This year the Festival of Lights brought a lot of cheer to the Indian business community. I am happy to be here to savour the celebratory mood among India’s wealth creators. I am happy to be at this function to present the Fifth Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.In a short period of five years, Ernst & Young Award for the Entrepreneur of the Year has earned a high reputation. Part of the reason for this is that the awardee each year has been an outstanding representative of Corporate India. Subhash Chandra is the pioneer of satellite TV in India, Mukesh Ambani alongwith his brother Anil, is proving to be a worthy successor to his father who has built a legendary empire. Brijmohan Lall Munjal has emerged truly as a ‘‘Hero’’ of India’s two-wheeler industry. And Narayana Murthy has become an icon of India’s IT industry. Ernst & Young is a leading global business advisory firm. Hence, an award that carries its name also carries global prestige.It was, therefore, a great honour for Indian business when Narayana Murthy was awarded the prestigious worldwide Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2002.I must digress here and quote from the letter that Memani, chairman of Ernst & Young India, wrote to me inviting me to be the chief guest at today’s function. The letter mentioned that ‘‘The Third World Entrepreneur of the Year Award Programme was held in June this year in Monte Carlo. This year the panel of 11 judges unanimously selected N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman of Infosys Technologies, as the recipient of this great honour.’’Although the wordplay was unintended , I was struck by the line: ‘‘The Third World Entrepreneur of the Year Award Programme was held in June this year.’’ I wondered—is he talking about ‘‘The Third World Entrepreneur of the Year Award’’ or ‘‘the Third Award for World Entrepreneur of the Year ‘‘Award’’? He was talking about the ‘‘Third Award’’— and not the ‘‘Third World’’ — meaning an award confined to entrepreneurs in the so-called developing or under developed world.Therefore, the honour bestowed on Narayana Murthy makes a broader statement about India and her entrepreneurs. What Infosys has achieved, and what a host of other Indian companies such as Wipro, Reliance, the Tata Group, Aditya Birla Group, have achieved in recent years, is that they have boldly announced their arrival on the global business scene. They have planted India’s flag on a territory that was until recently considered the exclusive preserve of entrepreneurs from the so-called first world.The significance of this transition is not limited to India’s business class alone. We no longer want to carry the third world identity — either in our own eyes or in the eyes of the international community. There is something disparaging, deprecating and uncomplimentary about the description that says that India is a developing country, a third world country. Why should this nation of one billion people be considered a ‘‘developing country’’ , more than a half century after gaining independence. Therefore, we as a nation are now determined to discard that appellation.Which is why, our Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has given a clarion call to make India a developed nation by 2020. I shall talk about our Vision 2020 in some detail a little later. Making India a developed nation means that we have to free India from the curse of poverty, illiteracy, ill-health, homelessness and unemployment that still afflicts millions of our compatriots. It means that we have to improve the quality of life for all our one billion people.It means that we have to provide basic infrastructure and amenities in our villages, so that the rural economy, properly integrated with the urban economy, is able to create adequate employment. Vision 2020 also means that we strengthen India’s national security—both external security and internal security—so that we can face any challenge in a fast changing world.In addition, it means that India begins to play her rightful role in world affairs from the rightful perch in the international arena.(The author is deputy prime minister. This is an edited version of his speech, on October 29, 2003, at the Fifth Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award function)
