Young India has moved beyond cynicism, building tomorrow’s enterprises: FM Sitharaman

Mumbai: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday dismissed doubts over India’s demographic dividend and said the young minds of the country have simply bypassed their cynicism and gone ahead and built it.

Addressing the Global Fintech Festival 2026 here, FM Sitharaman said India’s younger generation is already writing tomorrow’s code, building enduring enterprises and proving that India’s greatest demographic advantage is an active, unstoppable reality.

She also asserted that the country’s young population is already driving innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth and does not require validation from traditional measures of productivity.

FM Sitharaman said the energy and ambition displayed by thousands of participants at the event reflected the strength of India’s demographic advantage.

“We are seeing it translate into monumental strides from building the world’s most powerful digital public infrastructure with UPI processing billions of transactions, to standing tall as the fastest-growing major economy and breaking frontiers in space exploration,” she said.

She pointed to the scale and diversity of participation at the Global Fintech Festival, noting that around 8,000 organisations were represented. According to her, fintech firms accounted for 20 per cent of participants, financial institutions 25 per cent, technology-related entities 43 per cent and support services 12 per cent.

The minister also cautioned against emerging risks from artificial intelligence, large language models and cyber threats, saying technology had become capable of influencing societies and even electoral outcomes. She warned that attacks by rogue operators and agentic groups could target entire national systems.

Against this backdrop, Sitharaman stressed the need for a balanced regulatory framework that protects innovation while addressing risks. She said she had discussed with the Reserve Bank of India ways to pursue “soft-touch regulation” without curbing innovation.

Welcoming the RBI’s recognition of the Unified FinTech Forum as a self-regulatory organisation under the SRO-FT framework, she said the move demonstrated the central bank’s ability to respond in time to the evolving needs of the fintech sector.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

IANS

[email protected]