- 4 days ago
Sujeet Kumar, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, speaks with Meda Parameswara Reddy, Scientist and Inventor, and Director of Reddy Center for Critical and Integrated Thinking | SAM Dialogues with Dr. M P Reddy
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00:07Welcome to my show S.A.M. Dialogues with Dr. M.P. Reddy. This is my third show in the
00:15series and I
00:16had the honor of having two distinguished guests in the past in the first two shows. One was a
00:23Padma Shri awardee and the other one was a Padma Poshan awardee. Today I have Member of Parliament
00:29as a guest on my show. I am extremely honored to have him as my guest. Let me tell a
00:36little
00:37bit about myself before introducing my guest. I started out my PhD in Indian Institute of Science
00:46Bangalore before moving to Johns Hopkins University for a postdoctoral fellowship and then I joined
00:54medical diagnostics industry and there I obtained 30 U.S. patents and finally retired from there
01:00as Director of Research and Development and very recently I became very very passionate about the
01:07whole field of publication industry and communicating with the society and the show is a part of that.
01:14Now let me introduce our guest, Mr. Sujit Kumar, Member of Parliament. I am so honored to have you
01:24sir on my show. Okay and you have a highly illustrious educational background as well as your career. Okay
01:35you started out as an engineer. You started out as an engineer by education and then you pursued your
01:40further education in the University of Oxford for MBA degree and then you got masters in public
01:49administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and in terms of career you started out at Infosys as a
01:57software engineer. You became a software engineer and then you became a Supreme Court lawyer and eventually
02:04became a member of parliament. What a journey and there is one thing I particularly personally liked about
02:13you that is your social entrepreneurship. That matters to me a lot. I love that. Okay so you all in
02:22all
02:23you have a great career both educational as well as professional career and our our show will have two segments.
02:32The first one is going to be namesake ready dialogues. That's what name of the show is
02:39and there I will have about six questions for you more like six topics to discuss and we can you
02:47can spend about
02:47two to three minutes. And the second one is going to be a very rapid segment. I call it ready
02:54rapid fire.
02:55There it will be like 30 to 60 seconds. If you want to compare analogy wise the first one is
03:02a super fast train
03:04not a slow train and the second one is going to be a bullet train. Okay so no relaxing even
03:12in the first show.
03:12Okay but as a smart person with the intelligent person with so much diversified background you will not have any
03:20problem in dealing with this.
03:23Okay okay my first question very obvious. Namaste to you and to all your viewers.
03:29Such an honor for me to be on your show. Thank you for having me. You know I i'm not
03:34as
03:34distinguished as the previous two guests but nevertheless you know i'm uh i'm honored and humbled to be to be
03:41on this show.
03:43Yes i can definitely see being humble. You used the correct word. You are being humble. Thank you very much.
03:52I'm kind of turn it around and saying in a different way but you are a humble person. I can
03:57see that.
03:57I'm so happy. And now the first question is about your personal journey. What a remarkable and incredible journey.
04:07such a great trajectory starting with very humble beginnings and if you traverse through so many
04:13educational backgrounds and then engineer lawyer and so much so much we'll talk about it. Please tell me
04:22what motivated you to go through all that? Has it been a smooth ride or a roller coaster ride? Please
04:31share with us.
04:33God has been kind to me Dr. Ledy. Devshini has really been kind to me. But it has not been
04:41a smooth ride. Not at all. It has been a mixture of extreme hard work, persistence,
04:51the jeal and the burning desire to achieve something, to get out of the modest background and education has played
05:01its role. So i have been
05:03hugely passionate about about the education and the power of transforming lives through education.
05:10education that has been reflected in my own life. And i use education as a platform, as a tool to
05:18change lives of
05:21if not thousands, at least hundreds of students in the district that i come from.
05:27So growing up i knew that i had to get good education. I had to
05:35achieve something in life very soon so that i get a better platform than what i was born with and
05:43then use
05:44that platform for bigger and higher things in life. Now i also am a very impatient person.
05:52So i always look for different things and this is why you can you see a very very multifaceted career
06:01both in terms of my academics and also in terms of my work. In fact after my MBA i went
06:06to work for
06:07the World Economic Forum in Geneva. From there i went to work as a fellow at the East West Center
06:15in Hawaii.
06:16Not many people are aware of it. So then i went to the Kennedy School for my Martian public admission.
06:22And finally i relocated to India in 2011, got into politics and started my legal career.
06:29And then of course all along right from my childhood until until today i have been very very also involved
06:36with social projects, social issues. So social entrepreneurship has been, i don't call it a career
06:42for me it has been part of my DME. Oh yeah that is your passion that is your passion right
06:47that is
06:47where your heart is it seems like right okay. By the way we will get into that right now that
06:53is a
06:53beautiful segue into the topic which is social entrepreneurship okay. My understanding is you
07:00co-founded Kalinga Kusum Foundation okay and as a part of that a very important part of it is CFC
07:08that is child-friendly constituency in dealing with rural areas and your main objective my understanding
07:16is that you wanted to uplift very vulnerable people such as children, women, tribal populations etc in the
07:25areas of health and welfare you conducted many camps. Please tell us what your success has been in that area
07:34or lack thereof in your assessment. I know that you did get recognition from UNICEF for a innovative
07:44approach so obviously a huge success but i wanted to i wanted you to give me your assessment of it.
07:51Sure Dr. Reddy a disclaimer at the outset so i did found i did find Kalinga Kusum in the year
07:592011
07:592017 but i have moved out of it because i didn't want to have any conflict of interest and because
08:06of quantity of time and because of other factors so i'm not directly involved with Kalinga Kusum
08:12Foundation anymore but i'm there as an advisor as and when they need me. Now social entrepreneurship
08:19is not charity it is not philanthropy so it's basically an approach to empower people that they
08:31can self-govern themselves they can earn livelihood for themselves so it's basically helping them with
08:41guidance with mentorship with initial capital with human resource with marketing access and letting
08:49them become successful entrepreneurs that makes profit as well as brings change in the society.
08:56So the approach is not to just give them doles or handouts and not to perpetuate dependency but to
09:04help them self you know entrepreneurs or create self-implements and in the process you know impact
09:14the community impact the community impact society as well. So the CFC project that you mentioned has been
09:20one of the flagship programs that i'm extremely proud of it was to get legislators to publicly declare that
09:31they would make their constituencies child friendly meaning that every child in their constituency will be
09:40uh better than the national average uh better than the national average whether you talk of uh child
09:45nutrition whether you talk of child marriage whether you talk of uh children enrollment rate dropout rate
09:51in every indicator and parameter in that respective constituency the uh the uh you know the children would be better
10:00than
10:01national average that was the objective and this was uh one of the most innovative projects uh as uh according
10:08to
10:08unicef's own uh you know admission and i'm very very proud of that in addition to that we worked with
10:15about 10 000 women uh to bring digital literacy financial literacy legal literacy uh and basic leadership
10:25skills to women in rural areas uh so we worked with many top it tech giants we worked with governments
10:32and uh this has also been quite a successful initiative uh so there are a couple of couple of initiatives
10:39but
10:39the idea is to uh work with community and and make them uh self-reliant to make them to bring
10:48dignity to
10:49them and in the process in the process help money and also empower the community good for me it sounds
10:56like a great success
10:57you initiated the concept you initiated the concept and you propagated it okay you so so that other
11:03legislators or parliament members or mlas can pursue it it's a minor it's a kind of mentoring motivating
11:11people rather than holding their hand all the time right making them more independent and responsible uh
11:18yeah that is actually more important than holding hands or giving handouts right they won't be very far
11:26yes okay oh that's good thank you very much and now uh coming to a little delicate topic that is
11:33you
11:34pursued the tibetan cause okay uh dealing with the dalai lama and all it is a very sensitive topic
11:42definitely because indian government is more or less in agreement with genius understanding and philosophy
11:49whereas dalai lama has a different way of looking at it so you're working very
11:54closely with dalai lama in a kind of rooting for him okay doing his batting and his behalf and
12:03trying to get him paratha ratna award and also trying to get him come to india and address both chambers
12:11of
12:13parliament both rajasaba and loksaba that was an extraordinary work you you did but however it is
12:21it's a very challenging thing very dicey how did you navigate and walk through that fine line
12:28uh and what what was your experience and what is your assessment of your success
12:36well dr lady again a disclaimer my views on his holiness uh the 14th dalai lama and on the kibetan
12:45issue
12:45are my own uh so these are not necessarily the views of my party the bharata janta party or of
12:53uh
12:53government of india yes in fact government of india has taken the official position that tibet
12:59is part of china yes because government of india subscribes to the one china policy yes but uh i i
13:08i
13:08personally in my own personal capacity i don't subscribe to these as far as i'm concerned tibet
13:14is not a part of china uh tibet has always been an independent nation and in fact i uh have
13:22been
13:22working with the tibetan cause and and with the office of his holiness for a long time now for more
13:27than two decades and i've been supporting the cause and tibet was occupied by china in the 1950s
13:33uh and and and uh this is one of the greatest tragedies of of the 20th century uh china just
13:42walked into china when i say china in the prc and my my fight for the tibetan cause is not
13:48against the
13:49people of china it is against the prc and the ccp the communist party of china and the repression
13:55yes exactly so i have many chinese friends who are extremely you know dear friends of mine so my my
14:01fight is not against them now uh china walked into tibet in the 1950s uh and the whole world was
14:08silent
14:09well india was not in a position at that point of time to really take on china and and the
14:15then
14:16leadership of india uh right from the prime minister kandit nehru to the defense minister to the
14:21you know the establishment they let down tibet and they let down india so they did a series of
14:27lenders when it came to india's policy we service china we service tibet we service kashmir and we
14:35are paying the price for that today and in 1959 his holiness uh escaped tibet and took asylum in india
14:44otherwise there was a plan to assassinate him by the by the by the ccp so he along with thousands
14:51of
14:51his followers supporters they left tibet escaped into india and today we have almost 100 000 tibetans
14:58living uh very very peacefully uh in india for for so many decades yes now i i really feel extremely
15:07pain uh to see what's happening uh in tibet and and to uh tell the world that let's act before
15:17it
15:17becomes too late in the after after in the aftermath of the second world war the whole
15:24the whole world got together to say never again okay right the whole world said that we will not
15:32let such a tragedy such a holocaust again but uh trust me what's happening in tibet and it's not only
15:40tibet even in sinja it's nothing sort of a of a genocide it's nothing of a holocaust you know uh
15:49close to one million tibetan kids are in concentration camps in tibet wow oh that's
15:55you know uighurs uighur muslim kids are in concentration camps in uh in in sinja children
16:04as young as four years old have been taken away from their parents and kept in the so-called
16:07boarding schools with actually concentration camps and so it's a cultural genocide it's an
16:12ethnic cleansing that's going on you know your appreciation and championing the cause
16:17shows the humanitarian side of you okay so you are not pursuing everything from a political interest
16:24point of view okay in fact uh you know it's very convenient for me to to the to to the
16:31line of
16:32government of india which i am that's why i said it's slimmer uh but as uh as uh someone who
16:40understands
16:40the tibetan issue who has widely read on this issue yes and has following this for more than 25 years
16:46now
16:46i have an independent uh you know thought process conviction yes and yeah and and
16:53historically tibetan has never been part of channel oh i i admire you for that okay because not many
16:58politicians do that okay you are in my opinion you are a standout among the politicians who really care
17:05about people and humanity okay so i have to give the credit where it is due thank you very much
17:12very
17:12very good to hear that and now another important point india has been making a lot of progress in
17:19so many sectors particularly i'm talking about the industrial progress okay particularly in the software
17:24sector but most of the progress has been more in the service sector not many major products of
17:31international brand kind of thing so for example we don't have any apple phone developed by india
17:39or nvidia smart chips or google search engine things like that or even in the automobile industry
17:46we don't have a tesla or mercedes kind of thing okay given that india is full of smart people
17:55extremely smart talented people why do you think it is and where do you think india is heading can we
18:03expect some highly internationally recognized products rather than just doing the support in the service
18:11sector what is your read on that well uh i have to go back to uh history a little bit
18:20for for uh to
18:21answer this not already you know uh we uh we opened up in 1991 we initiated economic reforms in 1991
18:29yes china did so in 1979 yes and uh china followed the part of manufacturing when they when they opened
18:40up
18:41when they initiated economic reforms in 1979 they focused on the manufacturing sector yes uh largely
18:48because they didn't have a large pool of english speakers yes at that point in time they didn't have a
18:54large pool of engineers in the in the in the 80s and the 90s when we opened up in 1991
19:00you know
19:01the it sector was was just starting off taking off and because you know uh the the growth of the
19:09indian
19:09it industry actually uh it industry actually uh happened in 1990 yes correct and so in force
19:15the tcs uh though tcs has been in existence for a long time yes uh but and the y2k the
19:22y2k issue
19:23actually helped the indian it industry yes that is correct yes and so we started from body shopping to
19:29becoming the you know these software services provided to the world yes uh and because of the cost
19:36arbitrage you know it was uh it was uh it was it was win-win situation yes so that uh
19:44that because
19:46you know easy money started coming into the industry giants of of those days whether it's wipro or infosys
19:54or tcs or satyam in those days they didn't really focus on building products and the best of you know
20:02honestly the best of minds like uh yourself dr uh were in the us right so in the silicon valley
20:09other places so uh so that also played a role
20:23government of india particularly after 2014 has uh has uh initiated many many schemes whether it's
20:32made in india uh startup india or the pli scheme or budgetary support for msmes for manufacturing sectors
20:43so a lot of focus is going to the manufacturing sector particularly in the defense manufacturing
20:49in the automobiles manufacturing and so on and so forth now in the it industry also there are some
20:55you know uh now now we are in the era of ai uh yeah so i always argue that we
21:02are pretty late in the
21:03game to become you know uh in the sense that can build a chat gpt or a or a mythos
21:10or a cloud or you
21:13know i think we um possibly it may not be wise to focus on building this large language models at
21:19this
21:19point of time but okay but we we are uh definitely capable and we should focus on building contextual
21:28models small applications small products which are very much relevant to our developmental needs
21:33and i think that is what we are focusing on you know the sarvam ai is a great example
21:38bharat gen is another great example which is language software is these are all great examples of
21:44building products which are very very contextual very localized and really relevant to our needs at
21:51this point of time so you are giving a very optimistic view i'm very happy at the beginning you gave
21:57a very
21:58realistic uh post-mortem of the situation and now you are saying we there is a lot of hope we
22:04can
22:04look forward a very optimistic tone i like it i like your candor in assessing the past and giving a
22:11hope
22:12where we are heading that is great with that now let's just jump into what i was calling as a
22:18bullet train
22:18concept okay uh which is the rapid fire segment okay we're going to the second segment rapid fire i was
22:27not
22:27talking about building a bullet trains this is like at the speed of bullet train we'll be approaching
22:33the next next set of questions it's like the bundle yes exactly okay the first question is based on your
22:42extraordinary education and performance including the social entrepreneurship etc etc if the prime minister
22:50modi invites you to his office and offer you a minister position and give you four
22:57four choices one is do you want a health ministry or law ministry or technology
23:05ministry or welfare ministry for health law technology welfare please choose one
23:16uh it will be a business compass the whole thing and do at a very fundamental level education
23:22great thank you very much as i said we'll be moving very fast in this segment and the second question
23:28is about russia ukraine situation okay uh there is a widespread belief that russia unfairly attacked ukraine
23:36with an intention of capturing a sovereign country and india has been relatively soft in condemning russia
23:45because of their trade advantage in terms of uh importing cheap oil what is your position in one or two
23:54sentences
23:56well first of all dr reddy it's not as black and white as you have put it you know it's
24:01a very complex
24:14uh now uh again uh again it's a it's a mistake to say that india has been soft from russia
24:21because of the cheap uh oil in fact prime minister modi is the only global leader today who is able
24:28to talk to president putin and president jelansky
24:30you know in uh they say on the same day in fact you know just two days ago president putin
24:37while
24:38praising prime minister modi said that despite our deep rooted friendship is not the era of war
24:49this is not the age of war and dialogue and diplomacy are the only way to resolve such conflicts
24:54so prime minister modi is not trying to play goody-goody here and you know yes we are buying russian
25:00oil because why not in fact 50 percent of the oil from russia is bought by private entities not by
25:06government-owned entities in india okay and private entities will buy whatever this you know because we
25:14buy russian oil uh crude oil that has stabilized the global oil market right and and um
25:22ranisham modi has been doing uh his utmost to to bring uh peace and stability across the globe particularly
25:29in the russia ukrain conflict and he has traveled to uh kiev he has traveled to moscow many a times
25:35to talk to both the leaders to come to sit across the table and to resolve the conflict
25:40wonderful thank you very much for clarifying i appreciate that now coming to iran situation
25:50uh well u.s and israel they are not allowed to develop nuclear weapons under any circumstances
25:59what is your opinion do you justify their being extremely hard on them or do you think they are
26:06using double standard as some people criticize them what is your personal feel about it well uh see i
26:14have uh been in fact uh many many people in india feel that the u.s has been particularly under
26:21this
26:21presidency has been extremely uh unpredictable has been extremely uh self-serving and uh it it doesn't
26:31help the world the way president trump uh and his administration have been behaving and that applies
26:36to a lot of issues that applies to the indo-us relationship as well as it does to probably to
26:41iran and again you know i think uh uh uh iran is a very very old civilization it's a uh
26:50civilizational
26:51state with with very very strong sense of nationality and strong sense of pride in its city in its civilized
27:08uh u.s made the mistake of uh of of uh mistaking iran to be another afghanistan so that i
27:15think they are
27:15trying they are paying the price for that but again i think prime minister modi again in the context of
27:21the uh the the conflict in middle east has said that again dialogue diplomacy has to be the way forward
27:28because the conflict doesn't just affect this in these countries but it affects the entire globe
27:33fuel prices fertilizer prices food prices have gone up and and developing countries particularly
27:40countries in the global south such as india are are also paying the price for this so us i think
27:46uh
27:46should really uh stop being like a uh you know school bully and i think you should uh take the
27:54world along
27:54um thank you very much for your thoughts and now moving on to israel gaza situation okay nobody would
28:04support probably everybody condemns very strongly the attack of hamas on israel and killing 1200 innocent
28:12people and in retaliation israel attacked gaza and u.s has been very supportive of israel's effort in that
28:20area right what is your personal feel i know both both are very bad killing innocent israel
28:29jews in the middle of the night is unconscionable at the same time the extreme hardship gazans are going to
28:36is another another completely unconscionable situation where is your heart in this well two things dr
28:44ready first of all terrorism cannot be condemned there can be no justification for any sort of
28:51terrorism to justify any end so it cannot be a means to any end okay in fact we are uh
28:57one of the biggest
28:58victims of uh state-sponsored terrorism pakistan has been sponsoring terrorism has been sending terrorists
29:05across the border to foment uh bloodshed and trouble in india and so so uh we are aware of the
29:12situation
29:12there now uh so the the the the activities of hamas and all the other terrorist activities
29:20terrorist organizations need to be condemned the second uh observation i have is uh is is is what
29:28my government's own views are uh the two-state solution is the way forward i think israel and
29:34palestine both uh can live together in peace and stability with a two-state solution i think i think
29:43india has maintained this chain all along and i believe i i i completely subscribe to this solution
29:50with regards to gaza and israel thank you very much for that now let me ask two questions that are
29:58very
29:58near and dear to me emotionally one is about covid deaths during covid so many people in india died
30:07a couple of my own family members and family members of so many of my friends and we hear horrible
30:14stories of people lost in their own fellow co-workers people living in the streets etc do you think
30:23india prematurely declared victory okay and did not even pay attention to storing your basic oxygen
30:32cylinder supplies and when they were hit very hard in the second wave they were ill prepared that is why
30:39we lost so many millions of precious lives i'm talking about the unofficial number although the official
30:48number is not lower so irrespective of the number what is your field what went wrong what is that we
30:55could have done to prevent that enormous catastrophic loss of human beings dr eddy let's look at the facts
31:05you know for a long time of the independence india didn't focus on basic education on and on this
31:13basic healthcare right so just look at the look at the state of affairs prior to covid you know what
31:22was
31:22the uh patient uh the sorry the population doctor issue in india what was the hospital bed population
31:30ratio in india how many public health centers how many hospitals how many tertiary health centers did we
31:35have in india how many uh operation theaters did we have in india so we have to be cognizant of
31:42these facts right so i i completely agree with you that when covid hit covid hit india we were unprepared
31:51because that was a legacy issue right one thing i'm sorry if you don't mind let me interject uh please
31:58try to
31:59compare whatever statistics you're mentioning with china which is equally populous country so that yeah
32:06please continue i don't mean to interrupt i'm not here to you know to justify anything but i'm just
32:14stating the facts so uh when covid hit india or for that matter the entire world uh india was unprepared
32:22in terms of the infrastructure in terms of the health infrastructure in terms of the number of
32:27doctors number of medical colleges and so on so the uh total spend on health uh in india uh was
32:37less
32:37than two percent of our gdp you know in advanced nations it's well over eight ten percent of the gdp
32:42now this is this this this did happen uh only in the year 2020 this has been legacy problem for
32:5050 60 years for 70 years this problem was there now after the first wave government uh you know
33:00initiated a host of a series of actions and then policies to contain covid and by october september
33:10october it it felt as if you know the incidence of covid has subsided it felt that you know now
33:18we are out of
33:18this uh uh uh pandemic and and of course the government started thinking long term government
33:24started preparing uh plans for the next three years five years for that god forbid if there were another
33:29pandemic five years down the line we will be well prepared little did anyone know yes there was a
33:36second wave hitting going to hit us soon and and that happened in early 2021 and yes you know we
33:42were not
33:43as uh adequately prepared as was needed but that was not because of lack of intent that was not because
33:50of lack of political will or political leadership right that was the nature of the pandemic and that
33:56was because of legacy issues for 70 years 60 years we didn't focus on building infrastructure that
34:01cannot be changed in six months to one year's time so we have to appreciate you know what was the
34:07background when the second wave hit us and what uh government of india uh you know oh they did in
34:17the in
34:17the seven eight months visiting the the second wave uh to to to answer your question you know your
34:24your concern about the second wave uh thank you very much my final question to you is
34:29how do you grade yourself in terms of your efforts in making things happen in terms of the end result
34:39accomplishments i know this tough question how do you self-grade yourself in terms of your efforts
34:46on one side and the accomplishments and results on the other side i i i uh i am a great
34:56believer in the
34:57timeless wisdom of bhagavad-gita you know okay do your duty and uh leave everything else to god okay so
35:09basically uh nishkam karma so without you know do your duty without any expectation and god will take
35:16care of the rest so i i focus on the effort i always focus on the effort and as i've
35:21said before god has
35:23been extremely kind to me destiny has been very very kind to me in uh i have been blessed with
35:28uh
35:30positive outcomes uh most of the time and i believe that is because of the genuineness in my effort
35:36because of the honesty in my effort and i i don't wish ill of anyone and and then uh that
35:43probably has
35:44helped me uh so nishkam karma this is the timeless philosophy of india of bhagavad-gita so i think that
35:51is
35:51uh something which has really been my motto thank you very much mr sujit kumar parliament member i am
36:00very honored to have you please come back on to my show sometime down the road to give us updates
36:05thank you very much and also let me thank south asia monitor audience as well as the management for
36:14giving me this great opportunity thank you very much okay bye thank you doctor absolute pleasure
36:21interacting with you and i'm uh very keen to watch all your shows now and i'm definitely looking forward
36:28to meeting you in person sometime soon oh thank you very much sir you made my day thank you very
36:33much