Advantage Modi 7-2015

Advantage Modi 7-2015                                                                                          28 Jan 2015

Preface:

Jaipur Literary Festival has become a global activity. People from all facets of life- Authors, literary people, politicians, bolly wood, media people or one can say people from all walks of life. The participants have absolute freedom to speak out. Narayan Murthy is an “ICON” of IT industry, speaks out his mind.

A narration by Narayan Murthy at JLF is produced below.

‘Babus need to change mindset’                                                                                                   

ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION Narayan Murthy stressed on the need to revamp bureaucracy to ensure Modi’s ambitious Make in India campaign works.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship Make in India campaign to turn the country into a global manufacturing hub is doomed to fail unless Indians discipline themselves, industrialist NR Narayana Murthy said at the Jaipur Literature Festival on Sunday. Murthy, who became the face of the country’s software revolution after he founded software services exporters Infosys in 1981, encouraged budding entrepreneurs but said the bureaucracy needed a complete overhaul. “Our bureaucrats function today like the British did a hundred years ago.” He said, while adding that Indians must become more punctual and disciplined to succeed. “Unless we become more disciplined, Make in India will not happen.”

The 86-years-old endorsed Modi’s mantra of “minimum government, maximum governance”, but said no one man can lead India given the diverse factors at play in every sector. “As long as there’s good regulatory agency, I think the business of business should be left to the private sector,” he said.

Often described as the father of the India IT sector, Murthy praised former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his team of P Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia for pushing economic liberalization in India. “People don’t remember the time when you had to wait five years to get a telephone connection,” Murthy said in conversation with Journalist Rahul Jacob.

Murthy also narrated a 1974 incident when he was dragged by authorities through a train platform and kept confined for 72 hours without food or drink while travelling between Bulgaria and Serbia after he tried to strike up a conversation with a French woman and he male companion didn’t like it. “That event shaped my transformation from a confused leftist to a determined-compassio0nate capitalist, “he said. “ It was, in some way, the last nail in the coffin, so far as my belief in communism was concerned.”