India needs a culture of honesty and no favouritism: Narayana Murthy
Pune, Feb 23: India needs a culture of honesty, no favouritism, quicker decision making and hassle less transactions to prosper as a country, Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy said on Thursday.
Speaking at the Asia Economic Dialogue organised by the Ministry of External Affairs here, Murthy said only a small section works hard in the country and a majority of people have not imbibed the culture which is essential to fulfil the aspirations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"We need to build a culture of quick decision making, quick implementation, hassle less transactions, honesty in transactions, no favouritism," Murthy said, adding that the only common aspect joining all the developed countries are such cultural attributes.
He said both India and China were of the same size in the late 1940s, but the northern neighbour has grown to be six times the size of India courtesy the culture it has imbibed.
"There is a small section of India which works hard, which is honest, which has good work ethic, discipline, by and large this is not the predominant nature," Murthy said.
Asking people not to call him as an anti-national, he cited an experience of setting up a facility in Shanghai in 2006. He said the mayor of the Chinese city allocated a 25 acre land parcel selected by him the day after it was selected, and such pace of movement is lacking in India.
He said corruption is existent at lower levels and added that those in higher levels are very honest.
"If we want the business people to stay only in India and do everything in India, I think they will be very happy to do. All that we are respectfully requesting is that quick decisions must be taken, they must be implemented quickly and they should be no harassment, no unnecessary hurdle," he said.
He also exhorted youngsters not to indulge in practices like moonlighting or insistence on working from home, saying ethics and laziness need to be given special focus.
"My fervent desire and humble desire to youngsters is please don't fall into this trap of I will moonlight, I will do work from home, I will come to office three days in a week," he said.
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LPG crisis: Karnataka temples gear up to stock wooden logs for ‘Prasada’
Bengaluru (PTI): Temples in Karnataka have started preparations to stock wooden logs fearing that the LPG shortage could hamper the ‘Prasada’ preparation and distributions to the devotees.
The looming LPG crisis in the state in the wake of Iran-Israel conflict has made the temple managements jittery.
According to the Akhila Karnataka Hindu Temple Archakas Federation (AKHTAF) president M S Venkatachalaiah, there is no immediate crisis in the temples.
“We have LPG cylinder stock that can last for a week but if this scarcity continues then there will be a problem in serving Prasada (offerings to the deity) to the devotees,” AKHTAF president said.
He added that many temples in the state have started stocking wooden logs to overcome the LPG crisis.
“Our temples have started preparing to store wooden logs to prepare Prasada though currently we don’t have a problem, at least for a week,” Venkatachalaiah told PTI.
Another priest working in a temple belonging to the state Endowment Department said the temples may have to go back to the traditional way of cooking as done in the ancient time using wood.
The LPG crisis has not affected the mid-day meal programme for government school students yet, though there was a meeting in the Education Department to find ways to tackle if crisis deepens, sources associated with the Mid-day Meal programme said.
Meanwhile, the largest partner of the Mid-day Meal programme in the country is Akshaya Patra.
The NGO said they do not depend much on LPG gas cylinder.
“The LPG crisis has not affected us. Our kitchens are steam-based, and we generate steam through boilers which run on electricity. That’s point number one. Point number two—gas is used only for very minor things, mainly for seasoning. That is the tadka,” an Akshaya Patra executive told PTI.
According to him, the NGO has has a gas reserves for about nearly one month across India, though gas is used in very small quantities every day.
He pointed out that the Mid-day meal programme will not be affected because in one or one-and-a-half weeks, schools will close owing to summer vacation.
Akshaya Patra feeds 23.5 lakh children across more than 24,000 schools across India, in 16 states and three Union Territories, he said.
