollar crashed substantially against the rupee

I was in the middle of a trade where I was both a buyer and a seller As a seller, if I honoured the contract, I would lose 11 lakh rupees. The big buyers generally had more clout in the market and they started to renegotiate the contract My seller said that that he would stick to the contract terms and I had no choice but to buy.

As an agent, I am morally responsible for the contract, but not financially But I took the call and bridged that gap I passed on 5 5 lakhs to my buyer, which was a very big decision at that time. This made me an outlier agent. I gained a lot of trust, both as a seller and a buyer I became the go-to agent for both of them My business doubled since then and grew steeply over the next five years.

When the author talks about specific knowledge, he means that you must leverage your strengths in such a way that you can position yourself in the market and differentiate from mass competition. If you stay the course long enough, if you're patient and build a trusted marketplace, you will get rewarded The compounding comes at the very end.

For me, for the first five years, it was a very gradual, linear growth. But one event there changed the course of my business It resulted in my business growing by three times over the next five years. There was no luck factor.

Mr Babu Krishnamoorthy: Easy choices bring a hard life and hard choices bring about an easy life I am reminded of the marshmallow experiment that Stanford University did way back in the 70s. In that experiment, five or six year old children were left inside a room and a marshmallow, which is a sweet dish, was placed in front of each child. The children were told that the facilitator would step out of the room for a few minutes

 Easy choices bring a hard life and hard choices bring about an easy life.

Mr Babu Krishnamoorthy

and they were free to eat the sweet But when the facilitator returned and the children held up the temptation to eat, they would be given one more sweet.

50% of the kids succumbed to the temptation, the moment the facilitator walked out. In a later study by Stanford tracking the same children, they found out that those who were able to resist the temptation when they were five or six years old, were far more successful in life, than those who had succumbed to the temptation Naval also says that if you take the tougher choices to start with, then life progressively gets easier. At some point, you will have to suffer. We can either choose the pain of discipline or the pain of regret Going to a gym or dieting is painful But it is less painful than the pain of regret. You may regret having a health problem when you could have solved it by being healthier These are choices that are available

Mr Chandrashekar Kupperi: Naval says, ‘Be impatient with actions but patient with the results.’ Unfortunately in today's world, instant gratification is what our youth prefer I was with Exxon Mobil, moved to KPMG and then joined a midsize business. In the midsize businesses, the shareholders were putting equity into businesses I never realized there are two beautiful gains from equities One is a capital gain that happens when you sell it at an opportune time. Second, you receive dividends from standard companies, which do well Naval says seek wealth, not money or status He defines wealth as having assets that earn while you sleep and if you want to create wealth, you need to own equity. Five years back, I became an angel investor and started investing in various startups Fortunately, I made some profitable exits. That gave me the confidence that I should start my own fund called the Angel Venture Capital Fund

Naval’s philosophy is that you must earn with your

mind, not with your time Specific knowledge is all about understanding the technical aspects and being creative. It is something that cannot be outsourced or automated. Specific knowledge is found when you pursue your genuine curiosity and passion Steve Jobs said, ‘Do what you love ’ Also, when we love what we do, it becomes a play. We should be better than what we are good at and become the best in the world at what we do

Mr Rajesh Devaraj: While I was into trading, my wife was manufacturing uniforms for the hospital industry and doing customized uniforms for the large hospitals. Over a period of time, we picked up a lot of mid and small sized accounts Serving them through a customized format was very efficient. That's the default format in which the market works. At some point, we decided that if we were to mass produce through an assembly line setup and do a stock-and -sell kind of format, we’d probably be a runaway success. We acted on it and rolled it out but to our surprise, there were very few takers

The small clinics found it easier to ask a tailor to come and provide them with customize uniforms and service, whenever they needed But during Covid, our business model got validated and our ecommerce became much bigger than the B2B business that we were doing. As Naval says, if you're in a space long enough, you will find associations with whom you can build trust and you can leverage on that trust

On the happiness side, I recall reading a book by a psychologist from Harvard, called Susan David. She says that between stimulus and response, there is a space and in that space, you have a choice In that choice, lies your freedom and growth. For me, the quality of relationships makes a big difference to your baseline happiness index

Mr Chandrashekar Kupperi: Naval focusses on health and says that peace of body will lead to peace of mind He advises against consuming food which is cooked for a longer time. I believe that when we nourish our health, we flourish Specific knowledge can't be acquired in schools or colleges You can get it through internship and apprenticeship. According to Naval, every desire is a chosen unhappiness. You must focus on the most

relevant happiness for you It's okay to suffer to achieve that Bhagavad Gita says that detachment is not that you own nothing but nothing owns you. The greatest detachment is being closer to everything and not letting anything consume or own you While we all want money, we should never have lust for money According to Naval, inspiration is perishable. So once we get the inspiration, we should work on it and get it done. 

At what age, should we start financial literacy?

Chandrasekhar: Whenever you're ready There is no age to get into financial literacy. Put yourself into con nuous educa on.

Babu: It's important to know about investment concepts, even while you're at school Unfortunately, we didn't have that educa on when we were in school but the new na onal educa on policy talks about financial literacy at a school level

How can we overcome societal pressures and expectations regarding wealth accumulation?

Chandrasekhar: Acquiring wealth is a skill and an art. Luck is labour under correct knowledge. To overcome societal pressures, you must acquire wealth ethically and the author says that ethical wealth is possible

How can we create a sense of purpose and fulfillment beyond financial success?

Babu: Sense of purpose can be interpreted as passion If you love what you're doing, then the earning becomes a bonus

How do wealth and happiness relate to each other?

Chandrasekhar: They are an unbeatable combina on Money in the hands of good people can create a lot more goodness in the society

Unfortunately, the wealth some mes goes in the hands of wrong people. Therefore, to me, wealth and happiness is one great bundle.

Babu: For our basic needs, we need wealth but happiness is a basic

necessity If you're happy following the passion in your heart, then wealth will automa cally follow at some level A certain amount of money is important. But happiness is even more important.

As a youngster, we fall into a loop of negative spiral. How can we come out of that spiral?

Chandrasekhar: One of the best ways is to choose and have certain mentors for yourself. Mentors do not necessarily have grey hair. They are somebody who you will look up to A mentor could be even your classmate who gives you certain pearls of wisdom

My friend said that richness is not earning more, not spending more, not saving more. One should say, ‘I need no more, ’ and that's what richness is.’ What is your viewpoint?

Chandrasekhar: We live in a prac cal world. It’s nice to say that you can be beyond all this but if you need to do be er things to the outside world, you need money in your hands Good people need to have the amazing ability of making wealth, because more goodness can happen through them.

You spoke about specific knowledge. But today with the rapidly changing technology, innovation and generative AI, acquiring specific knowledge is a big task. How can we manage this?

Chandrasekhar: Naval recommends perpetual learning When he speaks about specific knowledge, he uses two words. It has to be technical and it has to be crea ve. It has to be so crea ve that it can't be automated or outsourced. That’s why we must become the best in our field 