Nirmala Sitharaman, Pralhad Joshi to headline Day 2 of BS Manthan: Schedule

Manthan 2026: Leaders from government, top think tanks and industry will deliberate on India's food and energy security and explore how artificial intelligence can transform the creative sectors

Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Minister of New & Renewable Energy and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Pralhad Joshi will lead the conversation around India's future roadmap on Day 2 of the Business Standard Manthan 2026 at Bharat Mandapam on Wednesday.

 

The day’s discussions will focus on India’s food and energy security, as well as the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in creative sectors, with leaders from the government, leading think tanks, and industry engaging in detailed deliberations on these topics.

Here's a look at the full schedule for Day 2 of Business Standard Manthan

Session 1: 09.45 am

 

 

Topic: Aligning India with evolving geopolitics

Speaker: Amitabh Kant, Ex-G20 Sherpa, Government of India 

Session 2: 10.15 am 

Topic: AI for India: From ambition to execution

Panellist:

Jibu Elias, Country Lead for India, Mozilla

Professor Sandeep Shukla, Director, IIIT Hyderabad

Arunima Sarkar, Head, Initiatives, Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) India, World Economic Forum 

Session 3: 10.30 am 

Topic: Data & dominance in a Digital-first India

Speaker: Ravneet Kaur, Chairperson, Competition Commission of India 

Session 4: 11 am 

Topic: Making India future-ready

Speaker: Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs 

Session 5: 11.45 am 

Topic: Can India be the world’s food factory?

Panellist:

Ramesh Chand, Member, Niti Aayog

Ashok Gulati, Professor, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER)

Laveesh Bhandari, President & Senior Fellow, Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) 

Session 6: 11.45 am 

Topic: Can startups catalyse the next green revolution?

Panellist:

Adarsh Srivastav, Co-founder, DeHaat

Anand Chandra, Co-founder and Executive Director, Arya.ag

Amith Agarwal, CEO, AgriBazaar 

Session 7: 12.30 pm 

Topic: Net zero in a Viksit Bharat context: Is India energy-ready for the 2070 target?

Speaker: Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister of New & Renewable Energy and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution 

Session 8: 12.30 pm 

Topic: How future-ready are our social infrastructures – health, education, sanitation, and such?

Panellist:

Ashish Dhawan, Founder & CEO, The Convergence Foundation

Vineet Nayar, Founder & Chairman, Sampark; former CEO, HCLTech

Archna Vyas, Country Director India, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 

Session 9: 02.15 pm 

Topic: India’s high tech manufacturing prospects

Panellist:

Kollareddy Ramachandra, CEO, Midwest

Tushar Vikram, CEO, Mashreq Bank

Abhishek Singh, Sr. VP - Defence (India & SE Asia), Rolls-Royce 

Session 10: 02.50 pm 

Topic: From coal to cells, India’s energy journey

Speaker: Sumant Sinha, Founder, Chairman & CEO, ReNew 

Session 11: 03.30 pm 

Topic: Smoothing the EV transition

Panellist:

Tapan Ghosh, CEO, VinFast India

Akash Gupta, Co-founder & CEO, Zypp Electric

Raghav Bharadwaj, CEO, Bolt.earth

Mahesh Babu, MD, Olectra Greentech

Saurav Kumar, Founder & CEO, Euler Motors 

Session 12: 04.30 pm 

Topic: Maintaining "strategic autonomy"

Panellist

Ambassador Sujan Chinoy, Director-general, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA)

Lt Gen Deependra Singh Hooda (retd), Distinguished Fellow, Delhi Policy Group

Rajinder Singh Bhatia, Chairman, Kalyani Strategic Systems Ltd 

Session 13: 05.15 

Topic: Cinema in the age of AI

Speaker: Shekhar Kapur, Indian Film Director, Actor and Producer