Fortune India - August 2016

Imagining the future is a fascinating exercise. In the August issue of Fortune India, we don’t so much imagine the future as construct probable scenarios based on what’s already happening. We report on what institutions are doing to arm themselves for an uncertain future—with technology as their weapon of choice.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Digital India, and his dream of a technologically connected country, several questions were raised. The big concern: What is the endgame? Is it transparency? Is it efficiency? Or will it be better governance? And, as important, what will this cost? We tried to understand this, and realised that the budget allocated to Digital India was minuscule—Rs 1.13 lakh crore over the next three years. That’s less than what Reliance spent to get the Jio infrastructure together, and Digital India plans to be way more than Jio. So, who’s going to pay? There’s no clear answer yet. Companies such as Reliance, Airtel, Google, IBM, and Intel have earmarked some Rs 4.5 lakh crore for Digital India initiatives. These companies see the solid business sense in being a part of this mammoth venture. Of course, like all large public-private partnerships, this one has attracted flak from some economists and activists. Their contention is that the quest for profit by private players could overshadow the government’s ambition to provide affordable access to all. Right now, government and industry seem to be moving in the same direction. Can the Modi government pull this one off? Read our cover story on 63
The future of banking is in apps. Which is why some banks are focusing on building robust technology frameworks that can adapt to future changes, on page 78. Then there’s agriculture, we find a new breed of entrepreneurs using technology to solve problems that have dogged farmers for long. From tracking inputs to selling produce, there’s an app for it. Catch this story on page 75