Landing into the Kashmir Valley for the first time after my last visit as a child opened a floodgate of fond memories and loads of optimism. Kashmir is indeed a land of unparalleled beauty, made even more charming with its warm people. Yi is privileged to welcome a group of young, forward looking Kashmiris to our growing family at Young Indians.
When introspecting on the experiences I had during Yi’s ‘Mission Kashmir’, what strikes me as most endearing was my interaction with students of the Delhi Public School and at the Business School of Kashmir University in Srinagar. The thirst for exposure to the world outside the region was evident uniformly amongst all the school and University students. While the school students shared with us their dreams of being engineers, doctors, army men and teachers, the college students voiced their ambitions to turn entrepreneurs and make a lasting difference to the economic growth of Kashmir. Hope of building a bright future and taking control of their individual destiny was all too obvious.
Students were keen that Yi engage with them by building bridges with successful entrepreneurs who can inspire them to dream and also by creating platforms for career counseling and skills development aligned to the informed choices that Yi can help them make for their individual careers. Spending quality time with the students and gaining their trust and mindshare would be critical for Yi as we plan for the future of our engagement with Young Kashmiris.
Listening to young entrepreneurs from the Region was an eye opener. Uniformly, they all see Kashmir as a major opportunity to build and grow businesses. Sectors that we examined in the course of the sessions included hospitality and tourism, saffron cultivation, poultry farming, infrastructure, cement and logistics. Future Yi engagement could include further dialogue on opportunities in other sectors of relevance to Kashmir and also positioning the Region as an investment opportunity to our members.
Visions of Kashmir and the new friendships I made there during the brief visit will last forever. Personally, I can’t wait to return....
——By Dr. Rahul Mirchandani, National Chairman, Yi
Mountains that stand tall and valleys that glow with the golden hue of Chinar trees in autumn… if there indeed is a place in this world where peace has managed to stay despite trying times then that place has to be Kashmir.
Kashmir shows a different facet of her to me every time I visit there. I find it fortunate that in 45 days I managed to visit this gorgeous state twice! But the natural beauty is what you hear of and you can see the pictures of the splendor on your laptops but to truly experience Kashmir you have to visit Kashmir and experience the warmth and hospitality of her people. As we sat around a small fire place in a wooden room at Gulmarg listening to stories of young Kashmiri entrepreneurs and professionals, what occurred to me is that this positive wave of reinvestment of resources in their own state has its roots in the sheer pride of the land they belong to. And almost at the same time it also occurred to me that their challenges of building enterprises were no different than the challenges I faced in building my businesses while living in Mumbai city.
There was a lot in common I found between me and my Kashmiri counterparts. They all wanted development, they had left lucrative and easy going lives abroad to return to their homeland so that they can play a role in building the future of their state. They were as passionate about solving divisive issues as I was and they too wanted to do their bit in leaving this world a much better place to live in, for future generations!
In our interaction with the Honorable Chief Minister, Mr. Omar Abdullah, I realized that his youthful and “sans-bias” leadership will do wonders for this state. Mr. Abdullah was earnest, forthcoming, and transparent. He recognized the challenges faced by his state but was at the same time hopeful about a more robust future. This balance of realism and optimism is precisely what Kashmir needs at this point in time. We came away from the meeting feeling hopeful as his leadership style of being both accessible and yet inspirational is what many young Indians also want to see in their own state and national leadership.
I am also excited at the prospect of having the 7th Yi National Summit in Srinagar in September 2010. The Yi Srinagar team is already working towards it and throughout the internal and external stakeholder discussions we have had on this prospect, we have only found in response to our proposition: excitement, joy and happiness.
I can not wait for September 2010! I do hope that all of you will make it for this occasion but before that I encourage you to go and experience the winters of Kashmir and for those who ski, I can tell you that there really is no better place in this world to ski then Gulmarg in Kashmir.
——By Ms. Bhairavi Jani, National Vice Chairman, Yi
The CM seemed to be intent on bringing about positive change to his state. His main contention was: only when the environment is stable, it will pave way for development (both social and economical). He said that his core aim was to implement various measures that he thinks will bring this stability in his state.
He spent more than 2 hours interacting with us, absorbing our inputs and also fielding us some issues where he liked to have our perspective as well. The most impressive quality about him was, he acted immediately on issues where he also felt would bring about a positive change to his state. Some examples:
Power: He said his state had a total revenue deficit of about 1600 crores in power alone. This was the single largest deficit item for him. He said any help in bridging this gap would mean a lot to him. He said that he could utilize the saved funds in so many other schemes that would benefit a wide section on the people of J&K.
Tourism.
The Yi delegation had mentioned that J&K needs to concentrate on marketing itself as a tourism destination. For this the present tourism budget of 6crores had to be increased at least 5 fold. He said he would surely look into how to increase this budget. He also mentioned that he was taking various measures that would help remove J&K from the "travel alert/ advisory" list of many countries.
When suggested that CII could help J&K get funding from the IBEF, his words were "I am surprised how come we never thought about this until now?" and immediately asked his secretary to follow up on this.
Investment - We suggested that he personally needed to monitor the progress of new investments in J&K that were over 20 crores, so that the pace of their implementation would be much faster. He immediately agreed and declared (this was also the main feature of coverage in all the news papers next day) that he would personally head the committee that reviewed the progress of all new investments over 20 crores in J&K and this would be a quarterly review. The entire experience of meeting with the Chief Minister and exchanging ideas was truly enthralling.
——By Mr. Annush Ramaswamy, Member Yi Coimbatore Chapter
This October, during my mid-term break, my Dad, who is one of the founders of Young Indians (Yi), said that he was going to Srinagar to open the 25th Yi chapter, and asked if I wanted to go with him. Of course I jumped at it, as I knew it was supposed to be "Heaven on Earth." Little did I know that Kashmir would be the encounter that demonstrated to me the importance of diversity, and that I would be writing about so soon afterwards.
Being born in 1992, I have never seen India before liberalization. Seeing Kashmir was like experiencing India before its growth phases. This immediately sparked a connection back to my village where my family had set up a factory 20 years ago. The difference it made to the lives of these people is amazing, as every house in the village now has electricity, a color TV with satellite, a motorcycle and all basic necessities which they never had before. The same approach is being taken in Kashmir, where the local businessmen are the ones trying to make the difference. With the new generation of Kashmiris identifying with India and open to ideas from diverse perspectives, Kashmir is on the verge of real growth.
This revelation came to me at the interaction we had between the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Omar Abdullah with local young businessmen and the Yi group. The members of Yi, also being mostly young business leaders from the various states, shared their experiences as to how they created meaningful interactions with their state governments, and how it brought about a catalyzing effect in industrial growth through better understanding and dialog. A quarterly review of all projects US$5million and above directly by the Chief Minister was suggested by the Yi group and accepted immediately. This showed me the importance of being able to share diverse experiences.
I want to talk about my experience while shopping for Pashmina shawls. What I was not looking forward to at all, turned out to be an amazing experience. Being with local hosts who knew where to source the best pieces, we saw an endless variety of the most beautiful shawls I've ever seen in my life. The finest of these takes a craftsman 4 years of labor to complete. Yet they are sold in plain plastic covers as if they were groceries, with the story being lost to the customers outside of Kashmir. Lack of diversity in exposure, experience, and lack of connectivity between local producers of exquisite goods that could compete on the level of Swiss watches, and global markets is holding back tremendous potential.
——By Ashok Galla, Student of United World College, Singapore
Memoirs of the Kashmir Trip
Dr. Rahul Mirchandani, Yi National Chairman & Executive Director, Aries Agro Ltd; Ms Bhairavi Jani, Yi National Vice Chairman & Director
SCA Group of Companies, Mr. Jayadev Galla, Yi Immediate Past National Chairman & Managing Director, Amara Raja Batteries Ltd; Mr. Rahul Chawla, Chair- Yi Delhi Chapter & CEO & Founder Signet Corp; Mr. Mahesh Sriram, Yi Chair-Chapters & Membership Growth Executive Director, Bharat Travel Service P Ltd; Mr. Aditya Balasundaram, Yi Co-Chair-Education & Executive Director CPC (P) Limited;
Mr. Annush Ramaswamy, Member, Yi Coimbatore Chapter & President SPM Limited; Ms. Shrivyshnavi Annush; Ms. Shefali Chaturvedi
Head- CII's Young Indians & Ms. Charu Mathur, Regional Director, Confederation of Indian Industry
