NASSCOM SPL: Tharoor praises India's reaction to Satyam

MUMBAI, INDIA: Distinguished Indian writer and diplomat Shashi Tharoor congratulated India's response to the recent two attacks on India's image globally.

While speaking at the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum here today, he said that both the industry and the government of India have ensured an effective response to the Satyam episode as well as the Mumbai terror attack.

“NASSCOM, and industry leaders like Som Mittal, and the successful rehabilitation post Satyam has proved that India can demonstrate active regulations and also that it was a case of just one rotten apple,” said Tharoor.

“Contrary to what the current perception suggested, criminality has nothing to do with the flaws of any company or the IT model of Indian tech industry. It was proved that it is just an aberration and not what India is all about,” he added.

Shashi Tharoor also touched upon the Mumbai terror attack and the efforts to dent India's global image and portray it as an insecure and vulnerable state.

“It might have undermined the confidence for a short term but it was good that the govt took a measured response and denied the suggestions of resorting to military action. Govt did absolutely the right thing to preserve diplomatic pressure over war, because in that case our economics would have suffered and we would have only played in the hands of the terrorists,” he said.

Voices against liberalization are dangerous 

Shashi Tharoor also warned against the country succumbing to demands of voices against liberalization and globalization.

Speaking at the NASSCOM Leadership Forum today, Tharoor said last years' developments  that resulted in global economic meltdown is being used by many quarters as a pretext to stop the process of liberalization in the country.

“These voices are getting mainstream and are asking us to go back to license Raj days. They are clamoring for nationalization of all private banks.  We cannot afford to go back in time,” said Tharoor.

Socialism is a failure

He added that Socialism in the country had failed to achieve in last 40 years what the process of liberalization has achieved in the last fifteen years.

“For 40 years, we had a setup which promoted mediocrity, distributed poverty and was happy with unproductivity... Entrepreneurs in the country rather than getting involved in setting up their institutions were wasting too much of their energies in running around power structures and paying bribes,” he commented.

He also said the notion was protectionary measures would help more people getting out of below poverty line was a flawed one as the statistics have shown otherwise. “In the last 15 years more people have come out of poverty than they had come in last 40 years,” according to Tharoor.

Tharoor added that the country had to pledge its gold reserves in 1990, and it was only after the process of liberalization that India was counted amongst emerging powers in the world.

The great mobile story

Terming the mobile story as a boon of liberalization, Tharoor said cell phones have privileged the under class in the country, a job that socialism failed to do miserably. The diplomat also opined that balance of power between politics and economics was shifting and politics was finally ceding some space to economics in the country.

Tharoor also congratulated the Indian IT industry for changing the face of India in the outside world.

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