US President Donald Trump’s programme to ‘Make America Great Again’ could turn out to be a blessing in disguise for Indian companies.

“It will make the country (US) a great place to invest in and will be ‘doubling its bets’”, said group Chairman Anand Mahindra at the Nasscom India Leadership Forum.

He added that Trump’s presidency also presented an opportunity for India to play a more important role in the world.

“Trump is re-imagining the US and that is a huge opportunity for India,” Mahindra said. The Mahindra Group chairman pointed out that India can serve as a bridge-builder at a time when nations are separating. “We can play a lead role in the world with its capabilities for frugal innovation in domains such as space travel and tackling environmental concerns,” he said. In the past couple of days, Mahindra is the second industry titan who has come in support of Trump. A day before, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries had said that Trump’s measures would help the companies to focus on the domestic Indian market.

Modern technology can be used to offshore more work, which, in turn can reduce dependency on H1-B visas. Indian software exporters are facing several challenges from regulatory as well as technological shifts such as cloud computing and automation. “There is a need to reimagine this whole paradigm,” Mahindra said, adding that India should become the app choice for the world.

However, in the wake of the challenges faced by the traditional Indian IT model due to the advent of new-age digital services such as automation and cloud computing as well as due to the proposed curbs on visas for Indian software developers going and working in the US, the industry needed to reimagine itself, Mahindra said.

Talking on autonomous vehicles, Mahindra said it would be easier to bring the technology first in tractors as there is no paranoia, followed by trucks with dedicated lanes and later on cars. `

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