We Do Not Grow At Anyone’s Cost: PM Modi Warns Against Weaponising Supply Chains, Energy And Tech

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday warned that supply chains, energy, critical minerals, payments and technology were increasingly being weaponised for coercion, pitching India as a reliable partner in an uncertain global economy while advocating inclusive technological growth and continued economic reforms.

Addressing the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi, being hosted in India for the first time, Modi said networks built through decades of globalisation were becoming vulnerabilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, regional conflicts and disruptions to trade, energy supplies and access to critical resources.

“Things that connected the world at one time are today being weaponized, be it supply chains or energy, be it minerals or payments or technology, they are all becoming tools for coercion and for exerting pressure,” he said.

Referring to these vulnerabilities as globalisation’s “choke points”, Modi stressed the need for uninterrupted supplies during crises, reliable commitments and partners who stand by one another. “We do not grow at anyone’s cost. We grow with the world and for the world,” he said.

Modi highlighted India’s contribution to global needs, saying one in five generic medicines worldwide comes from India. He also cited the country’s digital identity and payment solutions, its skilled young workforce and more than 2,000 global capability centres serving international companies.

On technology, he said its value lay not merely in the power it creates but in how that power is used. “Today, technology is power. Data is power. Knowledge is power. Innovation is power,” he said, advocating the “power to empower” rather than concentrating benefits among a privileged few.

Modi said affordable mobile data had enabled students in smaller cities to access digital learning, helped village shopkeepers reach new customers and allowed young people to enrol in online courses. India’s digital payments infrastructure, he added, serves both street vendors and large businesses.

India is also sharing its digital public infrastructure experience with countries, particularly in the Global South, to help them develop systems suited to their needs. Modi cited the COVID platform as another example of technology expanding access to public services.

He said India had more than 250,000 startups, compared with a few hundred before 2014. Around half were based in smaller cities and towns, while more than 45 per cent had at least one woman director or partner.

Highlighting economic resilience, Modi cited 7.8 per cent GDP growth in the April-June quarter of 2026-27 and foreign exchange reserves exceeding $700 billion. He also said India’s current account deficit had narrowed significantly compared with levels more than a decade ago.

He described the banking system as being on its strongest footing in decades and highlighted reforms, including the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the insolvency framework, the consolidation of 29 labour laws into four labour codes and the decriminalisation of hundreds of minor business-related offences.

“Reforms are not a compulsion. Reforms are our conviction,” Modi said, presenting India’s economic reforms and expanding capabilities as foundations for a more resilient and inclusive global economy.