1. How not to spend it.
- Subjects
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INFORMATION technology , *HIGH technology industries , *TECHNOLOGY , *COMMUNITY relations , *PUBLIC relations , *POOR people , *SOCIAL classes , *EMPLOYMENT - Abstract
The article focuses on Azim Premji, the head of Wipro, an Indian technology company, and India's richest man. Wipro is one of the country's biggest, fastest-growing and most valuable information technology firms. Since 2000, Premji has tripled his firm's profits. Modest and quietly spoken, he seems vaguely embarrassed by his status as India's richest man. Indian politicians seek Premji's counsel. The local press celebrates him as a symbol of India's emerging global competitiveness. But to Indian businessmen, Premji belongs to a pampered and resented elite. Such is the gap between rich and poor in India, and the proximity in which they live, that the information technology (IT) industry's sudden fortunes could be explosive. None of this is lost on the leaders of India's IT boom. Their problem is how to build community relations and spread the wealth created by an industry which is likely to employ no more than four million of the country's one billion inhabitants.
- Published
- 2004