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With the growth of India as a software giant, the name of Infosys in Bangalore is mentioned, and the two names of Infosys which are mentioned are of Nagavara Ramarao Narayanmurthy or in short N.R. Narayanmurthy (age 63), the Chairman and CEO from 1981 to 2002 of Infosys and then non-executive Chairman since 2002, and Nandan Nilekani (age 55), the Vice Chairman and CEO of Infosys since 2002 till recently, and since late 2009 has been appointed by the Government of India as the Chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India with Cabinet Rank. Both these persons are relatively young, and both are from Bangalore. While Narayanmurthy graduated from University of Mysore and did his Masters from I.I.T. Kanpur, Nilekani graduated from I.I.T. Mumbai in Electrical Engineering. Soon after doing B.Tech. from I.I.T. Mumbai, he joined Patni Computers in Bombay, the person interviewing him was no other than Narayanmurthy. However, there were problems between Patni Computers and Narayanmurthy, and he quit the company in 1981, and Nilekani and five others joined him to start Infosys in Bangalore, with Rupees ten thousand each from each of the partners. Narayanmurthy’s wife Sudha gave her husband her personal jewelries to start the venture. Both have been honored all over the world and given high civilian award like Bharat Bhusan by the Indian government. In the dotcom growth phase of the world economy, many fiber optics channels were established, and when the dotcom burst, these were available at throw away prices. India, with a large reservoir of English speaking educated middle class, large reservoir of technical manpower, willing to operate backroom operations at low cost, having a very tolerant society, and a functioning democracy, was ready to start initiative-based software developing ventures, and Infosys was one of these new venture companies. Nilekani published a book, Imagining India (Penguin, New York, 2009) giving his ideas about making India a very advanced country within a short time. He started with the very slow rate of growth, the Hindu rate of growth, during Nehru years and afterwards, and following a big foreign exchange crisis and mortgaging gold to make the payments, the economy was taken out of strict financial control of the government by the-then Finance Minister and now the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. In the Foreword to the book, Thomas L. Friedman, author of the book The World is Flat (Ferrari, Starus and Giramax, New York, 2005) writes, “There are not a lot of Executives around the world, who are known simply by their first names. Silicon Valley has “Steve” – as in Jobs. Seattle has “Bill” – as in Gates. Omaha has “Warren” – as in Buffett. And in Bangalore has “Nandan” – as in Nilekani". Friedman in his book explains, how due to communication and information revolution in the world, it has become flat. After examining various issues, he (Niketani) suggests networking Indian villages in such a way, so that farmers can get information about food prices where they can sell their products, have links with banks to open accounts from where money can be taken out or money from various rural schemes can be deposited without middle men, farmers can be advised about the proper fertilizer and seeds to be implanted, medical information can be exchanged with health center doctors, where taxes can be paid, birth and death information can be given, etc. He, therefore, proposed having a Unique Identification Smart Card, which will have all the required information of the person holding the card. The Government of India appointed him as the Chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India in 2010. He will have all the authority to obtain any information from government departments on any projects. Due to opening of the Indian economy and connecting with the economy of the rest of the world, the progress in the Indian economy has been good, not the least due to connectivity with the World, for which the computer giants like Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services, TCS, had been major contributors. It is still short of India Shining slogan, first started by the BJP government in the center. One can see the express ways connecting metros being built, and everywhere across India old houses being pulled down and new high-rise buildings being built. The face of India is changing every where. This movement has to be only accelerated in the future. |