The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee addressed a group of leading Silicon Valley CEOs, entrepreneurs, technologists and venture capitalists at Rashtrapati Bhavan yesterday(January 15, 2016) on the eve of the launch of "Start-Up India” initiative.

Speaking on the occasion, the President said that in the year 1600, India had a share of 22.5 percent of the world GDP. This declined to 12.3 percent in 1870 and further to 3 percent in 1950. Today, our GDP is only 2.6 percent of the world GDP. If we have to catch up with our past performance and eliminate poverty, we have to achieve high growth level of a minimum of 10 percent and sustain it over a period of more than 10 years. It is technology and entrepreneurship that will drive our country’s production to optimum levels. The objective is to convert the young minds from being job seekers to job creators. The existing talent and resources are to be utilized to their optimal capacity.

The President said that we have people with great competence and talent but unless we create the appropriate ambience to promote entrepreneurship and risk-taking ability, we may not be able to achieve the intended benefits. Mere political freedom, if not backed by economic freedom, will not solve the problems of the country’s vast multitude of people. He stated that there are chances that out of every 100 new enterprises, if 30 are bound to succeed; one has to be prepared that 60 may be bound to die and 10 would be in the grey area i.e. they may succeed or may not succeed.

The President said that as Visitor of 114 institutions of higher learning, he had in the last three years been repeatedly pointing out that not a single University figured in the top 200 institutions as per international rating agencies. He refused to believe that there was dearth of talent in the students, teachers, and institutions. He was happy to note that in 2015, two Indian institutions found place in the top 200. He expressed confidence that in the next two –three years many more institutions will figure in the top rankings.

During the interactions, the CEOs, entrepreneurs, technologists and venture capitalists stated that India is on the cusp of a Start-up revolution. They saw big hopes and tremendous potential in India and were willing to do their best to share and work to make India as successful as the Silicon Valley. They felt that entrepreneurial energy is the kind of energy required for economic progress and that it was crucial for India to adopt innovation. They stressed on the need for creating the right environment in India where entrepreneurship could be encouraged and there would be ease in doing business.

Among the entrepreneurs who participated in the interaction were Mr. Venktesh Shukla, President, TIE; Mr. Suhas Patil, CEO, Cradle Technologies; Mr. Krishna Yarlagadda, President, Imagination Technologies; Mr. Adil Adi, CEO, World Link; Mr. Sarvajana Dwivedi, Co- founder & CEO, Pearl Therapeutics; Mr. Kanwal Rekhi, General Partner, Inventus Capital; Mr. Prakash Bhalerao, Venture Capitalist, Rainbow Enterprises; Mr. KB Chandrashekhar, Chairman & CEO, Jamcracker Inc; Mr. Vinod Dham, Founder, Indo-US Ventures; Mr. Nimish Mehta, CEO, Lumen Data; Mr. Prakash Iyer, Vice President, Trimble Navigation Ltd., Mr. Sarvajit Thakur, Chairman, Enterprise Solutions Inc., Mr. Manu Rekhi, Venture Partner, Inventus Capital and Mr. Raju Indukari, Chairman & CEO, Mtuity.

This release issued at 1325 hrs.