India must invest in its people if it wants to be ‘industrious, innovative and financially bountiful’ : Congress MP Shashi Tharoor 

Congress’ Thiruvananthapuram MP, Shashi Tharoor, on Sunday said a nation that wants to be ‘industrious, innovative and financially bountiful must invest in its people’.

At the 21st Convocation Day of Great Lakes Institute of Management, Mamallapuram, he urged the management graduates to be in pursuit of the ‘Greater Good’.

“For the nation builds the people and the people build the nation, a great nation, of course, democratises innovation and entrepreneurship, throwing open its doors to everyone, so as to ensure there’s not only the wealthy, but anyone with the grit and the gumption to dream can make it a reality,” he said.

He urged students to reflect on what is a country built upon and what makes a nation: Is it economic gains, GDP numbers, military achievements or Is it political and technological capital, or is it just the people, the citizens?

“Why is it that the world’s most innovative and developed nations aren’t merely determined by their tech parks, their capital pockets, or the strength of their numbers, but by their investments in good governance, in gender equity, in social welfare and in the overall well being of their people,” he said.

Mr. Tharoor said the world today is ‘increasingly fractured, where questions of identity and ideology appear to be driving us farther away from each other, where war and conflict are dominating our headlines again, your attempts at building a better future for yourselves will only be successful when we can overcome these problems plaguing us at the world’.

Mr. Tharoor said roughly 80 percent of the workforce in the world will be millennials, Gen Z and their successors by 2034.

“In other words, you will become the backbone of the organizations and communities that run the globe. You must tirelessly endeavor to make a difference to improve our country’s infrastructure, to boost digital connectivity and reversing the terrible income inequality plaguing us and to promote lasting financial inclusion.”

Debashis Sanyal, director, and Mohan Lakhamraju, chairman, of the Great Lakes Institute of Management, were also present.