EXCLUSIVE: Mukesh & Nita Ambani/ 4 February, 2007

'It is a wonderful time to be Indian and to be young'
Gayatri Jayaraman
[4 Feb, 2007 l 2003 hrs ISTlTIMES NEWS NETWORK]

Nita and Mukesh Ambani reflect on India being Poised for change, what the Corus acquisition means for India's place in the world, and the power of the youth.

The Inner Wheel Women's meet on Friday night in Mumbai resounded with the cry originally raised by the Times of India's India Poised campaign Our Time Is Now.

Emphasising the need to push for social change and exemplifying how everyone could be a part of it with instances from her own life was keynote speaker Nita Ambani.

Husband Mukesh Ambani was quietly supportive in the audience he first modestly said,"It's Nita's day. Let me not speak." But when urged, Mukesh and Nita spoke jointly to DT in this exclusive interview...

What is your message to the youth poised for a changing India today?

Mukesh: My message to the youth today is to be prepared for the change that is to come. India today is poised for change on a scale that we have never imagined. What we are talking about as taking place now is nothing. The boom we are witnessing now is nothing. India is poised to catapult into a completely new era. You and I cannot imagine or predict the progress India will see in the next 20 to 30 years.

Nita: Look within yourself for motivation. I can only look within my own life and draw from what I was taught by my own family. I was brought up in a middle class joint family and learned responsibility at a young age from my parents, brothers and sisters.

My uncle was blind and so was my grandmother. So all of us siblings took turns reading to them, or helping, taking them out, etc. I learned from small things.

Then, when I met Mukesh, I was prepared for the larger challenges building the Jamnagar township, schools, planting Asia's largest mango orchard in dry arid desert... And my greatest guru of course was my father-in-law, the late Dhirubhai Ambani.

What is the single most important area youth need to focus on to create change today?

Mukesh: The single most important thing we need, why just the youth, all of us as a society, is to change our mindset. We need to change the way we think. We need to find that motivation and drive from within and think progressively. That is the way youth will create the change they want to see in society.
Nita: It really distresses me that healthcare and primary education are not where they could be. I would like to see a day when every child gets to attend a primary school, and every woman gets healthcare, and where farmers get fair prices, especially considering the spate of farmer suicides.

When our economy booms, what we need to see is that literacy rates go up and unemployment rates go down, that is the only path to prosperity.

Given the booming sensex, and now the Corus acquisition, what does this mean for India's place in the world today?

Mukesh: The focus is now on India. In fact, more and more people are coming back to India.

Our businesses are drawing back the talent that people once thought was only available in the West. It is a wonderful time to be Indian and over and above that to be young.

In fact, I am beginning to regret that I belong to an older generation. I wish I was younger to experience it when it happens. This is the time to be young. This is when it is all happening. Nita: I always look to my children for these answers not just my own but those in all my schools. I have learned the most from them – even when children are ill, they teach you so much with how they cope with and react to life and society.

The youth are an empowered generation. Young children in my school have made a film against child labour. The youth think radically today and are ready to create the change they want to see.

With the growth in the economy, it is important for corporations to increasingly become socially responsible and to see themselves also as social corporate citizens. As we progress, we need to consider the environment, healthcare, primary education.

We have a lot to draw from, that gives us advantages over the West our culture, our spirituality, our intelligence gives us the backbone that will support our economic growth.