Jul 16, 2009 12:22 AM
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(Updated Jul 16, 2009 11:47 AM)
NR Narayana Murthy, the founder chairman of ‘Infosys’, is one of the most admired entrepreneurs of India. The nation honoured him with ‘Padma Vibhushan’ for his great contribution to the nation. ‘A BETTER INDIA, A BETTER WORLD’ is a collection of well arranged 38 speeches by Narayana Murthy on different occasions. Mr. Murthy, who took the world by storm with software revolution spells out his vision on modern India. India is growing with one of the highest GDP growth rate in the world with the help of achievements in technology, industry & entrepreneurship. The number of people who are in the shade of hunger, unemployment, illiteracy & malnutrition are also increasing. ‘What will it take for India to bridge this great divide?’ Through this book, the author tries to find a solution for this difficult question.
Once a confused leftist and now a compassionate capitalist, Narayana Murthy believes that our future development should be based on the following pillars. 1.Education. ‘Progress based on dreams need change’. Education brings this change, which increase the knowledge and assuming social responsibility. Meritocracy in admission & Autonomy in administration are required to generate world class professionals. 2.Good value system. ‘We need courageous leaders (with good entrepreneurship & governance)‘ with a value system where people accept modest sacrifices for the common good’, who lead with example and capable of motivating the individuals for sacrifice for the good of society. 3.Capitalism. ‘Only through creation of wealth we can create job opportunities and thereby remove poverty’. In the face of new challenges and to resurrect capitalism, Mr. Murthy visualizes a ‘Compassionate Capitalism’ - by combining the power of mind and heart, the good of capitalism and socialism. 4.Globalisation. ‘Sourcing capital from where it is cheapest, talent from where it is best available, producing where it is most efficient and selling where the markets are, without being constrained by national boundaries, the author explains how globalization is a win-win situation.
The thoughts which guide the Infosys employees on accountability and transparency are worth mentioning, which is repeated in several places in the book. 1. The softest pillow is a clear consciousness. 2. In God we trust, everybody else brings data to the table. 3. You can disagree with me, as long as you are not disagreeable.4. When in doubt, disclose.
Some of the thoughts/suggestions I found interesting and relevant:
When giving subsidies to the farmers the role of middleman should be eliminated.
Meritocracy should be applied for the higher education.
‘Good leaders integrate the fifty-thousand-feet bird’s-eye view of the world with the ground level worm’s eye view’.
The efforts to reduce the population of India should be restarted.
‘The best use of all your wealth is to share it with those less fortunate’.
‘Today, we have political freedom but not economic freedom-the freedom from hunger, disease and illiteracy’.
In India, we tend to look down on people who do jobs that require physical work or involve disciplined execution and accountability.
What a journalist recently wrote, ‘If a guy steals $5000/-, he goes to jail for ten years. If he steals $500 million, he appears before Congress and gets called bad names for ten minutes’.
Few points where my views are different:
1. ‘over a period of ten to twenty years, the government should withdrawshould gradually get out of all activities other than defense, external affairs, home and macro economic policies, and should just become just a regulator in all areas of commerce’. Considering the nation’s low standard on governance, illiteracy and poverty, the fate of poor may not be a priority or an attraction for industrialists. The author assumes that individuals and industrial houses will assume the responsibility of social upbringing, based on universal values. With the present recession and history of corporate frauds the morale of capitalists are on extreme low by now.
2. There have a lot of data supplied to shows us that there is great poverty in India. The author however failed to detail how technology and globalization will remove the state of poverty.
3.The author’s dream of a border-less world is on the assumption that the world is a happy place without any crux, spies and war, where the history of our world is full of them. With the presence of war, going for complete globalization will be like going for a race with paralyzed body parts. I am against giving foreign ownership in key sectors like ‘Telecom’ for the safety, security and privacy of individuals and nation where the author does not see a need for it.
4. As per the author’s vision, India should first produce a million plus ‘eminent citizens’ who are simply like ‘saints’ with out any negatives to assign responsibilities for the inspection and guidance of various corporate and public bodies. Where are they available? How can we find these great numbers of people without which the vision cannot execute?
5. The author do not have a plan to say, how to take India to the front of technology at the same time says we should not be ‘intellectually arrogant’ by attempting heavy end fields. We cannot open our market simply to export home nurses & call centre services and import agricultural products, automobiles, and consumer goods. The vision gets narrowed again, when the author is against investing a heavy percentage of revenue on Research & development.
6. ‘Flat-rate electricity pricing which results in over-pumping of ground water should also be removed’. I will suggest more discounts for agriculture and irrigation instead. The vision does not have anything substantial for the well being of agriculture - a base sector needs much attention and modernization.
7. The high income job creation basically do not helps the masses, where the high income revenue add to the inflation and high reality prices will makes the life of middle class a hell. The increased labour costs to keep pace with the inflation will take away our advantage in cheap labour as well.
Overall, the book will be better enjoyed if we consider the context of each speech. However, the book failed to give a comprehensive view to ‘bridge the gap between the rich and the poor’ and to lead India and its masses to the bright tomorrow. The book has an ability to move our thoughts on various subjects concerning our nation deeply. If you get a chance, don’t miss it!
