India: Tough environment, tremendous opportunity
ARTHUR J PAIS
Without mincing words about the political and social
malaise in India, R Ramakrishnan, executive director,
Bajaj Electricals, urged Harvard students who plan to enter
business to consider India as an investing destination.
Addressing the members of the student driven The
Harvard College US-India Initiative on ‘The Future of
India,’ he called India a ‘transforming nation,’ and said
despite the dramatic economic, social, and educational
upheaval, India had become a challenging country for
investment.
‘You guys are at the cradle of innovation,’ he told the stu-
dents, a few of them second generation Americans. ‘If you
can create relationships with India, you can really rewrite
the rules.’
He said, ‘I don’t want you to think that everything is
hunky-dory: 300 million women in Indian cannot write
their own name... 100,000 villages in India do not even
have electricity. It’s a tough environment, but therein lies
tremendous opportunity.’
He added, ‘Transforming a country as large as India is
not easy. Red tape-ism and archaic legislation are a huge
problem,’ but vigorous governmental reforms and further
A33 BUSINESS
PEARL BHATNAGAR
R Ramakrishnan, right, encouraged students to invest in India at the Harvard College US-India Initiative event
freeing of the economy would increase international invest-
ment in India and lead to the expansion of social programs,
including more access to education.
Ramkrishnan said, ‘When India grows this fast, he the
sheer amount of transactions will result in higher income
levels, bringing the poor out of their social abyss.’
He also said he was looking forward to seeing a Harvard
satellite campus in India, and spoke of the role the HCUII
could play.
He said, ‘If someone is willing to invest in India and
increase our intellectual capital that can only be good for
India.’
The event drew many students from Harvard College,
Harvard Law School, and Harvard Business School
because of Ramakrishnan’s first-hand business experience
running a company that ranks among the top five corpo-
rate employers in India. The alumni of Osmania University,
Hyderabad, and the Xavier’s Labor Resource Institute,
Jamshedpur, has also worked with Asian Paint for nearly
two decades.
‘There was no good forum for interaction
between young people in US and India’
Francis George Thumpasery, president of the Harvard
College US-India Initiative, speaks to Arthur J Pais
How did this project start?
During the summer after my freshman
year, I had the opportunity to attend a conference in Guangzhou, China, focused on
United States-Chinese relations. As I sat
there, I realized that there was no good
forum for interaction between students and
young people in the US and India. I wanted
to change that situation and do my part as a
US citizen of Indian origin to build a strong
foundation among today’s youth aimed to
strengthen the growth of the US-Indian
bridge.
The relationship between the US and
India is relatively underdeveloped, but has a
huge amount of promise. Part of the problem is that US and Indian leaders engage
with one another without any significant
previous experience set with the other country. The US-India Initiative is working to
change that, serving as a platform for
Francis George Thumpasery
nation-to-nation interactions between students in the US and India.
What is unique about this initiative is that
it is student driven. Of course, we have a
faculty adviser and Professor Gita Gopinath
is one of the most distinguished professors
at Harvard. We seek help and sponsorship
from businesses and Indian organizations.
We have started working with like-minded
students in India who are interested in creating a dialogue with students who want to
work on projects to help fight India’s economic and social problems.
What have you been able to do so far?
Starting such a large-scale and innovative
organization such as HCUII was very challenging, but the team worked hard to turn
our vision into a reality, driven forward by
our belief in the value we are creating. Our
passion for our mission, building relationships between students in the US and India
and leveraging those relationships toward
addressing significant global issues, pulled
us through.
After a period of tough, focused work, we
were able to put together a fantastic speak-
er lineup, get national media coverage, and
get over 300 applications for our first con-
ference held in August at Amity University,
Noida, Uttar Pradesh, which brought
together 150 student leaders from universi-
ties all over the US and India, including
Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, the
University of California at Berkley, Amity
and Lady Sri Ram College
The speakers included Pravin Bhasin, sen-
ior executive vice president, Reliance
Infrastructure, and Dr Sanjay Srivastava,
head, Amity Business School. He shared
valuable tips with the students on how to
develop an extraordinary attitude. He
apprised the audience with the principle of
‘ASK’(attitude, skill set, knowledge) and
concept of 7Ls (learn, laugh, look for posi-
tive things, lasting impression, love leverage
and lead) to success.
