Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, while speaking in an interview lauded the work of Infosys co-founder and former Chairman of UIDAI, Nandan Nilekani, for his work on Aadhar. Ambani spoke to veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta in an ‘Off The Cuff’ series conversation, at a South Mumbai hotel. He spoke on a number of issues like the tiff between Reliance Jio and other telecom companies, PM Narendra Modi and also addressed the youth of the country. While talking about the work of PM Modi on making India join the digital race, he also praised the work of Nilekani. Ambani said, “Work that my friend Nandan Nilekani has done will go down in history. When your children are citizens of India, they will say that there was one person who did phenomenal work in 2009 that put India on the digital map and also helped in financial inclusion.
Ambani today, in the interview, shared his views on a number of topics from the biggest challenges facing India and how to solve them. When asked about politics in India Ambani praised the ability of the Modi-led government to embrace projects that may not have been initiated by them – such as the unique identification program Aadhaar. Recently in an interview with ET Now, Nilekani talked about the work going on Aadhaar. While speaking on Aadhaar, Nilekani in the interview said that he left the government two years back and now just volunteers in that sector. He worked there for four and a half years and ‘laid the foundation for Aadhaar with 600 million people’ which the new government took forward. According to him, the Aadhaar has crossed the billion people landmark. He said that the present government is working on using the platform for more innovations.
Also read | Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani: Next 10 years are golden years for the youth in India
While Mukesh Ambani talked about the youth and the importance of digitisation in the current world, Nandan Nilekani had also talked about the Indian IT industry and said that the world has changed and the focus is ‘more on the consumer than on enterprise’. Nilekani had added that the IT industry in India will be robust and successful, even though the slowdown in the United States and Europe might change the IT landscape growth in the country.
