Thank you. Well, you know, we have done reasonably well in the last 30 years, and in the last 10 years, we have a new confidence, new hope, a new sense of energy. For example, in my own middle-class locality where I live in Bangalore, Jayanagar, I see new restaurants coming up, small restaurants, new barber shops, new fitness salons, street vendors selling apples, oranges, peas, capsicum, etc. These are things that we used to see earlier. In other words, there is a reasonable disposable income in the hands of the urban middle class. At the same time, India has huge challenges. First of all, before I say that, let me say this: I am running 79 years now. It's very important to say I am elder to most politicians and definitely much elder to all bureaucrats. So whatever I say is with a sense of affection and admiration, and it's not criticism. I don't know how long I will live. My friend Ratan went away a few weeks ago. Therefore, I have no vested interest in whatever I say. All I want is to see an India which fulfills the dream of our founding fathers. Anyway, having said that, at the same time, you see 800 million Indians receiving free ration, you see free electricity being given, you see bus rides being given. While you look at it from one perspective, it's all good things. But another perspective is that while urban India is making rapid strides, there is a large part of India that has not benefited from all the wonderful globalization. Therefore, the need of the day is for us to focus on job creation, primarily low-tech job creation, because most of these people who are on ration are people who cannot take up jobs in the software industry. And therefore, the focus has to be on low-tech job creation. And number two, given that the disposable income of India is rather low, therefore we have to focus on exports, like China did and like Vietnam is doing now, and like a few other nations in East Asia are doing. Because that's the only way you can create large numbers of jobs, and that's the only way you can put some disposable income in the hands of people. And that's the only way secondary and tertiary industries, like we said, a lot of them can indeed take off. And obviously, exports. That means we have to become nimble. We have to learn from our competition, from competing countries. We have to take quick decisions. We have to get to a level of excellence in everything that we do. Definitely higher levels of excellence. How do we do it? Now, my European and American friends tell me that it is time for India to move from an administrative mindset to a management mindset. They tell me that administration is all about status quo. On the other hand, management is all about vision, high aspirations. It's about achievability, about cost control. It is about raising the confidence of people. It is about making things happen quickly and being very competitive. It's about learning from our competitors. So maybe Prime Minister Modi, who has done a brilliant job so far in terms of accelerating our economy, a lot of us want to look at whether we need more of managers in the government rather than administrators. And to do that, we perhaps may want to look at, rather than the current method of having some, whatever it is, some three, four subject examination, etc., for the IAS, we want to look at selecting people from the various management institutes, bringing them into the government. I hope I shouldn't have much objection, like they already have, bring them into the government, first get them trained at Mussoorie on decision-making under uncertainty, on facing the competition, on creating competitive advantages, on being open-minded to learn from people who have performed better than us, on strategic thinking, on simulation, on workflow management, on project management, and other management techniques. The second thing that we may want to do, because we have, you know, I often used to tell that the emphasis, the reward for playing, for winning the semi-final is to get to play a tougher game, which is the final. Therefore, the fact that India has tasted success, the fact that India under Prime Minister Modi has done a good job so far, what that really means is this: we, the Indian citizens, must be in a position to play an even tougher game, a more difficult game, a game that will gladden the heart of every Indian. And to do that, one of the things that we may want to look at is instead of becoming general administrators, we may want these management trainees that are trained at Mussoorie to be in other functions in the public governance system: agriculture, you know, defense, and manufacturing, infrastructure, whatever it is. And then they have to spend the required number of years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, etc., like it happens in some of the developed nations, so that they do become subject matter experts and they can find solutions to us. And the third thing that I would like to suggest: India has a lot of intellectuals who have had tremendous experience in the private sector. And if every ministry has a committee of these experts who are eminently qualified, as the minister in charge, and if any major decision to be taken is to be approved by both the minister and the usual bureaucracy as well as this committee, I do think that we will accelerate our growth very well. I hope India becomes a nation that is more management-oriented than just administration-oriented. You know, if I may be permitted to say this, one of my British friends, telling he was Cabinet Secretary a long time ago, and I was once a very good friend, I told him, 'Man, you fellows, you have destroyed our country's bureaucracy.' He said, 'No, Murthy, that is not true because we have World War II times.' He says, 'Go to any service in the UK and you will get the promises on time without you having to remind them.' Absolutely true. Because both my children are resident in the UK and they get all their tax residency certificates, everything. And then I asked him, 'Why is it that we have this mindset?' He said, 'No, the East India Company handed over India to the Crown in 1858. And so it's about 142, 143 years ago, the first batch of ICS. And I believe they were given only two objectives, only two, nothing more. One, keep the natives under control. Don't allow them to come. Don't raise whatever objection you want for whatever idea they come out. Delay implementation as long as possible. And of course, second was tax.' So he said, 'Unfortunately, that is the mindset.' So I hope Prime Minister Modi takes a decision to convert the administrative mindset to management mindset, take more and more managers, and you know, give them opportunities to bring speed, imagination, and excellence in decision-making and in implementation in the public governance system. I believe India will then accelerate even more because he has a very laudable, very visionary objective, which is to reach 50 trillion dollars by 2047. I think we are all with him. I think we want it to happen. We will do whatever he wants us to do, but without a very efficient, effective, agile, you know, open-minded public governance system, that may be somewhat difficult.
