AMCHAM’s Medical Devices Committee met with Mr. Aseem Sahu, Deputy Drug Controller, Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India on July 28th at the CDSCO office. Members from Boston Scientific, Teleflex, J&J and Edwards Lifesciences discussed challenges related to the CDSCO MD Portal such as the inability to download the retention copy, no option for removal/addition of model numbers during retention application, integration of post approval challenges to base license and Bharat Kosh Portal challenges, etc.

AMCHAM’s Tamil Nadu Chapter held a breakfast meeting on July 27^th in Chennai on ‘Talent Landscape in the Post-COIVE World.’ The meeting commenced with Mr. Niranjan Kumar of NTT Data making opening remarks wherein he said that the WFH and return to office were the most talked about topics in the office environment. He welcomed Mr. Dhananjay Nai, Director – HR, For Business Solutions, Ford and Ms. Gangapriya Chakraverthi, CEO, Ford India to share their thoughts on the changing talent scape in the post COVID world. The session began with Mr. Dhananjay giving an overview of Ford’s Global Technology & Business Center in India. He said the center was built on 28 acres of space with an investment of $250 million and has about 11,700 employees. He shared the growth of the Global Business Center, gave an outline of the Chennai campus and shared a broad overview of the classification of the talent in various areas of the operations in Chennai. Mr. Mai then gave a glance of the future of work trends and spoke about quiet hiring, flexibility, how managers were sandwiched between leaders and employee expectations. He spoke about how pursuing non-traditional talent expands the talent pipeline and said that healing of the pandemic trauma helped in a more sustainable performance. Members shared what they see in their companies about the talent landscape. He touched on the importance of DEI in the organization and how getting personal with employees creates new data risks and how concerns about algorithmic bias in recruitment leads to more transparency. GenZ skills gap and erosion of social skills, pros and cons of the WFH and the return to office scenarios and the talent implications were discussed. Employee concerns such as commuting time, care of children and elders and productivity challenges were mentioned, along with the employer’s concerns for return to the office such as company values, inclusion and diversity, work environment, friendly, collaborative outcomes, well being and work life balance. Employee concerns about reduced work hours, job security, and how social engagement take a back seat were discussed.

Speaking on how Ford was approaching the changing scenario, Mr. Nai said that they now have smaller teams that immerse deeply in the work to create. The ideation group that generates and exchanges new ideas and processes. He said that coming together results in learning, problem solving, mentoring and knowledge sharing. He shared about Ford’s division of the workforce, either as onsite or remote with clear definitions on who would belong to each of these categories of employees. The guiding principles were the safety and well being, an overriding priority, the onsite workplace has a key role in enabling connections and building collaborations, providing flexibility of work options, treating similar roles consistently, allowing different teams to be different based on their work priorities and said that the need to be agile enough to experiment and adjust as well as acknowledging the employees need for clarity and consistency. Ms. Chakraverthi spoke of how the company policy was being fine tuned as they went along with the changed talent scape. Members asked questions and interacted with the speakers throughout the presentation.

A meeting of the Working Group on Ports, Railways, Roads and Highways and Construction Technology of the Smart Cities and Infrastructure Committee was held on July 27^th in New Delhi. Members deliberated upon avenues for enhancing U.S.-India partnership in roads, ports, railways, airports and construction technologies. The challenges faced by the industry, including, Make in India and creating a level playing field for multi-national companies, project completion deadlines, road safety technology adoption, public-private partnership in non-aeronautical activities and transit-oriented development, were discussed. It was decided to interact with relevant Government of India Ministries and Departments to discuss industry concerns.

On 27^th July, members of AMCHAM Defense Committee convened at the Lockheed Martin office in New Delhi to give a fond farewell to CAPT Michael Farmer, Chief, Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC), U.S Embassy and welcome to CAPT Chad Gagnon, the incoming Chief. Mr. William L. Blair, Co-Chairman – Defense Committee, AMCHAM and Vice President and Regional Executive Asia & India Lockheed Martin welcomed everyone as the host, set the tone for the meeting and turned it over to Ms. Udaya Arun, Director, AMCHAM to make initial comments. Ms. Arun thanked CAPT Farmer for his untiring support from the U.S. Government side to AMCHAM to address challenges and provide guidance as and when required. She welcomed CAPT Gagnon and shared a brief about the committee and its most recent activities. She then requested Mr. Salil Gupte, Vice Chairman, AMCHAM and President, Boeing India for his introduction before requesting all members to make brief introductions to CAPT Gagnon. Committee members in turn provided a brief about their roles and a few pertinent issues and instances where they sought the ODC to intervene. Ms. Arun shared briefly on the outputs from the recent interaction with Joint Secretary Negi at the Ministry of Defence. Members deliberated on the very pertinent point of engaging with SIDM moving forth as the need of working with Indian industry partners was the key to succeed in interactions and results where Government of India was concerned. Agenda for the upcoming interaction with Joint Secretary Anurag Bajpai at the Ministry of Defense was shared and additional thoughts requested. She shared an update on the capability deck status and urged members who had not provided inputs so far to expedite the same. A hybrid interaction with Ernst & Young on the PLI schemes in defense was planned for the first week of August. Lastly, members discussed thoughts on prospective news regarding DefExpo 2024.

AMCHAM met with the U.S. Commercial Services, U.S. Embassy on July 26^th in New Delhi. AMCHAM was represented by Ms. Ranjana Khanna, Director General CEO, AMCHAM and Ms. Geeta Poduval, Director. On behalf of U.S. Embassy, Ms. Debra Martin, Commercial Officer and Ms. Ritu Arora, Sr. Commercial Specialist attended the meeting. The objective of the meeting was to discuss avenues of cooperation for supporting U.S. companies in India in the infrastructure sector, bring in new and emerging U.S. technologies to the Indian infrastructure sector and also contribute meaningfully to the Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) on Transportation between the United States of America and India.

On 26^th July, Ms. Ashmita Sethi, Chairperson – Aviation Committee, AMCHAM and President & Country Head, Pratt & Whitney, Mr. Tejaswi Narasimhan, Co-Chairman – Aviation Committee, AMCHAM and Ms. Udaya Arun, Director, AMCHAM met in New Delhi to take forward an agenda for the coming months. The primary agenda was to request a welcome and introductory meeting with Mr. Chanchal Kumar, presently OSD at Ministry of Civil Aviation, to introduce and familiarize him with AMCHAM and upon his appointment as Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, carry forward the charter for the committee. Presently, actioning items covering the following points were discussed: seeking clarity on engine manufacturing MRO, Cape Town Convention Bill and the status of its introduction in the Monsoon Session of Parliament, synergy between civil and defense sector and perhaps discussions related to ATF, reduction of VAT could be taken up in the near term.