Here's how jobs can be created in India

To alleviate poverty and create more jobs, entrepreneurs should impart skills, particularly to people in rural areas in countries like India, Hinduja Foundation US Chairperson Shanu SP Hinduja has said.

Hinduja was invited to be the co-chair of the United Nation Foundation's Global Accelerator, which brought together entrepreneurs and the UN to accelerate global solutions on key Millennium Development Goals, the world's ‘to do list’ to alleviate poverty.

The other co-chairs of the programme include computer giant Dell's Chairman Michael Dell, UN Under-Secretary General Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, UN Foundation President and CEO Kathy Calvin and UN Foundation Entrepreneur-in-Residence Elizabeth Gore.

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She added that companies should not ‘just go after people who have the Harvard degrees but look out for people who really need the jobs’.

Hinduja also stressed that foreign companies wanting to establish foothold in India should help impart skills to people in rural areas and create jobs there rather than just being focussed on the urban sectors.

"You will have economic growth but you will also be creating balance in society in a country that really needs it," she said, adding that any company that is going into a foreign land has to respect the local culture.

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Hinduja noted that there are lots of skilled people who are not able to get employment.

She said governments, private businesses and banks could start thinking of giving such people small loans to help them create their businesses.

She also said that teaching skills to women, who have been out of the workforce, will give them the confidence to find work and help in the empowerment of their families.

"Companies should have sections just for giving skills for jobs. It will not hold people back," she added.

Hinduja's son Karam Hinduja, a young entrepreneur, was nominated to participate in the event.

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Asked about India, Hinduja said, "We will now have to see India with new eyes with the new government in place."

She said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is ‘pro-business entrepreneurs’ and has the ability to support business which is going to help in creating more jobs.

"The more incentives he has for the private sector, it will only be going to be for better," she said adding that people in India and outside should ‘open their arms to change’.

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She said Modi's support for business ‘will itself bring about more jobs because that will give incentives to business to want to come into the country’.

Hinduja said she would request the new government to keep an ‘open and middle path’ to foreign relations.

Nations should be confident that ‘we are still friends with everyone’ and that India does not favour or is against any particular country, she added.

"Modi has taken a middle path where he has taken the traditions and values of our culture but is keeping doors open to every aspect of life and religion to still exist with the country," she said.