THEBUSINESSBYTES BUREAU

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 3, 2026

India’s economic resilience in an increasingly uncertain global environment will depend on strengthening domestic capabilities, diversifying supply chains and external economic partnerships, while remaining open to global markets, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Dr. P. K. Mishra said on Saturday.

Delivering the keynote address at the plenary session, “A World Priced for Risk”, at the 5th Kautilya Economic Conclave in New Delhi, Dr. Mishra said the nature of economic risk had undergone a significant change, with economies now confronting not only calculable risks but also uncertainties to which probabilities could not be reliably assigned.

The pandemic, geopolitical conflicts, supply-chain disruptions, trade restrictions and rapid technological changes had brought the distinction between risk and uncertainty into sharper focus, he said.

Dr. Mishra noted that geography, which technology was once expected to make less relevant, had returned to the centre of economic decision-making. Disruptions in shipping routes could influence energy prices thousands of kilometres away, while the concentration of critical minerals and their processing in a few locations had created new vulnerabilities.

The transition towards clean energy, he added, was also creating new forms of strategic dependence that economies would need to address.

Uncertainty, he said, was altering the behaviour of both firms and governments. Companies were diversifying suppliers, maintaining larger inventories and developing alternative production capacities, while governments were strengthening reserves, fiscal buffers and strategic capabilities.

 “Resilience is not free,” Dr. Mishra said, adding that the key economic question was whether the premium paid for resilience was justified by the potential cost of the disruption being avoided.

The emerging global response, he said, should not be viewed as a retreat from globalisation, but as a reassessment of how global economic integration should be organised in an environment marked by greater uncertainty.

Countries were increasingly seeking to combine domestic capabilities with diversified international partnerships, strategic reserves, alternative supply chains and deeper economic cooperation.

For India, Dr. Mishra said, resilience could not mean insulation from the global economy.

 “It has to mean the ability to remain open to the world without becoming excessively vulnerable to it,” he said.

He identified energy security, critical minerals, strategic industrial capabilities and diversification of external economic relationships as important components of India’s resilience strategy.

At the same time, strengthening domestic capabilities should go hand in hand with productivity and competitiveness, he said. Domestic capability-building, he stressed, should not amount to replacing imports at any cost, but should seek to create capabilities that are competitive, scalable and eventually capable of serving global markets.

He cited developments in electronics, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, among other strategic sectors, as examples of the transformation under way.

Dr. Mishra also emphasised the role of macroeconomic resilience in enabling economies to absorb external shocks. Fiscal space, adequate foreign exchange reserves, a sound financial system and credible institutions, he said, provide governments with the capacity to respond when disruptions occur.

He further pointed to the growing convergence between security and sustainability, with energy, food, technology and environmental security becoming increasingly interconnected.

Concluding his address, Dr. Mishra said resilience was not a choice between self-sufficiency and globalisation. A more rational approach, he said, would involve building domestic capability where vulnerability was strategic, diversifying where concentration posed risks, and maintaining openness where global integration enhanced productivity and competitiveness.

Referring to the broader meaning of Atmanirbharta, he recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s observation that the concept was not about being closed to the world, but about becoming self-sustaining and self-generating.