The Hindu, June 3 2013:
"Though dynastic succession is accepted in Indian businesses as much as in politics, the fact is that by inducting the son, even if it is as a mere assistant to the father, Infosys appears to have fallen short of the high standards of global corporate governance which it professes to practise."
Gardiner Harris, The New York Times, October 26 2012
"...In the past, private sector companies grew like gangbusters in part by shutting out the rest of India and avoiding interactions with a dysfunctional and corrupt government. But top executives here now say they can no longer turn their backs on the chaos that surrounds them. “Building these islands, or expanding them to become the whole of India, I don’t believe will work,” said S. Gopalakrishnan, executive co-chairman of Infosys, India’s leading technology giant. He gestured out the window at his company’s immaculate campus, which included a glass pyramid, food courts, basketball courts and gardens. “At some point, the resistance from the outside world will overwhelm them.”
Indeed, India’s dysfunction is now taking a toll on Infosys’ well-known productivity, Mr. Gopalakrishnan said. His employees’ commutes are longer, their fights with schools more intractable. “If you have just 100 employees, the impact is not so much,” he said. “But with 150,000 employees, more and more the environment affects us as individuals, and, yes, it slows things down. At some point, you can’t shut your mind to what is happening around you....”
लोकसत्ता संपादकीय (Loksatta leader), June 3 2013:
"...तरुणांशी संवाद साधण्याची, त्यांच्या नजरेतून कंपनी चालवण्याची गरज फक्त चिरंजीवाशीच संवाद साधून पूर्ण होईल असे थोरले मूर्ती यांना वाटते काय? रोहन यांच्याकडे प्रशासकीय अधिकार नाहीत हे कबूल. ते अधिकृतपणे देण्याची गरजही नाही. कारण रोहन हे नारायण मूर्ती यांचे सुपुत्र आहेत ही एकच बाब त्यांना हवे ते अधिकार मिळण्यासाठी पुरेशी आहे. तेव्हा रोहन मूर्ती यांनी एक रुपया मानधन घेतले काय किंवा फुकट काम केले काय, तो देखावाच राहतो. रोहन हे तीर्थरूपांच्या कार्यालयाचे नेतृत्व करणार आहेत. तेव्हा त्यांच्याकडून आलेली सूचना वा विनंती ही कोणत्याही प्रशासकीय अधिकाराशिवायदेखील अन्य कर्मचाऱ्यांसाठी शिरसावंद्य असेल, हे उघड आहे. तेव्हा चि. रोहन यांना प्रशासकीय अधिकार नाहीत हा दावा दांभिकपणाचा झाला आणि तो मूर्ती यांच्याकडून अपेक्षित नाही..."
Ajit Dayal:
"At one level, the decision of Narayana Murthy at the age of 66 years, to head back to the chair can be explained as pure wealth protection. His family owns own about 5% in Infosys. That is worth some Rs 7,000 crore today. The April announcement of lower visibility saw a 20% knock in the share price - a loss of some Rs 1,500 crore for the Murthy family in that one day. That is a lot of erosion of wealth for any family."
Recycling my earlier post dated December 1 2007
On November 27, 2007, I saw Shekhar Kapoor saying, on NDTV panel discussion in Goa, that Hindi film Saawariya does NOT feature newcomers but kids of (well established insiders like) Rishi Kapoor, Nitu Singh and Anil Kapoor.
He wondered if Sony corp. would have indeed invested Rs. 38 crores on a pair of unknown artists.
Indian film industry, similar to Indian businesses, is like larger Indian society, deeply nepotic right from the days of Mahabharat.
If Saawariya pair is a new comer, following Indians should also be called "newcomers" to their respective fields:
Rahul Gandhi, Supriya Pawar, M.K. Kanimozhi, Uddhav Thackeray, Rahul Mahajan, Maran brothers…to infinity.
Would you?
Nepotism has not worked in sports yet. But who knows? I would bet on a Tendulkar or a Ganguly captaining Indian national cricket team around year 2025.
In India, social mobility was always suspect because of caste system. What about the rest of the world?
Nepotism is prospering every where.
Newsweek November 3, 2007 announced: “The Death Of Social Mobility. In the Asian Tiger economies, the next generation will struggle to do as well as their parents did.”
Once beacon of social mobility, America too is turning very nepotic.
Paul Krugman:
“…Very few children of the lower class are making their way to even moderate affluence. This goes along with other studies indicating that rags-to-riches stories have become vanishingly rare, and that the correlation between fathers' and sons' incomes has risen in recent decades. In modern America, it seems, you're quite likely to stay in the social and economic class into which you were born… “
(“The Death of Horatio Alger”)
The Economist (January 8, 2004) said:
“…AMERICA likes to think of itself as the very embodiment of the spirit of meritocracy: a country where all people are judged on their individual abilities rather than their family connections. The American Revolution swept away the flummery of feudal titles. Thomas Jefferson dreamed of creating a “natural aristocracy”. Benjamin Franklin sniped that “a man who makes boast of his ancestors doth but advertise his own insignificance.”
… But are they right? The more you look at modern America, the more you are struck by how frequently it departs from the meritocratic ideal. George Bush's Washington is a study in family influence: look at the Powells, the Chao/McConnells, the Scalias and the Cheneys, not to mention the Shrub himself.
The biggest insult to meritocracy, however, is found in the country's top universities. These institutions, which control access to the country's most impressive jobs, consider themselves far above Washington and its grubby spoils system. Yet they continue to operate a system of “legacy preferences”—affirmative action for the children of alumni…”
Artist: R K Laxman, The Times of India, 11 September 2006
"Though dynastic succession is accepted in Indian businesses as much as in politics, the fact is that by inducting the son, even if it is as a mere assistant to the father, Infosys appears to have fallen short of the high standards of global corporate governance which it professes to practise."
Gardiner Harris, The New York Times, October 26 2012
"...In the past, private sector companies grew like gangbusters in part by shutting out the rest of India and avoiding interactions with a dysfunctional and corrupt government. But top executives here now say they can no longer turn their backs on the chaos that surrounds them. “Building these islands, or expanding them to become the whole of India, I don’t believe will work,” said S. Gopalakrishnan, executive co-chairman of Infosys, India’s leading technology giant. He gestured out the window at his company’s immaculate campus, which included a glass pyramid, food courts, basketball courts and gardens. “At some point, the resistance from the outside world will overwhelm them.”
Indeed, India’s dysfunction is now taking a toll on Infosys’ well-known productivity, Mr. Gopalakrishnan said. His employees’ commutes are longer, their fights with schools more intractable. “If you have just 100 employees, the impact is not so much,” he said. “But with 150,000 employees, more and more the environment affects us as individuals, and, yes, it slows things down. At some point, you can’t shut your mind to what is happening around you....”
लोकसत्ता संपादकीय (Loksatta leader), June 3 2013:
"...तरुणांशी संवाद साधण्याची, त्यांच्या नजरेतून कंपनी चालवण्याची गरज फक्त चिरंजीवाशीच संवाद साधून पूर्ण होईल असे थोरले मूर्ती यांना वाटते काय? रोहन यांच्याकडे प्रशासकीय अधिकार नाहीत हे कबूल. ते अधिकृतपणे देण्याची गरजही नाही. कारण रोहन हे नारायण मूर्ती यांचे सुपुत्र आहेत ही एकच बाब त्यांना हवे ते अधिकार मिळण्यासाठी पुरेशी आहे. तेव्हा रोहन मूर्ती यांनी एक रुपया मानधन घेतले काय किंवा फुकट काम केले काय, तो देखावाच राहतो. रोहन हे तीर्थरूपांच्या कार्यालयाचे नेतृत्व करणार आहेत. तेव्हा त्यांच्याकडून आलेली सूचना वा विनंती ही कोणत्याही प्रशासकीय अधिकाराशिवायदेखील अन्य कर्मचाऱ्यांसाठी शिरसावंद्य असेल, हे उघड आहे. तेव्हा चि. रोहन यांना प्रशासकीय अधिकार नाहीत हा दावा दांभिकपणाचा झाला आणि तो मूर्ती यांच्याकडून अपेक्षित नाही..."
Ajit Dayal:
"At one level, the decision of Narayana Murthy at the age of 66 years, to head back to the chair can be explained as pure wealth protection. His family owns own about 5% in Infosys. That is worth some Rs 7,000 crore today. The April announcement of lower visibility saw a 20% knock in the share price - a loss of some Rs 1,500 crore for the Murthy family in that one day. That is a lot of erosion of wealth for any family."
Recycling my earlier post dated December 1 2007
On November 27, 2007, I saw Shekhar Kapoor saying, on NDTV panel discussion in Goa, that Hindi film Saawariya does NOT feature newcomers but kids of (well established insiders like) Rishi Kapoor, Nitu Singh and Anil Kapoor.
He wondered if Sony corp. would have indeed invested Rs. 38 crores on a pair of unknown artists.
Indian film industry, similar to Indian businesses, is like larger Indian society, deeply nepotic right from the days of Mahabharat.
If Saawariya pair is a new comer, following Indians should also be called "newcomers" to their respective fields:
Rahul Gandhi, Supriya Pawar, M.K. Kanimozhi, Uddhav Thackeray, Rahul Mahajan, Maran brothers…to infinity.
Would you?
Nepotism has not worked in sports yet. But who knows? I would bet on a Tendulkar or a Ganguly captaining Indian national cricket team around year 2025.
In India, social mobility was always suspect because of caste system. What about the rest of the world?
Nepotism is prospering every where.
Newsweek November 3, 2007 announced: “The Death Of Social Mobility. In the Asian Tiger economies, the next generation will struggle to do as well as their parents did.”
Once beacon of social mobility, America too is turning very nepotic.
Paul Krugman:
“…Very few children of the lower class are making their way to even moderate affluence. This goes along with other studies indicating that rags-to-riches stories have become vanishingly rare, and that the correlation between fathers' and sons' incomes has risen in recent decades. In modern America, it seems, you're quite likely to stay in the social and economic class into which you were born… “
(“The Death of Horatio Alger”)
The Economist (January 8, 2004) said:
“…AMERICA likes to think of itself as the very embodiment of the spirit of meritocracy: a country where all people are judged on their individual abilities rather than their family connections. The American Revolution swept away the flummery of feudal titles. Thomas Jefferson dreamed of creating a “natural aristocracy”. Benjamin Franklin sniped that “a man who makes boast of his ancestors doth but advertise his own insignificance.”
… But are they right? The more you look at modern America, the more you are struck by how frequently it departs from the meritocratic ideal. George Bush's Washington is a study in family influence: look at the Powells, the Chao/McConnells, the Scalias and the Cheneys, not to mention the Shrub himself.
The biggest insult to meritocracy, however, is found in the country's top universities. These institutions, which control access to the country's most impressive jobs, consider themselves far above Washington and its grubby spoils system. Yet they continue to operate a system of “legacy preferences”—affirmative action for the children of alumni…”
Artist: R K Laxman, The Times of India, 11 September 2006
2 comments:
Nice post.
Honestly, I fail to understand the uproar about Murthy's comeback. (I am slowly coming to the conclusion that most Loksatta editorials are better left unread.) Didn't Steve Jobs do exactly the same thing? It's a private company and he is well within his rights to do everything to save it.
As for nepotism, you have already made some excellent points.
Thanks Raj.
I agree Infosys being a private company etc but my problem is its founder's moral preaching and often taking high ground.
Also, Infosys is still a darling of India's middle-class who too often preach "conveniently" with their ever shifting values.
best,
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