About Us
Director
It is the first issue of ISID News after I joined ISID as its new head in May 2021, after taking premature retirement from the United Nations. Let me say at the outset that it is a privilege to lead the ISID team at a critical juncture in India’s development trajectory focused on industrial transformation. Despite many initiatives taken over the years, the share of manufacturing industry in country’s GDP has stagnated around 14-16 percent, as Mr Bhargava points out in the accompanying story, compared to 30-35 percent in the East Asian countries. Inability to harness the industry’s potential has cost the country dearly in terms of inadequate number of decent jobs being created for country’s youthful workforce. Hence, the Make-in-India programme announced by the Prime Minister Modi in 2014 was timely. It was further reinforced by Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan in 2020 as a strategy to pull the economy out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the premier national think-tank focused on industry, ISID is gearing up to support India’s current emphasis on manufacturing through excellence in policy research, advocacy, capacity building and outreach activities. ISID will provide a forum to policy makers and other stakeholders to analyze and discuss policy options and strategic interventions needed to foster industrial transformation backed by evidence, global good practices and policy advocacy. While handholding and empowering the start-ups and MSMEs, India needs to also harness volumes and scales to attain global competitiveness. ISID will leverage partnerships with national, regional and global think-tanks and international organizations to distil lessons from global experiences on inclusive and sustainable industrial strategies, adapting them to local needs.
As ISID embarks on the mission to support India’s industrial transformation, I am really captivated by the enthusiasm of the entire ISID team, collaborators, donors among other stakeholders. I look forward to remaining engaged with you as we move ahead on this exciting journey. The revamped ISID News will keep you posted on our work on a quarterly basis.
– Nagesh Kumar