Forget power, land... look to education first, IT sector tells Goa >From Frederick Noronha
Panaji (Goa), Sept 16: Tiny Goa needs to address its "limited educational capabilities" if it is to come anywhere near its big dreams of luring IT players to this region, Infosys director T.V. Mohandas Pai said while speaking here. Pai critiqued the view that IT companies would come in merely if they were provided "power and land" and suggested this region needed to pull its bootstraps up on the most vital ingredient the state still lacks, intellectual capital. IT, he pointed out, involved "building businesses with (literally) nothing but what you have in your mind". Pai was speaking at the launch of the Exhibition of Computers and Allied Products, this state's traditional IT exhibition organised by the Computer Society of India (Goa chapter). Comparing IT-oriented Bangalore, the Infosys director argued: "The government exists for us. It is for us to demand better governance." He said a partnership between enlighted corporates, civic society, and the media could work for change. Goa, caught up between nearby IT majors like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and more lately even cities like Pune, Thiruvananthapuram, is having a difficult time to position itself attractively to lure software companies here. Zig-zagging policies by changing governments hasn't helped, as has reports of previous governments acting standoffishly towards IT players who might have been otherwise interested to set up base here. Likewise, plans by politicians to site IT projects in their constituencies have been opposed by sections of villagers, in a state where long-term public interest is seen as being given a go-by in favour of short-term political gain. Pai, currently Infosys's director for human resources, education and research and administration, also called for "taking a step back to see what IT has done to all of us". He said it had built a "truly world-wide community" through the Web, and "we too are able to innvoate". But, he said, the cyber-based cultures had probably also made us isolated from real people, even though he saw it as greatly empowering citizens against the abuses of governance. Pai, a chartered accountant who voluntarily gave up his post as Chief Financial Officer of Infosys earlier this year, has been a member of the Kelkar Committee for reforming direct taxes, the Non-Resident Taxation Committee, and the High Powered Committee on e-Commerce & Taxation. On the committee to build a Tax Information Network of the Government of India, Pai said a more rational tax system, with nationwide reporting of expenditures in a common database, would help "us honest taxpayers". This would mean wider tax compliance, and a reduction of the burden on those who traditionally stick to the book. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org 9822122436 +91-832-240-9490 http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/ _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
