Can Russi Modi become a geek?

Russi Modi is only a director on the governing board of the company and Sen is a non-executive chairman. With such big names is no wonder that Rs 50 crore worth of projects has already been lined up by this fledgling.

Modi himself admits that IT is totally Greek to him considering the fact that he does not even use a mobile phone. His interest in Luminex is simply that he would like to do something for people especially of Kolkata, which has been home to him for 65 years.

The ‘company has come up with schemes to meet the requirements of people,’ he says and this is incentive enough for him. A noble objective for starting a venture but if along the way the money starts pouring in who cares — definitely not Russi Modi.

Soft targets and hard bargains

The IT tycoons have reason to be anxious about the thrashing that their boys got in Malaysia. It is not a random event. Some of the tycoons are of course not aware of the fact that there is really a backdrop to this that they may not be aware of.

It starts with the arm twisting that Prime Minister Vajpayee did to Prime Minister Mahathir during his recent visit to Malaysia. Apparently, the Malaysian petroleum major Petronas was very keen on increasing their existing stake in the Sudan oil company that India was hoping to buy into.

The Indian team’s arm twisting included the possible threat that India would stop buying palm oil from Malaysia, which is of significant political and crucial economic interest in that country. So Mahathir decided to back out of increasing his stake in Sudan.

India and ONGC won that round. But clearly, Mahathir’s fellow ministers in the Malaysian Cabinet were unhappy with the fact that they had been bullied out of shape. As a result of this, somebody somewhere decided that it was worth sending a strong message to India, that bullying does not always work.

Now, the IT tycoons are of course confused but it’s high time, that somebody told them that they were really a proxy target. What’s worse, the word is going around that they are also a soft one.

Coming as this episode did, close on the heels of the serious trouble that another IT tycoon had had in Indonesia, the big boys in the business will probably soon have to do some serious figuring out of what to do next.

Dilip Cherian, runs a public affairs firm Perfect Relations. He is an economy watcher and tycoon tracker. None of the people he writes about are his clients. Your insider tales are welcome at dilipcherian@now-india.net.in