Hyundai India Prez Ashok Jha unravels financial intricacies at JRE

The financial sector is never short of surprises; more so, in a developing and heterogeneous nation such as India where markets are continually influenced by endless number of political, geographical and socio-economical fluctuations. Explaining such various financial complexities requires acumen and experience; so when Mr. Ashok Jha, the President of Hyundai India spoke upon the current Indian financial scenario at JRE on March 29, 2012; students were certainly in for an intellectual treat of sorts!

He started off with a wisdom-filled quote from noted Nobel Prize winning Indian economist, Amartya Sen, which went -- “The frustrating thing about India is that whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite also holds true simultaneously.” Terming India to be a ‘Land of Paradoxes,’ full of poverty on one side and billionaires on the other, he shared with enthused JRE students precious insights that many would envy. He held a positive view with regards to the Indian democratic setup, where free elections, free speech and civil liberties have managed to remain in existence; and added that democracy nevertheless came with its benefits…such as the elimination of famines which had never been eradicated during the British rule.

He pointed out that our economy has been on a roll despite a glaringly huge economic gap between the Rural and the Urban Indian setup. He also struck a positive note regarding the Indian educational setup, maintaining that although one- thirds of the population is still illiterate, India still has a large, well educated and highly trained population that provides skilled labour across a variety of fields. He added that in order to fill such crucial gaps across what he termed as the ‘Rural Bharat and the Rich India’, one needed to focus upon bringing to reality ‘Financial Inclusion’ across 3 sectors; namely, the Banking Sector, the Stock Exchange, and Microfinance.

In conclusion, he highlighted the need to focus upon generating more capital; by allowing for more banks to be set-up all across the country. He also added that the monopoly of the NSE and the BSE was gratuitous, and that setting up of regional stock exchanges was a need of the hour, a task ignored since many decades. His wisdom-filled words helped JRE students to thoroughly know and understand upcoming opportunities in the financial sector, along with ideas to help build an economically powerful nation!