NRN seeks betterment of India

BANGALORE: Infosys chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy today ended the three-day CII Partnership summit by urging business leaders and the government to take up active cause of making a difference to the life of every Indian.

In a speech resounding “compassionate capitalism,” he said that the industry needed to take up activities that would demonstrate ethics and value. “We need to create an India where both urban and rural people are on equal footing.”

Murthy strongly felt that the rising population in India needed to be checked. “We have to take up population control seriously. We need to devise a public-private partnership to make sure the population comes down. Most of the population growth is happening at the bottom of the pyramid where people are under-nourished, with little access to healthcare and education.”

He also suggested a way in which the business community and the government could create a fund to provide meals to school students all over India. “If a fund could be created with corporate taxes from companies whose revenues exceed Rs 50 crore and if the Government also makes an equal contribution to the fund, we could take care of the nutritional needs of 35 million children in India.”

He urged the participants to experiment this and not merely speak rhetoric.

Murthy also spoke about the exciting things happening in India such as the growing GDP and foreign exchange reserves; the rising social entrepreneurship initiatives and the new close camaraderie between the Government and the industry. “This is a new phenomenon that shows that the government and industry are partners in progress with respect for each other.”

However, he rued the poor growth of the agriculture sector in the country and its dwindling contribution to the GDP. “We need to put this issue on the front burner and take the less fortunate India along with us.”

In his address at the event, R Seshasayee, MD, Ashok Leyland and president, CII, said that the industry body has decided to pursue some agendas including studying the impact of globalization on textiles, auto components and drugs and pharma; strengthening WTO as an effective instrument of geo-economics and look at increasing bi-lateral tie-ups between India and the European Union as well as the Gulf countries.

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