00:02Esteemed guests, distinguished speakers, good morning.
00:10A very warm welcome to you to the 23rd edition of the India Today conclave.
00:18As you heard, it's also a special occasion since India Today magazine has completed 50 years of publication.
00:27If you look at what the India Today group is today, you will see a multimedia powerhouse reaching the minds
00:40of 750 million people.
00:44Yet it also began with a single magazine, as you've heard.
00:49The fountainhead from which everything flowed.
00:53A foundation now 50 years deep.
00:57As Editor-in-Chief through this half century, I've had the privilege of watching history unfold from a ringside seat.
01:06Over these decades, I've seen a nation capable of dramatic transformation.
01:12From a country that was not only an LDC, less developed country, but a RDC, a refused to develop country,
01:21India has now become one of the world's fastest growing major economies.
01:26That journey has seen us pass through terrorism, social upheaval, polarization, riots, assassinations, national disasters, and even wars.
01:39Yet, we have endured.
01:43Above all, we have survived as a democracy, imperfect, but resilient.
01:49And that alone is reason enough for gratitude and pride.
01:55This year, it seems the Conclave has a date with history.
01:59The theme for the Conclave, breakthroughs and breakdowns, was decided many months ago.
02:05Little did we know that a full-scale war would be erupting not so far from us, to remind us
02:13of how fragile global stability is.
02:18On the one hand, it messed up our Conclave program, as many of our foreign speakers were unable to travel.
02:26On the other hand, what better time to take stock of the world, without illusion and reflect on where we
02:33are heading.
02:34That has always been the purpose of the Conclave.
02:38We are living through one of the most extraordinary times.
02:42Breakthroughs in human history, you might have heard of it, artificial intelligence.
02:47Yet, we are witnessing the oldest breakdown of human civilization, war.
02:53Scientific discovery, technological capability, and economic power are advancing at breathtaking speed.
03:01At the same time, institutions are fraying, norms are weakening, and the global order is crumbling.
03:09That, ladies and gentlemen, is the paradox of our times.
03:13While our intelligence has become artificial, our instincts can still be primitive.
03:21We are living in an age where a single miscalculation, whether diplomatic or technological change, can erase years of progress.
03:30And ironically, some of our most advanced technologies are already shaping how modern wars are being conducted.
03:39Progress and disruption are no longer sequential.
03:43They are simultaneous.
03:45Artificial intelligence has moved from experimentation to deployment.
03:49It is reshaping productivity, creativity, governance, and everyday life.
03:56Capabilities once reserved for large organizations are now available to individuals.
04:03India stands to benefit enormously from this transformation.
04:07With our scale, skills, and digital public infrastructure, we are well placed to convert innovation into opportunity.
04:17We are no longer merely consuming technology, we are beginning to shape it.
04:23Yet technology can also produce breakdowns.
04:26AI raises difficult questions about work, inequality, and social stability.
04:34Productivity gains do not automatically translate into shared prosperity.
04:39If societies generate wealth faster than they generate inclusion, progress can easily turn into regression.
04:49AI is like fire.
04:51It can cook your food or burn your house down.
04:55Deep fakes can destroy reputations in seconds.
04:58Algorithms can polarize societies faster than we can repair them.
05:03If we exchange our values for efficiency, we lose.
05:08In all this turbulence and transformation, we must remain anchored in our ethics and our independence of judgment.
05:18As an aside, I am sometimes asked whether a robot will one day replace the editor of India today.
05:26My wife might say a robot who does her bidding without question would certainly be easier to live with.
05:33But journalism is not only about processing information.
05:37It is about sensing reality, the atmosphere, the voices, the sentiments, the tensions of a moment.
05:46No machine can fully replicate that.
05:50AI will help journalists to tell richer stories, but a human must remain in the driving seat with one foot
05:58on the brake.
06:00So I think I will still have a job, and my wife will continue to suffer me until AI improves.
06:08Globalization, once the engine of growth, is under strain.
06:13Supply chains are fragmenting.
06:16Trade is becoming politicized.
06:18Efficiency is increasingly being sacrificed to the altar of security.
06:24Yet, there is also a breakthrough hidden within this disruption.
06:29President Trump's bid to reassert American dominance in his second term has, without doubt,
06:36resulted in the world becoming more multipolar, more contested and more fluid.
06:41For countries like India, this creates space, economic, diplomatic and strategic.
06:49Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ensured that India's voice carries greater weight today than any time in our post-independence
06:57history.
06:59But there are deeper breakdowns we must confront.
07:01Climate change is no longer a distant threat.
07:05It is a present reality.
07:08Extreme weather, water stress and food insecurity are already reshaping economies and politics.
07:16The tragedy is that solutions are available, but that collective resolve remains inadequate.
07:22And then there is the erosion of trust.
07:25Trust in institutions.
07:28Trust in information.
07:30Trust in leadership.
07:33Democracies rarely collapse overnight.
07:36They weaken gradually when conversation gives way to shouting, when disagreement becomes disloyalty,
07:43and when facts become optional.
07:47Democracy needs oxygen.
07:49And that oxygen is free speech and a vibrant media.
07:53That is why platforms like the India Day Conclave matter.
07:58For more than two decades, this gathering has brought together leaders, thinkers and critics, not to manufacture agreement, but to
08:08sharpen understanding.
08:10In an age defined by breakthroughs and breakdowns, the role becomes even more important.
08:16The defining question before us is not whether the world will change.
08:21It already has.
08:23The real question are whether we can convert breakthroughs into lasting progress without triggering dangerous breakdowns.
08:31Can innovation co-exist with inclusion?
08:36Can growth align with sustainability?
08:40Can power be exercised with restraint?
08:43Over the next two days, you will hear some answers, some optimistic, some unsettling, and some sharply opposed.
08:53That is exactly the point.
08:55Listen closely, argue vigorously, disagree respectfully.
09:02Because in times like these, the greatest danger is not disruption, it is complacency.
09:08Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to breakthroughs and breakdowns at the India Day Conclave 2026.
09:16Thanks.
09:17.
09:17.
09:18.
09:18.
09:18?
09:18?
09:20?
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