Bloomberg New Economy Forum Held in India for the First Time

The Bloomberg New Economy Forum was held in India for the first time, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed its gathering of business leaders, policymakers and delegates in New Delhi on 13 October 2026. The forum, which brings leading minds together every year for talks on the economy, technology, energy and global affairs, had chosen India as its venue for the first edition held in the country, and the Prime Minister thanked Mr Bloomberg and his team for the decision. This year's forum is built around the new powers taking shape around the world.

Power to Empower

The Prime Minister argued that the real question of our time is not who holds power but how that power is used, and he offered the phrase Power to Empower as India's answer: power to enable rather than control, to collaborate rather than merely compete, and to help others succeed. He placed the thought beside a Sanskrit verse on knowledge, wealth and strength, whose sense is that what matters about any of them is the purpose they serve.

Digital access and innovation

India had only a few hundred startups before 2014; the count is now above 250,000, nearly half of them from small cities and towns, and more than 45 per cent have at least one woman as director or partner. The Prime Minister said cheap mobile data turned connectivity into opportunity for a student in a small town or a shopkeeper in a village, and pointed to a street vendor and a car showroom using the same digital payments system. India has shared its Digital Public Infrastructure with partner countries, made the CoWIN platform open source and supplied vaccines to over one hundred nations.

Energy and climate

Under the Paris Agreement, India set itself the goal in 2015 of drawing 40 per cent of its installed electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030. That mark was reached in November 2021, nine years ahead of time, making India the first G20 country to do so. Renewable capacity has climbed from about 75 gigawatts in 2014 to roughly 300 gigawatts, nearly four times more. PM Surya Ghar and PM-KUSUM, one wiring homes to solar power and the other letting farmers generate it, together account for more than 30 gigawatts of solar capacity and are expected to cut carbon emissions by over 30 million tonnes a year.

The economy and reforms

Growth in the April-June quarter of this year was 7.8 per cent. The current account deficit, more than 4 per cent of GDP twelve to thirteen years ago, fell to about half a per cent last year, or 0.61 per cent, and foreign exchange reserves are above 700 billion dollars, with the banking system in its strongest shape in decades and sovereign ratings being upgraded. On reforms, the Prime Minister listed GST in place of a tangle of taxes, the insolvency law, 29 labour laws folded into four codes and hundreds of small business offences decriminalised.

What India has built for the world

He also counted the platforms India has created for others: the International Solar Alliance, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, the Big Cat Alliance, the Global Biofuel Alliance, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and Mission LiFE, along with the ideas of One Sun, One World, One Grid and One Earth, One Family, One Future. One in five generic medicines in the world comes from India, and the country now hosts more than 2,000 Global Capability Centres serving companies abroad.