Mumbai: In a well-attended fireside conversation at the inaugural Mumbai edition of the FICCI Young Leaders Summit 2025, Rohan Dua, Executive Editor of The New Indian, moderated a wide-ranging session with Aaditya Thackeray, MLA and noted youth leader, focused on sustainability, urban transformation, and the role of young people in policymaking.
The session — part of a one-day summit that brought together entrepreneurs, policymakers and changemakers — underlined the urgency of climate-aware governance and the importance of youth engagement in city planning.
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Dua, who has moderated high-profile conversations across politics and public life, steered the discussion toward practical solutions for cities and how political leadership can work with industry and youth to deliver better public services.
The session attracted a mixed audience of young professionals, industry delegates and civil-society representatives at Taj Lands End, underscoring the summit’s aim to bridge policy conversations with next-generation leadership.
Aaditya Thackeray: “Mumbai can no longer afford business as usual”
Aaditya Thackeray used the platform to press for a reimagined urban agenda for Mumbai — arguing that the megacity must prioritise quality of life, climate resilience and long-term planning. “Mumbai can no longer continue with business as usual,” he told the audience, calling for policies that place sustainability and citizens’ well-being at the centre of municipal decision-making.
His comments were framed against the backdrop of upcoming local civic contests and broader debates on city governance.
He also recalled personal memories and family legacy during a lighter moment in the session, noting how those stories continue to shape his approach to politics and public life — a comment that prompted warm reactions in the hall.
At the same time, Aaditya stressed hard policy points: green infrastructure, resilient coastal planning, and greater collaboration between municipal bodies, industry and young innovators to pilot scalable solutions.
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On youth participation and actionable policy
Under Dua’s probing, Aaditya argued that youth-led initiatives and start-ups offer practical pilots that governments can learn from and scale. He encouraged deeper engagement between FICCI’s Young Leaders Forum and state/local administrations to co-create policy pilots in areas such as waste management, micro-mobility and climate-smart infrastructure.
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The session emphasised iterative pilot projects, measurable outcomes and public-private partnerships as the pathway from idea to impact.
Summit context and institutional push
The conversation took place as part of the FICCI Young Leaders Summit’s broader agenda to expand youth networks and launch state chapters — moves that organisers say will decentralise engagement and make follow-up easier between events.
FICCI launches Young Leaders Helpdesk and new state chapters in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka — signalling a push to convert summit conversations into sustained local action.
Moderated by Rohan Dua, the Aaditya Thackeray session combined political perspective, personal anecdote and policy urgency — and ended with a clear call to action: cities must embed sustainability into everyday governance, and the next generation of leaders (both inside and outside government) must be given practical spaces to test, iterate and scale solutions.
Attendees left with an agenda of priority areas — coastal resilience, green mobility, waste-to-value pilots and enhanced youth-government collaboration — that could form the basis for concrete follow-up in the months ahead.
