CEA Nageswaran calls for focus on domestic efforts to tide over VUCA challenges beyond control

Amid concerns on the renewed Hormuz flare up delaying the oil supplies coming into the market, which will have multiple ripple impact, Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran said there is a need focus on the domestic efforts rather than the outcomes dictated by the forces beyond our control in a VUCA world.

Nageswaran invoked the Bhagavad Gita and said only our efforts are in our control, thereby insinuating that the right policy response is the need of the hour amidst uncertainties which may last for twenty years.

“Outcomes are increasingly becoming subject to forces beyond our control. So, whether we hit a particular landmark within a specified timeframe, is no longer in our control. Therefore, as the Lord told Arjuna, it is better we focus on our efforts and let the outcomes be dictated by the forces within our control and beyond our control,” Nageswaran said at CII GCC business summit in New Delhi today.

“So, if anything, the current situation for the next twenty years should enable us to re-imbibe the lessons of the great teachings in the Mahabharata war. What is in your control is your efforts and let us focus on that and let the outcomes come as they may,” he said.

On the global capability centres, CEA said India’s GCCs are quiet successes of our economy. “They did not arrive with fanfare. There was no big announcement. They grew slowly. One centre at a time and one team at a time,” he said.

“India now hosts around half of the GCCs. No other country comes close. This did not happen because of an accident. This happened because of our people,” he said, adding that these centres came up for the cost but stayed for the capability.

It may be noted that the U.S. military has been carrying on strikes on Iran ever since President Donald Trump declared on July 7 that the interim agreement to end the war was "over". Immediately after the declaration by Trump, the Central Command initiated fresh strikes. It maintained that the strikes are aimed at degrading Iran to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.