- Infosys, the company with a long history of delivering shoddy services, has no problem with the brightest Indians going abroad.
- The Infosys founder, instead of battling with American MNCs for “competent Indians” in order to deliver better services, is wishing them the best.
Infosys, the company with a long history of delivering shoddy services (given its poor expenditure on research), has no problem with the brightest Indians going abroad. N. R. Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of Infosys, said that these people are ‘ambassadors of India’. Now, a person like Parag Agrawal with woke credentials is certainly not a good ambassador of India, but that aside, if the founder of a company like Infosys, which should be fighting for the best talents of India, is of the view that Indians should keep going abroad and contribute to the development of other nations – this is indeed a serious problem.
“For me a small percentage of Indians going abroad, conducting themselves as model citizens of those societies that they have adopted and excelling in whatever profession they choose only enhances the brand image of India. These people are our ambassadors. So therefore I would like to applaud them rather than say they have to stay back in India. There is nothing wrong,” Murthy said in an interview.
Also read: Infosys has a shoddy track record, but the government keeps handing projects to it
Most of the Indians who move to English speaking nations like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, are from the highly educated segments, who probably received their higher education at the premier public institutions (IITs, IIMs, IISc, NIT) with the expense being met by taxpayers’ money.
Some of them may have received even school education at publicly funded Kendriya Vidyalayas, Army Schools, etc. Given the relative poverty of India, the public institutions get a handsome share of the taxpayers’ money to manage their finances.
Companies like Infosys and TCS with large balance sheets and a lot of clout in the government, must spend money to hire the best talent from across the country and finance research and development of new technologies. However, these companies limit themselves to back-office jobs and the average salary offered by them has remained constant (around 4-5 lakh rupees per annum) for at least the last two decades.
In the last decade, Infosys bagged many big-ticket projects including 350 crore rupees MCA21, 1,380 crore rupees GSTN portal, and Income Tax portal, and all of them continue to face issues to date, and this says a lot about the amount of money the company invests in its human resources.
Infosys founder, instead of battling with American MNCs for “competent Indians” in order to deliver better services, is wishing them the best. “We have a lot of Indians. Our own youngsters have done extraordinary things. Look at the kind of startups that have come out. Therefore I would not worry too much about a few competent Indians going abroad and succeeding there. They are doing a lot of good to India, I wish them the best and I want them to do even more. They are the ambassadors of India,” Murthy said.
Also read: Panchjanya’s criticism of Infosys is absolutely spot on
Moreover, instead of investing in research at the company (given the shoddy services it delivered, one can assume how much it spends on research and human resources), Murthy is giving what Nassim Nicholas Taleb giving a cheap talk. Talking about the need to recognize and incentivize research, he said, “I do not know any nation that has improved the prosperity and well-being of its people without a good research, invention, and innovation infrastructure. Such societies have honored their intellectuals, created a climate conducive to their flourishing, and have made their lives physically comfortable. The Infosys Prize is a small attempt in this important task of our country.”
It is high time the Indian MNCs in the technology sector start investing in research and fight with American MNCs for the best talent. Moreover, they should also invest in Indian startups which are being colonized by American investors, given the lack of Rupee capital. Companies like Infosys should have been at the forefront of financing the Indian startup ecosystem, instead, their founder is wishing all the best to the “competent Indians” moving abroad.
I agree with the reporter. Our bright young men and women should focus on serving the nation better here than fleeing to the richer countries. We had invested in them quite a lot with tax payer’s money and they are going to serve white masters as second class citizens. Mr. Murthy’s words are highly regrettable. Of course his son in law of Indian origin, is the Finance minister in the UK. We are wasting our resources in them who are not giving back service to India. A big pity!
When your tax is utilized for getting into the ministers pocket, i wouldn’t blame an Indian moving out where he/she gets the free healthcare/schooling, better roads/infra for the tax he/she pays.
The indian might be working as a second class citizen in developed countries but is working as a third class citizen in his own country where you might be abused if you don’t speak Marathi staying in Maharashtra, where your manager is not hesitant to make you work 12 hrs on weekdays and on every weekend for free.
The leading software provider is asking for Indians to work abroad but let it rectify it’s own home first, with people loosing hope from the government portal like GSTN and Income tax portal managed by infosys, how you are expecting the public to rely upon.
Very bad shape of these two public portal has ruined the image of govt in the eyes of public. Why not Infosys taking care of the grievance lodged.
Let us not single out, we have leaders everywhere but little leadership in Govt, Public and Private for retaining and attracting good talents.
Unless we see an all round improvement in living parameters the brain drain will continue. Need to see making money as a good thing rather than the image projected by CONgressis and regressive leftists as exploiters. Indians are mercantile in nature by default but thanks to CONgress propaganda along with Jehadi infested Bollywood, socialism and government as my baaps has been shoved down our throats since independence. 41 Billion $ companies have been born in the last 3+ years and another 100+ in the making just because the new government has unleashed the true nature of Indians.
Infosys is a tyrant company which provides cheap services instead of quality services. Employees have only one objective, to work on site, spend few years continuously on site, get a PR and exit company. Infosys has lot of internal politics, multi level hierarchy and so many good for nothing employees which result in a very bad working culture. These employees make you run around the tree for doing simple tasks, either they are incompetent or don’t have necessary skills and knowledge to accomplish them. Infosys doesn’t say no to anything. Dishonest people really. Giving bad name to India and Indians.
After working with hundreds of employees of consulting firms like Infosys and similar kinds for many years, I must agree with every word you said and that’s really unfortunate that thousands of their employees instead of demanding for betterment of their working conditions, they silently succumb to their idiot worthless managers, company leaders and continue to bring bad name to India.
Yes, they exploit Indians, who are poached by these body shoppers from other states of India. The thing is that this narayan murthy only pretends to be a patriotic person, but deep inside the heart, he is an exploitative capitalist, who has destroyed the fate of many youngsters. And also, even the own karnataka people are having hard times, with so much of land grabbing which the infosys do, in the name of development.
No, don’t blame employees. Most of them are abused by the policies of the company. People in India never really understood the games of corporates.
Couldn’t expect anything better from the founder of the largest IT sweatshop of the country. This guy is given far too much credit for being a shitty leader.
I do not agree with views of author who is rabbling out of Jealousy for those Indians doing well abroad and sending in valuable forexe xchange $$.
Why would anyone want to work in a nation that empowers rowdy rascals and highly nepotistic environment?
When merit is not the benchmark, it is obvious , smart people look for greener pastures. The author would have left India if he had the opportunity.
I had big problems doing business in India because of state government corruption, bearucracy and rowdy cartels etc. That is why all young people want to get government jobs or go abroad – no body wants to be an entrepreneur.
Infosys has indulged in extolling those at Harvard and elsewhere rather than do the difficult job of recognizing talent in its own backyard. I find the company leadership to be rather out of touch with reality.
For decades these Indian consulting firms have been addicted to profits of the slave like employees and afraid to change their working conditions or looking for betterment of their business model. That’s they never will acknowledge their reality and total disgrace to the nation.