Manufacturing, Money And The Machinery Of Growth

Good morning.

India has the capital, technology and entrepreneurial ambition to grow. The harder challenge is turning them into growth at scale.

This week, Manish Sabharwal looks at why India has struggled to replicate pharma’s success across manufacturing, while Umesh Revankar examines the SME credit gap and the growing role of NBFCs. Neetu Chitkara explores AI’s potential to expand access to banking, Manish Agrawal makes the case for stronger, more coordinated fraud prevention, and Vidya Mahambare explains why more of India’s household savings need to flow into financial assets.

Together, they point to a larger challenge: building the systems that can turn India’s resources into productive growth.

WEEKEND EDITION

From Global Pharma To Global Manufacturing: What India Still Needs

If India can make medicines for the world, why has it struggled to build the same scale across manufacturing?

In this episode of Weekend Edition, Govindraj Ethiraj speaks with Manish Sabharwal of TeamLease Services and co-author of Made in India: The Story of Desh Bandhu Gupta about what India’s pharmaceutical success reveals about the country’s larger manufacturing opportunity.

Indian pharma built global scale by mastering quality, regulation, supply chains and overseas markets. Yet manufacturing still employs only around 11% of India’s labour force, while a large share remains tied to agriculture.

Sabharwal points out that capital and infrastructure are no longer the constraints they once were. The harder challenge is creating an environment in which businesses can scale: simpler regulation, stronger education and research institutions, better governance, and greater room for entrepreneurship and innovation.

Key Insight

Indian pharma offers a blueprint for global competitiveness, but replicating its success across manufacturing will require simpler regulation, stronger innovation systems and companies willing to build for the long term.

EXCLUSIVE BRIEFING

Don’t Miss a Beat: The Hidden Risks to Indians

For people making high-stakes decisions every day, stress can become routine. Long hours, poor sleep and constant pressure are often treated as part of the job. But cardiovascular risk can build quietly. High blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and genetic risk may show few obvious signs, even in people who feel healthy and perform at a high level.

On 6 October, The Core, in partnership with EDGE Community, is bringing together leading cardiologists for a conversation hosted by The Quorum Club Mumbai, moderated by Govindraj Ethiraj.

The discussion will focus on what high-performing professionals should know about prevention, screening and the risks that are easy to overlook. If you manage risk for a living, your heart should be part of that equation too.

By invitation only | 6 October 2026 | 8:30 AM onwards | Mumbai

SPECIAL EDITIONS

Why India’s Credit Market Is Moving Beyond Banks

What if India’s credit gap is not simply about a shortage of money, but about getting it to businesses quickly enough?

In this episode of Special Edition, Govindraj Ethiraj speaks with Umesh Revankar of Shriram Finance Limited about the changing role of NBFCs in financing India’s small businesses and retail borrowers.

India’s SME sector faces an estimated ₹30 lakh crore credit gap, but Revankar points out that the problem is often access and turnaround time rather than the absence of lenders. NBFCs can combine digital underwriting with local customer relationships to structure credit around the needs of smaller businesses.

However, technology alone may not close this gap. Revankar sees deeper bank-NBFC co-lending as a potential next step, with banks supplying capital while specialised lenders provide reach, underwriting and customer knowledge.

Key Insight

India’s lending market is moving towards a hybrid model where banks provide capital, while specialised NBFCs bring technology and last-mile customer knowledge, with co-lending potentially bringing the two closer together.

Can AI Close India’s Financial Inclusion Gap?

Could AI expand India’s financial system to customers that traditional banking models have struggled to reach?

In this episode of Special Edition, Govindraj Ethiraj speaks with Neetu Chitkara of Boston Consulting Group about how AI could reshape banking, credit and financial inclusion.

AI could help banks assess customers with limited conventional financial histories by combining alternative data, potentially widening access for small farmers, migrant workers and MSMEs. Chitkara estimates that another 400 million consumers could enter the financial services ecosystem.

However, greater adoption also expands the challenge around cybersecurity, governance and human oversight. Fraud and mule accounts cannot be addressed by individual institutions alone, making shared digital infrastructure and collaboration increasingly important.

Key Insight

AI could make Indian banking more inclusive and personalised, but its impact will depend on whether financial institutions can strengthen cybersecurity, talent and internal systems and turn new technology into measurable business value.

BUREAU BYTES

India Unified Payments. Can It Unify Fraud Prevention?

India unified the way digital payments move. Can it do the same for how transactions are authenticated?

Manish Agrawal of HDFC Bank explains why tackling digital fraud may require a more unified approach across India’s payments ecosystem.

Agrawal points to a fragmented authentication system in which banks, cards and payment platforms can present customers with different interfaces. A standardised authentication layer, combined with risk-based checks and common device identification, could make fraudulent or cloned interfaces harder to exploit.

However, the technology itself may not be the biggest constraint. Agrawal says many alternatives to OTPs already exist; the harder task is getting institutions to adopt common standards and customers to change familiar behaviour.

Key Insight

As digital payments scale, fighting fraud may depend less on developing new authentication technologies and more on getting the financial ecosystem to adopt common standards that are safer, simpler and harder to replicate.

THE CORE QUIZ

HOW INDIA’S ECONOMY WORKS

Can India Put Its Household Savings To Better Use?

India’s households save a substantial amount. So why does the economy still need more domestic capital?

In this episode of How India’s Economy Works, Puja Mehra speaks with Vidya Mahambare, Union Bank Chair Professor of Economics at the Great Lakes Institute of Management, about why where Indian households put their savings matters as much as how much they save.

Around two-thirds of household savings are held in physical assets, while only a third goes into financial assets. Mahambare explains that greater financial savings could expand the pool of capital available to businesses and the government, potentially lowering borrowing costs and supporting investment.

However, shifting savings will require changing incentives. Tax treatment, low real returns on fixed-income products and the preferential treatment of real estate can all influence where households put their money.

Why This Matters

India’s investment needs are growing, but households remain the economy’s main net savers. Shifting more existing savings from gold and real estate into financial assets could expand domestic capital, lower borrowing costs and support greater public and private investment without asking households to save more overall.

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