Full transcript of Jyotiraditya Scindia's address at Rising Bharat Summit 2025

Speaking during the 'Connecting Generations, Bridging Geographies' session, Scindia, discussed how India’s youth and the Northeast are key to the nation’s transformation.

At the Rising Bharat 2025 inaugural session, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia discussed the increasing significance of India’s Northeast and its role in shaping the nation’s future. Speaking during the 'Connecting Generations, Bridging Geographies' session, Scindia, discussed how India’s youth and the Northeast are key to the nation’s transformation.

Interviewer: Jyoti Ji, Namaste. Thank you very much for joining us here and also yours is the inaugural session at Rising Bharat 2025. It's a privilege. Thank you very much. Big round of applause for him please.

Jyotiraditya Scindia: Thank you, Anand. And it's always a pleasure to be with News18 and part of a dialogue with you, especially when Anand is looking as if he's in the wrong profession. I mean, your turnout is impeccable, if I may say so. So congratulations.

Interviewer: Sir, I have tried to emulate you. See, in plain white he looks so dapper, so I had to go flashing red, didn't I? First up, your thoughts on Esther's performance and as Minister for the Northeast, is Northeast connecting with the rest of Bharat as it should have over the last many decades, at least in the recent times, has it happened? Let's start from there.

Jyotiraditya Scindia: So we saw the unbelievable potential of our youth and I'm not going to attribute it to a particular region. Esther is one of our, I believe, one of our Navratnas of our country. And you have this potential across the length and breadth of our land. As Sonal and Zakha were mentioning in their opening remarks, it's youth that brings about change. It's youth that brings about transformation. And today in India, we have close to about 70% of India, which is below the age of 35. We're talking about a population of close to 980 million youth in our country.

Now, that sounds very easy when the words roll out of your mouth, but that's three times the population of the United States of America. That's twice the population of combined Europe. That's the potential that India today holds out not only for the region, but for the world. And within that cosmos, I believe the Northeast presents a very, very important role that that part of our country has to play.

If you rewind, Anand, about five hundred to a thousand years ago, all trade from the global South would go through the Northeast prior to going into the Middle East and to Europe. And I think we need to revive those capabilities across our country today. Very few people know, but when you fly from, let's say, a Guwahati or an Imphal to a Chennai or to a Mumbai, equidistant is a Thailand or an Indonesia. And that's the circumference that we need to now connect to. Prime Minister Modi in the last ten years has talked about and ensured the execution of the rise of the Northeast, an area of our country that was always seen as the last frontier. He has transformed into the first frontier of the country.

And across infrastructure, if you look at the number of airports, we had nine airports in the Northeast ten years ago. Two states did not even have a single airport, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. Today from nine, we have seventeen airports in the Northeast. From close to about 10,000 kilometers of national highways, we have 16,000 kilometers of national highways. From a single waterway, we have close to twenty waterways. Railways are going to connect every state capital over the next year, year and a half in the Northeast.

So infrastructure is all pervasive across the Northeast. And it's on that foundation that you have today seen companies like the Tata Group set up a semiconductor fab nowhere else in the country but in Assam, 27,000 crore worth of investment and the amount of direct and indirect positive externalities that will bring to that area is unbelievable in the coming days.

Interviewer: So big round of applause for that. So there's a lot being done. But you mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji. How's it working with him?

Jyotiraditya Scindia: Oh, it's amazing. t's always like as if you're on a treadmill, just trying to keep up the amount of boundless energy, commitment, dedication. And mind you, Anand, I for finer detail, crossing the T's, dotting the I's, the ability to be able to connect with every single human being, not only across India but across the world, to be able to look at not only a mental construct but an emotional construct. And that capability, I believe, very few leaders today across the world have.

I happen to come from a professional background before I entered public service. I used to be an investment banker. And so it was all about being able to deliver on your timelines. And we have today a Prime Minister that makes sure that not only the cabinet but the government of India delivers on its timelines. And that's why you're seeing the transformation of India.

Interviewer: Is it different from how you perceived him to be when you transitioned from the Congress into the BJP? Did you have a perception of PM Modi and now working with him over the last few years? Has it changed?

Jyotiraditya Scindia: I always have thought that he was a very… and he is a very driven person, a very committed person, a very dedicated person. And one more point I'd like to bring up, Anand, which is very close to my heart, is the revival of India's cultural power. And you're seeing that happen through Prime Minister's perseverance across the board, whether it's Varanasi, whether it's Ayodhya, Badrinath, Kedarnath in my state, Mahakal Lok, Ujjain's Mahakal, across the board in India. And that has had a reverberating effect in terms of India's… rise of India's cultural nationalism again across the world.

Interviewer: Integral to Bharat's culture is also the culture of the Northeast. I just quickly want to get your reaction on what Mr. Mohammed Yunus said in Beijing about the Northeast.

Jyotiraditya Scindia: I think started with that comment. The Northeast shares 6,000 kilometers of an international boundary. And therefore, our connectivity with the global south is unparalleled to anyone. And while I've been engaging as donor minister with all our eight chief ministers and understanding, trying to provide value in their effort to move forward.

One of the things that I've been laying a lot of stress on is not only to look outward towards the north, but also to look outward towards the south. Because the capability that the Northeast has in terms of it being a shangri-la, a preserve of nature, horticulture, floriculture, very few people are aware, but… and when in my earlier avatar as Minister of Civil Aviation when I started Krishi Udaan, the fact that our queen pineapples from Tripura don't travel all the way to maybe a Thailand or maybe a Chennai. Our queen pineapples through Krishi Udaan travel all the way to Germany. Our chilies from Nagaland, our king chilies, go all the way to Dubai.

And so therefore our capability to be able to impact both the global north and the global south from the northeast is phenomenal. And I do not believe that even though other countries may not be completely landlocked, they have the diversity and the capability that our Ashta Lakshmi of the northeast have.

Interviewer: Thank you. Thank you for that. So you have in your own way answered Mr. Mohammed Yunus and quite ably, but you talked about your earlier avatar as Civil Aviation. So I just want to ask you, your father, Madhavrao Ji also, was the Minister of Civil Aviation. How was it for you to walk into that office and to sit on that chair when that happened?

Jyotiraditya Scindia: A very emotional moment, a very sobering moment, and a period through which I worked assiduously to be able to live up to his dreams, to be able to… I have not been able to do what he did, which was really open up the skies and give choice to the consumer. But in my own humble way, tried to proliferate both on the physical infrastructure, the airport side, as well as the airlines.

We gave birth to three new airlines in those three to four years, a large carrier in the form of Akasa, smaller carriers across the length and breadth of India, including the Northeast. And I really believe that civil aviation will become the core of infrastructure growth in the years to come. Just to give you an example, today railways in first and second class, because that's the competition, because the aircraft by its very nature is air-conditioned, carries 185 million people across our country. Civil aviation last year carried close to about 155 million people.

But civil aviation is growing at a CAGR of 10.3%, whereas railways first and second class is going at a CAGR of roughly 5.6%. So in another four years, civil aviation will end up carrying many more people across the length and breadth of our country than the railways in first and second class.

Interviewer: Many people, Jyoti Ji, and it's the first time I'm asking you this question and there's a lot of time that's passed, but still, when you made the transition, there were many things that you were called – a political opportunist, a betrayer, etc., etc. And you held your counsel through all that. I remember once you had said that I'll allow my work to do the talking. But today I want to ask you what you felt and why did you make the decision when you did? And as you look back, you think you chose right.

Jyotiraditya Scindia: So, Anand, I don't believe on dwelling on my past. I believe that God has been kind and given you birth on this earth to do good, to try and impact lives in a positive manner in whatever way you can. And I believe that I have not joined the cause of politics. I believe that I've joined the cause of public service. And for me, my father used to say, and it still rings true in my head, that “The goal in life should not be politics; the goal in life should be public service. Politics should only be a means to achieve that goal—nothing more.” And that's what I try and live every day. And for me, that journey is of public service. The journey is hopefully to be able to even impact a single person's life. And so I dwell on my present and I dwell on my future.

Interviewer: But coming back to the current position, did you feel a lot of it was being done because you came in? You got Minister of Civil Aviation. Now you are the Telecom Minister, Communications Head, Donia, Minister of Donia. Your growth in this new political ecosystem…

Jyotiraditya Scindia: Let me be very candid. In the Bharatiya Janata Party, your growth is determined on the basis of your performance, just like your growth would be within TV18. And so you and I are on par. The only difference is I can't look as debonair as you.

Interviewer: This gentleman is 54 years old. If you look at him, can you believe it? And he's talking about me looking debonair. So the compliment is right back at you, Jyoti Ji. The other question is, was politics your first choice? Did it happen because you're… So how did that happen? And there are a lot of youngsters here.

Jyotiraditya Scindia: So I was at… So after I graduated from undergrad at Harvard, I was an investment banker for six years with Morgan Stanley in New York, in Hong Kong, and then in Mumbai. And then I decided to go back to business school. So I had the good fortune of attending Stanford Business School. And there was a course in there on entrepreneurship and where you had to form a team and make a business plan. So a colleague of mine from the GSB and one from the engineering school, we all got together and we made a business plan. And this is many, many years ago. So I'm not going to say when, but many, many years ago when call centers and all of that had not happened in India. So decades ago. And we thought of doing a NOC, which is a network operating center for a lot of the equipment manufacturing majors in the US, in the valley, in India. And be it as it may, we won that competition. And we were looking at, we had raised first round of funding. We'd hired a US CEO. And my partner and I had come to India to look for office space. And we came back in August. And within a month of my return, the unfortunate accident happened. And my life changed completely. And I got into, again, I want to add, I got into public service, not politics.

Interviewer: Youth here, should they choose public service, politics as a career? Would you advise that?

Jyotiraditya Scindia: First of all, this is my personal calling and my calling is not politics. Politics has positivity, but a lot of negativity attached to it. If you make your call, depends what you want. If you want power, if you want control, public service is not your calling. If you want to serve, Mahatma Gandhi once said that you find yourself when you lose yourself in the service of others. And if that is your calling, then yes, public service. And a simple thought that always reverberates in my mind is that you know, in times of joy, when the voice of joy and sorrow reverberates in every home, whether you are present in that voice or not, that is not important. But it is essential to always be present to share the grief in times of grief. So for me, weddings are optional, but funerals are mandatory. And that's the spirit with which I live on a day to day basis. I look at myself every quarter, every six months. Have I done something different? Have I impacted people's lives? What are the new ways that I can do it? How is it that I can improve myself?

Another piece of advice I want to give to people is never think you're perfect. Because God hasn't given you an opportunity on this earth because you're perfect. God has given you an opportunity on this earth to find out and make mistakes and learn from mistakes. Always try and improve yourself. Talk to people who are close, who will give you correct feedback, correct guidance. And always try and improve yourself every day. And if you go with that purpose, then you will find a place in people's hearts throughout that journey as well.

Interviewer: Life has also knocked you down, like it's thrown a few curveballs at you. So how did you handle yourself? Especially failure, especially when everyone left you and you were left alone. Or when there were setbacks.

Jyotiraditya Scindia: In life always, when you're on the crease, bat with a straight bat. If you bat with a straight bat, whether there's a curveball thrown at you, a googly, a yorker, pace, spin. Always be transparent. If you can do things for someone, great. If you can't, be transparent and say, I can't do it because of this. At least that person will go away from you thinking, at least this person said the truth. Otherwise, when we go to every door, I go to every door, yeah, we will see, we will do. So there is some value for truth.

Interviewer: But how do you fight this game of narratives? Let’s back, let’s talk about Yunus sir. The way he's tried to spin that narrative about the Northeast, about Bharat and about Bangladesh and this whole landlocked thing. What we're doing is different. But the narrative—

Jyotiraditya Scindia: Narrative is about making sure that you lift the reality and lift the truth about the comparative and comparative advantages of your proposition. That's the narrative. And I think that India is, after a very, very long time, been able to set that narrative across the world under the leadership of PM Modi.

Interviewer: You think that will hold? You think that will hold this effort?

Jyotiraditya Scindia: I don't think our country today is on a roll. No power in the world will be able to stop our country. We are today close to a $4 trillion economy. We will be a $5 trillion economy by 2028. We'll be a $6 trillion economy by 2030. We're the fifth largest economy in the world. We will be the third largest economy in the world by 2028. That is my unspoken commitment and unspoken confidence in our country.

Interviewer: Brilliant. We've got very little time. So there's a student who's come here who came up and said he has a question for you. Shubhranshu, where are you? Oh, there he is.

Shubhranshu: Sir, my question is regarding Northeast—

Jyotiraditya Scindia: Can you just speak up a little bit?

Shubhranshu: Yeah.

Jyotiraditya Scindia: And give me your name and what are you studying?

Shubhranshu: I'm Shubhranshu. I'm doing my PhD in Jawaharlal Nehru University. I'm from Assam. So my question to Minister was, how is your ministry taking emotional steps to connect to the integral part of India, the Northeast? As you can see, in the past 10 years, a lot of good work has been done on the Northeast. And the reception that Esther received today is proof of that. But somewhere, even today, it seems that many parts of India know very little about the Northeast. And the people of the Northeast are also not able to meet the other people of India enthusiastically. So how would you like to take steps to decrease this mental distance or emotional connectivity?

Jyotiraditya Scindia: Very good question. So, I believe that if you connect the heart, then all relationships are connected. And today, very few people know. But if you look at it from an economic point of view, India is growing on the basis of 7-7.5% domestic production. But in the eight states of the Northeast, I will not reduce even one state. In the eight states, 12-14% of domestic production is growing. Their CAGR is 12-13%. India's CAGR is 6.5-7.5%. So, the Northeastern state has become India's rail engine. Number one. Number two. This is our effort, and we are starting this program. The youth are also present in this program. From the eight states of the Northeastern state, we are going to give courses to our young students for 2-3 weeks in many schools of the country. And we are going to take students from many schools of the country to give courses in the colleges of the Northeastern state. So, on both sides, to understand history, one does not have to read. To understand history, one has to experience it. And what you experience on the ground, you can never experience it by flying a plane or reading a book.

So, let me give my example. I do not like to travel by flying a plane or reading a book. I travel by car for 600 kilometers. Because there you meet every person on every step of the way. And if we do this combination within the country, then there can be no end to it. Today, in the last three days, there has been a fair in Gujarat, in Madhavpur. In Khed. Of Rukmini and Krishnaji's union. And from Northeast, we have sent 320 of our artisans to Gujarat. So that we can keep this union and this wave of history alive.

Interviewer: So, we are locking this relationship in such a way that no one else should try to break it by landlocking. This is what Mr. Jyotiraditya is saying. Well, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jyotiraditya Scindia, thank you very, very much, sir. Thank you. Big round of applause. Thank you.