Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran Calls For Better Discipline On Social Media Usage

With the rising incidence of intolerance on social media, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran on Wednesday called for educating people on the use of social media while stressing the need to maintain discipline in public posturing.

Admitting that intolerance in social media is globally a problem and it needs to be solved, he said, “unfortunately, social media has its positives and negatives as a wrong tweet can have a lot of repercussions. People tend to react very fast without thinking, but I don't see the need for replying to everything immediately.”

The solution is restraint and we need to “educate people on the use of social media,” he said, adding that sometimes speed (reaction to a social media post) is good and sometimes it is not, he told an event organised by the Bombay Chartered Accountants Society this evening.

Speaking on the economy, Chandrasekaran said despite the continuing global uncertainties led by the Ukraine war, the Indian economy is going to grow higher which will be driven by consumption and infrastructure investments.

Basing his optimism on the fundamental strength of the economy, the Tata Sons chairman, however, admitted that “there are risks and it is going to be a volatile future because the (Russia-Ukraine) war is going to continue for long and inflation is yet to peak. Some of the large economies are going to face recession, maybe for a short period. There will be a knee-jerk reaction to this in some countries.”

But when it comes to our economy, he said we have a very strong growth agenda. “I really think that for the first time we will see a growth both in consumption and in infrastructure-led growth.”

Noting that there are ample opportunities for export growth, he warned that our economy is not disconnected from the rest of the world and that if the US economy suffers, we will also see some impact.

“But at the same time, our economy has fundamental strength. We got to maximise that. We need to go ahead and stay the course,” he said.

Chandrasekaran said efforts should be made to ensure that capital projects are not stopped as they can help in job creation.

“While controlling inflation is important, what is of equal importance is creating jobs. So if you don't create projects, jobs will not be created,” he said, adding there is also a need to provide education and healthcare to all.

On digitisation, Chandrasekaran said digitisation adoption is here to stay which will drive overall growth.

“We have gained an adoption advantage of 10 years because of the past two years. Everyone now knows that things can be done digitally and that is the only way forward as it can help solve fundamental problems such as lack of access and jobs, he said.