On the second day of India Today Conclave 2026, eminent personalities from all over the world participated. In the second day’s session on Saturday, March 14, the ambassadors of Israel and Iran presented their respective sides on the war in West Asia on the platform of India Today. T-20 World Cup winning team members Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma also came on this stage and shared memories of the big victory. At the end of the program, evergreen icon actor Akshay Kumar spoke openly about the cinema world.
At the conclusion of the program, India Today Group Vice Chairperson and Executive Editor-in-Chief Kali Puri gave the vote of thanks.
Kali Puri’s full speech at the concluding session of India Today Conclave
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Good evening
When I was here last year, I talked about a world that was going through a period of constant change and flexibility. This evening, it feels like that same change and resilience now exists on a much larger scale. And our world order is now collapsing and global trade has come to a standstill.
We are almost hypnotized watching the war strategy being decided in a jiffy.
Everything that we considered sacred and immutable is being compromised.
borders
limitations
Security
ethics
rules of war
price of goodness
Pretense of peace and prosperity.
Religion-ruled states and monarchies have always been wrapped in the veil of autocratic power.
What is now under siege is the most respected political system of this century i.e. democracy.
Its institutions are proving unable to handle the weight of the huge personality of its leaders.
The checks and balances within which the democratic leadership used to work have now been broken.
The situation we are facing now is what I call ‘Persona-cracies’.
It seems that democracy can also provide legitimacy to autocratic power. Some people may say that this is the need of the hour.
I had returned from Tehran, an evening before this war, on Saturday 28th February.
We had gone to get an exclusive interview with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, whose name is a household name today.
After completing his interview with us in a grand hall decorated with mirrors, he left for peace talks in Geneva.
Our flight was a day later, so we went out to wander the streets of Tehran. Opportunities to peek into the world of Iran have been limited, so we were very curious about this trip.
Tehran is not as beautiful or historic as it should be on a postcard.
A dusty city, lost in the sacred rhythm of Ramadan, completely unaware of the ‘Epic Fury’ that was about to create havoc here.
The people here are the real attraction, very friendly and full of decorum. Giving answers to our questions in the form of poems and stories.
You may feel that I am taking someone’s side.
yes, i’m taking sides
side of all of us
The side of humanity, the side of all people
side of our talent
The side of that little smile that lights up the room
clear blue-blue amber side
The side of houses that become homes
The side of love that binds families together
side of the flowers that bloom
The side of prayers that are fulfilled
The side of those who never gave up hope even when everything else had failed
The side of those invisible threads that connect us together.
Or which we should connect together.
There are many truths and aspects to this war and we have tried to bring you many different perspectives.
In the last two days, you have heard the views of 10 foreign ambassadors, so that you can form a correct and informed opinion.
In fact, this has always been our endeavor, be it conclave or news room.
And not everyone always agrees with our guest list. When we called Yasin Malik, people with a particular ideology had objections, when we called Salman Rushdie, Congress had objections, when we called Dalai Lama, China had objections.
This year too, some sections have raised questions on the selection of our speakers.
We believe that democracy and newsrooms are strengthened not by silencing controversial people, but by challenging them and presenting their views through close scrutiny. We don’t shy away from sensitive conversations. We believe the path to solution is inclusion, not exclusion.
And perhaps if more of us had thought like this, we could have avoided this war.
Many countries have now been injured by the imposition of this war, and now this number of deaths. Everyone is counting their people.
Yet this war has nothing to do with nationalities. Be it yours or theirs, it turns everything into debris. Prime Minister Modi often talks about ‘one earth, one family, one future’. Others should also pay attention to this.
In the last 15 days, three times more explosives have been dropped on our fragile planet than the atomic bombs of the Second World War.
Modern historian Yuval Noah Harari has warned, “Is it that we are already in the midst of the Third World War and we have not yet realized it? If you had asked people in May 1941 whether they were living in the midst of the Second World War, they would not have believed so. We understand this only after the passage of time.”
turn back On the face of it, this war against Iran can be seen as a war that saved the entire humanity from evil elements, oppression and nuclear holocaust, or it can also be the Third World War.
I would like to conclude with the words of the famous poet Mahmoud Darwish.
“The war will end, the leaders will join hands
An old woman will wait for her martyred child
A woman will wait for her husband to return
And those children will wait for their brave father
I don’t know who sold my country
but i have seen
Who has paid the price for this?”
This is a thoughtful message concluding Conclave 2026.
But in the end, we celebrate what we have
Because this moment is alive because of us.
And we should respect it by living openly.
And today you are immersed in the joy of being a T20 champion, and the magical feeling of Bollywood with the evergreen icon Akshay Kumar.
Enjoy this moment fully.
Until next time, peace be upon us all.
Thank you.
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