Anil Antony is the only national secretary of the BJP who features in both the old and the new team. A man with a vision for the future, he wrote Advantage India: Reshaping the Future for an Equitable World Order — a comprehensive book about the technology-driven world, and its challenges and opportunities for India.

Son of one of the top leaders of the Congress party, A K Antony, Anil grew up in Kerala and did his postgraduate studies at Stanford University in Management Science and Engineering. He went on to stay in the US for seven years, during which he founded more than one tech company, became a successful entrepreneur, and was involved in 4G chip design as far back as 2008.

Anil calls Silicon Valley an "echo chamber" and decided to return to India. He embraced challenges and uncertainty, seeing them as opportunity. He has a quiet persona but a strong mind — once he decides on something, there's no going back. He joined the BJP after his father retired from electoral politics.

Narendra Modi's government's push for technology as a tool of development and growth — and its long-term vision of Viksit Bharat@2047 — found resonance with Anil's own vision for India: that embracing technology is vital, and that India can emerge as a stabilizing pole and an independent actor within an emerging multipolar world order.

We had a good conversation about the unique decisions he's taken in his life — decisions that have given direction to his quest, and helped shape the country's future.