Before 1991 - Pricing of IPO

The following is an excerpt from the book, "A Better India: A Better World" by N.R.Narayana Murthy.

In India, prior to 1991, there was a government officer in Delhi called the Controller of Capital Issues (CCI) who decided on the IPO price for Indian companies going public. This officer had very little idea of capital markets since he/she sat in Delhi while the capital markets were in Bombay, and he/she rarely travelled to Bombay or bothered to understand the dynamics of these markets. He/she would look at just the past performance of a company and allow a very low premium, if any, for the IPO pricing. Such a policy of government-determined IPO pricing was a disincentive for entrepreneurs who had to give up a large part of their equity to raise a small sums in the capital market. After all, capital markets are all about future potential rather than just about past performance.

Why Cannot Seemandhra Develop its Own Capital?

Most of the politicians are destroying India. But, once in a while, we get very good politician who fixes everything so that, even after he leaves the office, still for many years, the state/country will be in a better state. After a good person leaves the office, many people would try to get their share of the profit from the development done, and fight for that. Nobody bothers about continuing the same development.

The fight with Hyderabad is also very same. Many people say that, Most of the development is done by the private people and not by the government. There is no evidence that, Seemandhra people developed Hyderabad. So, Seemandhra cannot claim on the ownership of Hyderabad. And also, Seemandhra is going to get more money. So, it can be developed much better etc.

But, all these are never the root causes. The root cause is always, the bad policies of the government and not any other reason.

There are many arguments around whether Telangana people developed Hyderabad or Seemandhra people or people outside the state. "Who developed it" is never a question. Since, it is a capital, it has to be developed. In general, most of the development comes from the private organizations and private people. Again, it does not matter, from which area they have come. The other argument is, since, the development is coming from private people, a new capital can be developed with private organizations/people, and infrastructure can developed with the money that the new state gets. So, Seemandhra does not need Hyderabad.

The private investment can come only, if the government is good and it encourages the development. But, unfortunately, in India, we get one leader in one generation, who develops the state/country, and rest of the time, we just survive with what that good leader had done for the state/country.

If anyone wants to start a small school for 6th class students, the no.of approvals that they need to get from the government is huge. For very small things also, there are lot of dependencies with the government. If the head of the state aims to develop the state, everything would move fast. Otherwise, everything would stall. If the state is formed, and the CM is not for the development, then the situation would be worse, and the state will not have anything other than what they already had.

Not only the state government, but, also the union government should support for the development of the state. If Seemandhra wants to modernize Vijayawada airport or to make it international airport, union government must give full support. If Kurnool becomes capital, then, it must have good train connectivity (I am not asking for airport). Railway department has very bad history in this (since independence).

If the state government or union government is not for the development of the state, but for their pockets, then the state would be doomed, because of lack of infrastructure and developed city. Since, most probably, the next CM is not going to develop Seemandhra, the people of Seemandhra do not want to lose Hyderabad.

If we have good governance and free market economic policies, all these problems will not even exist. Since, we don't have them, Seemandhra is fighting for Hyderabad.

People can say that, if they elect a good leader, it would solve all the problems. But, if Seemandhra people ask the same question, there will not be any need to separate the state in the first place.

Before 1991 - Travel in Foreign Countries

The following is an excerpt from the book, "A Better India: A Better World" by N.R.Narayana Murthy.

If I wished to travel abroad even for a day, I had to make an application to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and wait for ten to twelve days. It was not always certain that I would get a positive response. I also had to submit a report on my trip abroad after I came back. A friend of mine was to travel to meet a few business prospects - a couple of them in Paris and one in Frankfurt. He obtained approval from the RBI for two days' stay in Paris and a one-day stay in Frankfurt. When he reached Paris, his second prospect asked him to meet him in Frankfurt since he had to leave for an urgent meeting there. The result was that my friend spent two days in Frankfurt and one day in Paris while the approval was for the reverse. When he returned to India and submitted his tour report to the RBI, he was issued a 'show cause' notice as to why he should not be prosecuted for violating foreign exchange regulations! It is unimaginable that we have moved from that era to the present one, when it has become extremely easy for Indian companies to do business overseas.

Before 1991 - The procedure to import a computer

The following is an excerpt from the book, "A Better India: A Better World" by N.R.Narayana Murthy.

We founded Infosys in 1981 to provide bespoke software development capability to customers in developed nations. To do so, our business required import of state-of-the-art hardware and software platforms from abroad, easy and hassle-free travel abroad to our customer sites by our staff, opening of overseas sales offices, and availability of a data communications infrastructure. Even though this industry was likely to provide India's large pool of technical talent good jobs with high disposable incomes, convincing the government that this was a godsend was easier said than done. Prior to 1991, one needed a licence to import computers. The process of obtaining a licence to import a computer was lengthy, arbitrary, expensive and sometimes corruption-prone. Generally, it took about three years and fifty visits to Delhi to obtain one. Assuming that the cost of each trip was about $1,000, it meant that importer had already paid a duty of at least 50 percent of the price of an imported computer (roughly $100,000) even before the computer had been ordered! This was not all. Since it took three years to obtain the licence, at least five to ten new models of every component of the system we were to import were likely to be released in the US market during the same period. But, changing the model number of even one component in the licence usually took at least nine to ten months! Thus, thanks to our bureaucracy, computer users in India remained at least two generations behind in any technology.

Conversation Between Two Babies in the Womb

In a mother's womb, there were two babies.

One asked the other: "Do you believe in the life after delivery?"

The other replies, "Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later."

"Nonsense," says the other. "There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?"

"I don't know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths."

The other says, "This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short."

"I think there is something and maybe it's different than it is here."

"No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere."

"Well, I don't know, but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us."

"Mother?? You believe in mother? Where is she now?"

"She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be this world."

"I don't see her, so it's only logical that she doesn't exist."

To which the other replied, "sometimes when you're in silence you can hear her, you can perceive her. I believe there is a reality after delivery and we are here to prepare ourselves for that reality."