Although A.P.J. Abdul Kalam only said “Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic” in response to some starry-eyed kid’s mention of N.R. Narayana Murthy‘s name as the next President, the TV channels have swung into action as if the incumbent was backing or endorsing the Infosys founder as his successor.
CNN-IBN had a discussion on Murthy as President last night and the Tamil commentator and editor of Tughlak Cho Ramaswamy alone among the three panelists struck a discordant note, maintaining that setting up a worldclass company was not enough as a qualification because of how unconnected Murthy was with reality as we know it.
“The post of President is not a Padma award that you give away to industrialists.”
Sorry, Mr Cho – I don’t agree with you. How many of us knew Dr APJ Abdul Kalam when he was the Director of DRDL, Hyderabad or when he was the chief of DRDO? How many of us know that Dr Kalam was the Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister (after his stint as Scientific Advisor to Raksha Mantri) before he was chosen as our Prez? What were the notable, either scientific or social, contributions he made during these periods? Inspite of this, did he not become our greatest President? Now, every Indian hails him as the best President we ever had.
However, it does not necessarily follow that Mr NRN too would become a great Prez if chosen. I don’t think so. But the very hint that today a CEO of a private organisation can even be thought of a President, shows how far we and the country has progressed from our 1960-1970s mindset of Socialism and licence-and-Permit Raj.
rajappa,
We certainly know N.R. Narayana Murty, his funny fake accent, his over-rated son-of-a-school-teacher image though his attitude never reflected this in any of the interviews or his public speeches…
We also knew President Kalam very well before he was elected to the post — his books “Wings of Fire” and “Vision 2020” were well received and became bestsellers in a very short time. He unlike hundreds of shameless bureaucrats didn’t try to get elected to Rajya Sabha or got himself sanctioned a lazy think-tank institution to anoint himself as its lifetime head, instead he tried his hand at teaching students in IISc(which refused to allow him to teach as they required their teachers to have a PhD, this got him lotsa bad press), he taught for some time in his alma mater and was appreciated by his pupils too,
No amount of bad press including the influential Fareed Zakaria’s article, which accused him of unlawfully prefixing “Dr” to his name, which did not even try to find Kalam’s side of story(which was as simple as the mistake being a typographical error by the printer!) could tarnish his image, thankfully so!
Don’t get into stupid ideological references, most of us would have surely supported a candidate say like J.R.D. Tata but NRN, I wouldn’t wish to support him for any responsible public post be it as a president or a member of parliament.
I would rather be happy if Mrs. Sudha Murty becomes the president.
Mr. Rajappa,
I guess you should be either an NRI or should be away from India for long time. Are you seriously not aware of the contributions APJ has made to India. He was instrumental in pushing our defence and space programmes. He was instrumental in using a defence material for artifical legs which is hailed by everybody. He was instrumental in Pokhran… If you say you never knew he was adviser to PM, you must be either a kid at that time or not following whats happening in the country… No offence meant… but check the facts before throwing mud on a man who has dedicated his life to this country.
Siva
let’s have a compromise. let’s give nrn the bharata ratna (lots of unworthy people have anyway got it) and save the country by keeping him out of the indian presidency.
NRN is a waste fellow. wat has he done. companies like google, apple microsft etc hav contirbuted major products to IT. NRN has done nothing just tat he has created a thousand cyber coolies who do menial mindless dumb IT jobs for the western companies. his bullshit attitude of thinking everything foreign is great is itself so loathesome. he refused to play the national anthem in his head office wen kalam visited it since he thought it would embarass some of his foreign dignitaries. he is bullshit personified. moreover wat has infosys done. it is just a service company can anyone name any product from the infosys stable which has done karnataka proud forget india.
Eniv: strangely enough the prospect of getting Ms. Sudha Murthy into the Rasthrapati Bhavan seems to have inspired TOI to also pitch for NRN’s candidacy in a recent editorial.
I disagree with Cho mainly on the grounds for which he rejects NRN for the presidency. That does not automatically make him the best candidate for the post, but he would still be better than a Shekhawat or a Amitabh Bachchan who have very publicly pitched their tents in political camps. NRN, despite courting some controversy in recent times, is at least apolitical, in that he is not seen as being associated with any political party, and has some credibility with the middle classes in the country (notwithstanding the virulent campaign churumuri seems to be carrying out).
The President, as far as the Constitution permits, should be one who is willing to act independently without favouring any particular political party while being the Head of State at the same time. President Kalam enjoys a good track record because he has been willing to stand up to the Central Government on controversial issues. Let’s assess candidates on that basis than on our personal political ideology.
As always Cho is bang on target. His remaks are extremely politically savvy and makes eminent sense.
Did anybody notice Harish Bijoor comments ? I dont mean the ones you heard ..its those unsaid ones that were went meant to impress Murthy in hope for a branding contract with Infy ?
The IBN truly sucked big time. Congratulations to the Infy PR machinery, you guys rock !
Eniv,
How do you know how much NRN knows about various issues and what his opinions are ? He might very well be versed with all sundry political things. Even a common useless person in India is very well versed with these. Just because NRN doesn’t talk about political things does not imply that he has no knowledge about current affairs and constitutional affairs. All said I personally don’t think NRN will accept the post. Its one more topic for 24 hour channels and that is it.
Shiv,
Where in my comment have I written about NRN’s knowledge/opinions?
I have just written my opinion and not prophesized about his opinions/decisions.
alok balanced perspective.
IMO, people rooted in life have shades of opinions which are hardly ever mutually consistent with some theoretical ism and are in any case in a constant state of flux. only theorists are rigid. for all the talk of revolution and iconoclasm these people maintain status quo and revere their books.
TS:
The tragedy is that most of our analysis here is futile since the President will be voted in, not by the electorate, but by our MPs, MLAs, and MLCs. As much as we gripe about NRN or Amitabh Bachchan or Deve Gowda as President, what will matter is that the candidate is not unacceptable to as many political parties or coalitions as possible. Feasibly, a candidate both the UPA and NDA endorse will win. AB and Gowdru having had a not-so-smooth relationships with the above combines, sort of rules them out.
OTOH, someone like NRN, or APJ, with little political connection to any party may stand a better chance of being successfully elected. Neither, it seems is interested in the job though.
I do not care who becomes the President or Prime Minister of India as India does not command half as much respect or awe as China does. About Cho Ramaswamy: he is merely a scribbler and a garrulous one at that. he may have a legal qualification, but he too lacks reality as far as his writings are concerned.
Cho is dead right! It’s time to tell Mr. Murthy to shed his dreams of president ship. I really don’t know the presidentship is equal to Padmashree or Padmabhushan but Mr. Murthy definitely don’t deserve it. It should not given to a man who felt embarrassed to sing his national anthem in his own country infront of other nationals. Shame on him.
NRN is too detached from the ground realities. He better not opt for the post at this point in time.
Andy you said it…Bijoor surely was talking Branding and not the Presidential candidate.
The questions that were coming from the host clearly indicated that CNN-IBN had concluded that NRN is the right candidate and the speakers had to fall in line with that. And that channel is highly partisan. Not to talk much about this channel which used the National Anthem as a background for thier Rising India campaign.
NRN was never a presidential material. You give him a horse and he shall turn him into a donkey overnight.
APJK caused more to India than any other president in promoting River Link and poisonous weed Jatropha. In five years he could not reply to my simple question Why not use 50 billion tons of Ganga Waters in Gagna Basin itself, transport 30 MT of food to South and save $150b.
– Ravinder Singh Inventor
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Any citizen can express any opinion.Every citizen has right of speachand his opinion need not necessarily be that of majority opinion.A politician or for that matter any ruling party though heading an alliance cannot hold for majority of oppsite viewed people.India never respects intelligence.Only when Westerners say that a man is intelligent we follow suit.Abdul Kalam is known widely outside the arena of atomic science only after he became President.It is media which blows up any issue.
Andy and Arun, Yuo guys are wrong. Thsi bijoor guy was teh most sensible of the lot. Cho was talking old rot and the advocate was going agains the argument of the established bureaucracyand the candidate. Bijoor was as usual the onlyu non-partisan and cogent view.