Arun Maira at Democracy Dialogues on August 31, 2025, at 6 PM IST

[Subhash Gatade]

 Dear Friends,
We at Democracy Dialogues are delighted to inform you that Arun Maira, Author, Thinker, Former Member of the Planning Commission of India, has kindly agreed to deliver the next lecture in the Series. He will be speaking on A Strategy for India’s Tryst with Its Destiny on August 31,  2025, at 6 PM (IST) This will be a Zoom meeting which will also be live streamed at Facebook ( facebook.com/newsocialistinitiative.nsi). We will be sharing with you the Zoom link closer to the date.

Please block the date and time. Further details are given below.

Regards,
Subhash Gatade

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Democracy Dialogues Lecture 41

Organised by New Socialist Initiative

 

Title: A Strategy for India’s Tryst with Its Destiny

 

Speaker: Arun Maira, Author, Thinker, Former Member of the Planning Commission of India

 

Date and Time: August 31, 2025, 6 PM IST (The Lecture will be on Zoom)

 

Abstract:

I will share what I have learned about the process of transforming complex systems, the changes necessary in ideologies, and in the way in which public policies are being made, for India to progress towards its vision of poorna swaraj. The following points indicate an outline of the argument I plan to make in the talk:

 

• Global governance has broken down. The world is in disorder.

• India is strategically vulnerable. It is a long way off from its ‘tryst with destiny’ of poorna swaraj.

• India must become much more self-reliant, and less dependent on the US and China to protect its strategic autonomy. It must find its own democratic path to strengthen its society and economy. The US (and the West) cannot provide a blueprint. 

• Development and progress are processes of learning.

• Nations are complex ‘self-adaptive’ systems.

• Power and wealth in a system accumulate by a process of cumulative causation.

• The process of change must be democratic for new ideas to emerge.

 

I have explained such ideas in my book, Reimagining India’s Economy: The Road to a More Equitable Society, published this year, and in some previous books.

 

About the Speaker:

 

Arun Maira is an eminent author, a strategic thinker and a former member of the Planning Commission of India. He had joined the Commission at the invitation of then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh himself. Mr. Maira has had a distinguished career as an enlightened business leader and management consultant. He worked as Executive Director on the Board of Tata Motors and later as the Chairman of Boston Consulting Group. He has authored many books including Transforming Systems: Why the World Needs an Ethical Toolkit; Transforming Capitalism: Improving the World for Everyone; Redesigning the Aeroplane While Flying: Reforming Institutions; Shaping the Future: A Guide for Systems leaders; and most recently, Reimagining India’s Economy: The Road to a More Equitable Society, published in June 2025.