I blogged this NILF2009 session on the Nasscom Leadership forum blog… just reproducing it here for the benefit of the readers of this blog as well. Shashi Tharoor’s session was inspiring to say the least. Possibly he is unmatched in his perspective of Indian politics, business, economics, culture and how these interact will each other. This was one of the best sessions at the forum.
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Given his previous career as a United Nations diplomat, Shashi Tharoor has a fairly unique perspective of global, political & economic trends for an Indian eye. His talk was oriented towards the underlying causes behind the current economic crisis and what the role of the government can/should do in this regard. Some key takeaways from his session
- Role of the mobile phone in empowering the Indian underclass: Shashi believes that the mobile phone is emblematic of the changing India story (11 million sold in Jan 09)… what is significant is the penetration of the mobile phone down the lower rungs of the socio-economic strata (bottom of the pyramid)
- Economic crisis & the Failure of Capitalism: In India, capitalism has traditionally been equated with imperialism during the British period. This gave way to capitalism being seen through the filter of anti-Americanism during the 1970s. Shashi feels that India has to look at capitalism as a vehicle of economic independance and self reliance
- Need for business to address the underlying contradictions about India: For anything you say about India, the opposite is true as well. We have the largest number of farmer suicides alongside the largest no of cellphone sold worldwide. We have 260 million people below the poverty line, along with 4 Indians in Fortune’s list of 10 richest people in the world.
- Satyam saga: This was largely the criminal misdeed of an individual rather than a failing of the company or the IT industry. In fact the fact that it happened in a IT company was incidental, this could as well have happened in any brick & mortar business as well.
- Mumbai Terror Attacks : Given the kind of people/places targeted, this was essentially an attack on Indian prosperity.
- Role of Bollywood: Along with the Indian IT industry, Bollywood has played a huge role in spreading the India story across the world. It has introduced our culture to millions of people across the globe beyond the Indian diaspora.
- Disapointment at the educated classes in India abdicating political activism to lesser mortals
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Pls dont be fooled by Tharoor’s psudo talk. This is a man who can best be termed a chamalian. After losing the UN post, he becomes a resident of Dubai. This is only to evade paying taxes in India while talking of entering politics to do social service !!
But all he does is set up a PR business in Kerala (including for coke which is depleting the local water level). Maybe he is angling for the free housing and travel, so that he can shuttle between India (business), Dubai (resident) and NYork (to meet his new Amrican wife and children and Coke mgt).