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Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here in the national capital. Pichai is here for the Global AI Impact Summit 2026 and will deliver the keynote address on February 20 at the summit. New Delhi: Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday met Prime Minister Narendra
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Can Strategic Autonomy Achieved Without Sacrificing Efficiency, Innovation?

Can Strategic Autonomy Achieved Without Sacrificing Efficiency, Innovation? SARC Davos Dialogue 2026 Debates
As trade controls, sanctions regimes, and financial restrictions increasingly redefine how goods, capital, and services move across borders, global commerce is being reorganised around trust, compliance, and institutional credibility rather than scale alone.
As trade controls, sanctions regimes, and financial restrictions increasingly redefine how goods, capital, and services move across borders, global commerce is being reorganised around trust, compliance, and institutional credibility rather than scale alone. SARC convened a focused discussion on how trade controls, sanctions dynamics, and compliance architecture are reshaping global commerce. A significant focus was placed on the shadow economy, with thediscussion noting that excessive sanctions and over-compliance often push trade underground. In contrast, India's approach emphasises formalisation rather than exclusion.
Against this backdrop, SARC's closed-door deliberations at the Davos Dialogue 2026 – Ideas to Impact examined India's evolving role in global trade and supply-chain reconfiguration. On Wednesday, 'Competitive Federalism: Which Indian States Will Win the Next Decade?', which assessed how sub-national execution, regulatory certainty, and infrastructure readiness will determine India's ability to convert global trade re-routing into durable economic advantage.
The roundtables were chaired by Sunil Kumar Gupta, Chairman & Global Leader, SARC Global, and were moderated by Namrata Singh Abrol, Founder, The Humanists Collective (Tampa, Florida, US) and Ranu Gupta, Co Founder & CEO, SARC Global, respectively. “India's journey toward a Viksit Bharat @2047 is being carried forward by execution at scale—where compliance strengthens confidence, openness expands opportunity, and growth is built on systems designed to perform under stress. As the global economy enters a new phase of recalibration, India is not only keeping pace with change; it is contributing meaningfully to the shape of what comes next,” said Gupta.
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The roundtable discussion also saw a debate on whether strategic autonomy can be achieved without sacrificing efficiency, innovation, or openness, as climate risk and policy volatility become structural features of the global economy.
Participants underscored that climate change has become a systemic supply-chain risk, reshaping industrial policy, trade competitiveness, and capital allocation through extreme weather disruptions, carbon regulation, and ESG-linked finance. A sector-specific lens reinforced that strategic autonomy must be calibrated rather than ideological, with energy, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, food systems, defence, and digital infrastructure requiring higher resilience, while other sectors continue to benefit from global integration.
Participants also discussed India's use of regulated alternative settlement mechanisms. The session concluded that India's model—combining trade regulation, compliance capacity, and strategic restraint—has helped limit the expansion of shadow trade while enhancing export credibility, tax realisation, and manufacturing inflows.
Source: ZeeNews
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