Tag: Podcast

Podcast

Estranged 2020 : My Song, My Life, My Way

A Day in the Life of KK

Estranged 2020 : My Song, My Life, My Way

2020: Early Warnings of Devastation

I started 2020 with a very positive outlook. Our investment heatmaps were indicating upswing in investment activity, term sheets in progress for investments, strong investment flows on the back of Sino-US trade blockade. By 15 March, it was clear that some Chinese bug has hit Indian shores and I started out moving back our teams to their home bases, talking to the authorities on the situation. On my birthday, just a day before the first 14-hour lockdown, I was working late in office to mitigate the risk that may be arising out of the business disruption. Then there was the forced lockdown preventing me to work from office. The start of the Financial Year 2020-21 was clearing going to be a devastating one for all due to the Covid pandemic. In the first week of April 2020, all the financial and business outlook turned negative and also I suffered huge financial losses never anticipated in my life as a result. It was a very depressing personal situation for me which I had never faced in my life. It was clear I needed to bouceback. Suffering losses is a temporary situation, letting the frame of mind to continue with being mentally ‘broke’ was just not acceptable to me. Clearly there were four key issues that I observed in Q1

  1. the volatility and pace at which the situations changed
  2. all plans and predictions went for a toss
  3. there was utter chaos and no one had a clear head and view to handle the complexity and solutions to solve it
  4. with more bad news, there was no view when things will bottom out

That’s when I started my journey of My Song, My Life, My Mantra, My Way, My Avatar.

2020: My Song

During my long walks during the first week April, I would listen to Bon Jovi’s hit Estranged, the lyrics of which went like this and my responses (in brackets)…

When you’re talkin’ to yourself (about your situation)

And nobody’s home (although at home with family in the lockdown)

You can fool yourself (that All is Well)

You came in this world alone (I am all alone fending for myself)

So nobody ever told you baby (nobody had a clue)

How it was gonna be (the lockdown and beyond)

So what’ll happen to you baby (rather be strong than helpless)

Guess we’ll have to wait and see (no way)

One, two

The nine minutes song played out the remaining nine months of 2020 of my life.

2020: My Life, My Nine Mantra

There 9 minutes of the song inspired me to write my nine mantras to bounced back and come out a winner in 2020. These were:

1.    Love Thy Self: No Self Empathy

Every one in my circle of networks was very scared and required empathy. How would you empathise if you are yourself shallow and lack self-love? The toxic energy in the environment that was flowing around just was not doing good to me. I need not be a victim of this toxicity. That’s when I decided to manifest myself with a new energy and to fight the situation, I need to be stronger physically, mentally, spiritually. I started out with a healthy diet and high-end nutraceuticals, doubled up on my daily walks, increased my heart points by 3 times and started drawing on positive energy. As a result, I was over 10 kgs down in weight, much fitter and well energized positively to empathise with the people

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kapilkhandelwal_festive-covid-lockdown-activity-6734056517827354624-rpJv

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kapilkhandelwal_fitness-googlemaps-activity-6614182548820062209-J_Mn

2.    Renewed Vision for My Future Avatar

My mission in life has always been how to make healthcare cheaper, better, faster. Healthcare for All | Kapil Khandelwal (KK). With my interactions and calls with our investors, there was confidence in what we were doing. In fact, we raised even more funds during May-June 2020 for healthcare investments. The critical issue at hand was what investment strategies worked in the past would work in the post-Covid era. It was time to rework and restrategise the vision for my future avatar. With the positive energies, I set fearlessly out my renewed vision with Josh, Jonoon and Jigar. My best is yet to come!  

3.    Focus, Focus, Focus

With the my Avatar 2.0, it was time to focus. I clearly had 24-hours in a day and many unfinished business and agendas. It was with the renewed focus, that I cut down that was not required through a VED analysis of my work load. Clearly three key agendas for focus emerged out of this which I set forth in my work, declining, regretting and pre-closing many ongoing commitments as a result. This helped me put my time to get the maximum impact and the outcomes that my new Avatar was to emerge out.

4.    Build the Safety Net and Resilience

My primary responsibilities during the lockdown was to ensure that my people and their families are not adversely affected. To build confidence in my people, I build a safety net and emergency response for any eventuality due to Covid. At the cost of selling off my personal investments at a loss, I ensured that my people had food on their table and committed to my renewed vision with confidence.

5.    Create Impactful Behavior and Environment

To rebuild the economy and our healthcare systems for the future, it was clear that capital and investments would be with empathy and impact along with positive investor returns. One of the unfinished business was to ensure that there was a holistic and inclusive regulatory framework for the Social Stock Exchange (SSE) in India. I had been part of the journey with SEBI from its inception and worked with our team to produce a white paper with several recommendations which is now being on the table for the final regulation.

Social Stock Exchange | Kapil Khandelwal (KK)

6.    Network like never before

Other than the usual networking activity virtually during lockdown, being an investor allows you access to world politicians, thought leaders, think tanks, industry bodies, academia and opinion makers across the diaspora. My time was well spent speaking with them and gathering their take on various issues emerging out of this world crisis. Over the last 9 months, I had 1×1 with over 200 folks. I really thank them for taking their time to talk to me.

7.    Guides and Mentors

I renergised my circle of guides and mentors and opened up communications where we discussed may of my fears and issues heart to heart. This provided me the inspiration for being a better leader for the emerging new world order.

8.    Inspirational Leadership

With the current crisis, the model of leadership that I demonstrated is lead from the front and demonstrating everything is possible with less to do more. The constraints-based parochial leadership was passe for my people whether they were in front of me or virtually.

9.    Communication and Feedback with the World

In order to guide my peers and folks in the industry, I launched a podcast series QuoteUnQuote With KK which quickly emerged as India’s leading business podcast globally. QuoteUnquote with KK | Kapil Khandelwal (KK). This platform allowed me a means to communicate to the wider diaspora and also gain feedback from the world on what they were thinking on the issues.

2020: My Way, My Avatar

When I look back what I started alone in 2010 leaving Cisco as the top-200 Executive and compare what I have emerged out of 2020, I see that my way for the last 10 years could have only taken me so far. 2020 pandemic and situation, forced me to estrange my previous avatar and reincarnate into a new avatar that will be strong and durable for the 2020s decade.

The strong motive and motivations for my new avatar will drive me forward in the new normal for the world. I thank all those who have been part of this journey in 2020 to make it possible for me.

Here’s wishing you all a healthy, wealthy 2021!

Beyond the Farm Bill – Setting the Agenda for the Next Generation of Food and Agri Reforms in India

Farm Bill

Introduction

In 1998, when I was part of the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpeyee’s Task Force on Food and Agri Management Policy, we present set of recommendations that would transform the sector and affect the overall food security of India. The 70-page report outlined the issues across the agri value chain. To align the country, we gave the slogan to the Honorable Prime Minister:

“Kisan Ugaye (farmer grows)

Janta Khaye (population feeds)

Aur Desh Aage Badh Jaye” (and the country advances)

The current Farm Bill which is being politically contested is just addressing one part of the overall agri value chain. Back then in 1998, over INR 55,000 crores of agri produce is wasted every year due to inadequate infrastructure to the latest estimate of INR 44,000 crores. This is hardly a dent over the last 22 years in curbing the loss of farm produce. Over the last 70 years of independent India, the so called ‘middlemen’ have not added value nor reduced the farm produce losses. However, this is not the purpose of my blog today. There were several recommendations that were put forth and accepted by the Government in 1998. Unfortunately, the political and administrative will and intent was missing. I would like to recall some of the key recommendations that would need to form part of the Next Generation of Food and Agri Reforms in India.

Setting Agenda for Next Generation of Food and Agri Reforms in India

India’s current agri output is around USD 300 billion and provides food security for one season. There are several items on the agenda to double this output to around USD 500 billion by 2030. These include reducing the number of Ministries and Departments that manage the agri value chain, to setting up the Next Green and White Revolution to increase productivity to global norms, investment in smart infrastructure and digitization of agriculture, funding agriculture, food processing to enable farm to fork, agri labour reforms amongst a few. Let’s discuss the important agenda items one by one.

Super Food and Agri Ministry

In the current Government, there are following Ministries across the food and agri value chain:

  1. Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers
  2. Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
  3. Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
  4. Ministry of Food Processing Industries
  5. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
  6. Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries

This is still a manageable number from over 14 Ministries in 1998. Compare this with a single Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) in the UK which manages the administration of the entire value chain.

Next Green and White Revolution in India

In 1998, we had outlined several recommendations that would lead to doubling of the agri productivity to reach global norms in various agri produce per hectare. Over the last 20 years there have been several advances in agri and animal husbandry technology which would need to be rolled out at the farm level to increase the produce on reduced land supply for agriculture due to increasing population pressure. These include agri biotech innovations, precision farming, multi-level farming, organic pesticides and fertilizers and so on. The issue of land fragmentation over the last 20 years have become fairly acute and as time elapses, would accentuate further affecting the productivity. Newer technologies and consolidation to intensify agri on limited land due to population pressure is to be developed. Lastly, the issues of climate and environmental change over the 20 years have become very visible and would need technologies and crop rotation to mitigate agri failures due to climate and environmental changes that are occurring rapidly over the last decade. My work with Department of Biotech (DBT) in setting up the Biotech Ignition Grant (BIG) Policy in 2011-12 was muted to enable innovations in agri biotech and start up to obtain grants to commercialize their concepts and innovation in this area.

Investment in Smart Infrastructure and Digitization of Agricultural Value Chain

There are several developments on the information technology front which has yet to be adopted by Indian agriculturalists. Several product innovation start ups are working on solving some of these issues. We would need to accelerate the adoption as well as new innovation in IoT and remote sensing, big data and artificial intelligence, smaller farm implements for mechanizing small farm holdings, robotics, full stack farm 2 fork digital solutions. In 1998, ITC’s eChaupal was drubbed as an innovative path and way forward for Indian agriculture. Times and technology have advanced by leaps and bounds. Indian agriculture must adopt these quickly and aggressively. This also brings another issue of digital education for the farmers and labourers in upskilling them in these new tools and techniques leveraging deep tech in agri.

New Age Food Processing to Enable Farm 2 Fork

In 1998, several recommendations were made to invest into the food processing and logistics to enable quicker movement of fresh produce from the farm 2 fork. A lot has been done in this front. However, the data on infra investments in this space show a skew towards the top-5 states of India. Another area of innovation is adoption of newer and latest food processing technologies with our ‘jugaad’ innovation including the cold chains and refers. The Covid vaccine distribution cold chain which would be an episodic exercise could be turned to alternative use post endemic in the remotest parts of India to create the linkages of cold chain.

Agri Labour Reforms

Several recommendations have been made to consolidate the farms and contract farmers into co-operatives and social enterprises. One of the steps in the right direction would be the Social Stock Exchange where these social agri enterprises can be listed and be professionally managed with transparent governance and funding. The other issue that is reskilling and employment generation for the displaced labour due to implementation of new age deep tech which would replace manual farm labour. We had recommended around 15% of undisguised labour to be migrated out of agriculture to other sectors for employment. During the Covid Crisis, Rural BPOs have grown over 10-fold, its these ideas for alternative employment generation and reskilling that needs to creatively addressed.

Finally, Funding, Funding, Funding

Apart from the Central and State Government budgetary support to the sector for funding and apex financial institution NABARD, in the last 20 years there were a few focused providers of risk capital to this sector which I can count on my finger tips. These included PE/VC offshoots of large corporate houses with interest in food and agri and multinational agri-focussed banks. I believe the ESG Funds, new age VCs and the Social Stock Exchange Regulations will provide newer players to step into this sector. One of the hang over of the last 20 years had been the accumulated gun-powder that needs to be monitised.

Why Food-Health Alchemy is the Need?

As an investor in core healthcare sector, why am I writing this to set up the discussions on food and agri reforms? Our learning from our investments in nutrigenomics venture was that the new age diseases and syndromes emerging in healthcare is the outcome of what we eat. The food and nutrition consumption basket of Indians has dramatically altered over the last 20 years since my Britannia days. The national well being of Indian population depends on the nutritional outputs from the food and agri sector. Therefore I may now like to alter the slogan which we coined in 1998 to

“Kisan Ugaye (farmer grows)

Janta Khaye (population feeds)

Kisan aur Janta Swasth Rahe (farmer and population remains healthy)

Aur Desh Aage Badh Jaye” (and the country advances)

For more recent update on the issue of Farm Bill and Agri and Agritech Reforms listen to QuoteUnQuote with KK – Kapil Khandelwal (KK) and Mark Kahn on The Future of Agriculture: AgriTech and Government Reforms