NEWS: Few buy Laloo's newfound love for IT

[Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org>]

India-IT-Laloo

Few buy Laloo's newfound love for IT

by Shivanand Shukla, Indo-Asian News Service

Patna, July 10 (IANS) Bihar is largely skeptical about former chief minister
Laloo Prasad Yadav's newfound love for information technology (IT), with his
critics alleging he was merely trying to "rehabilitate" his software
professional son-in-law at the state's expense.

Yadav, who once dismissed "IT-YT" as being the realm of the elite and an
unreal pursuit in an agrarian and largely unlettered country like India, has
now blamed the media for leading people to believe he was against the
sector.

While announcing a two-day IT seminar in Patna in November this year, Yadav
had said, "The media wrongfully flashed the message that I was opposed to IT
development." He announced the seminar Sunday in the presence of his
son-in-law Shailesh Kumar, who formerly worked with IT major Infosys.

"The seminar is an attempt to rehabilitate at the cost of the state's
expense his jobless son-in-law, who is a software engineer," alleged Sushil
Kumar Modi, the leader of the opposition in the Bihar Assembly.

Modi was critical of the fact that Yadav, who leads Bihar's ruling Rashtriya
Janata Dal (RJD), had jumped on to the IT bandwagon at a time the sector was
slowing down globally. He noted that a similar conference was held in Patna
in 1995 and memorandums of understanding worth Rs. 70 billion were signed,
but no investor has turned up so far.

"He (Yadav) says so many things, but nothing have we seen on the ground. Let
us see what he does this time because his own son-in-law himself is an IT
professional," said Rakesh Kumar, who works for an IT company.

"Now he claims that the media has wrongly highlighted that he was opposed to
IT, but what has he done during the last 10 years of his government's rule
to develop the state?" asked an official, who requested anonymity.

Since Yadav assumed power, his two brothers-in-law Sadhu Yadav and Subhash
Yadav became members of the state legislature, his wife was made chief
minister in 1997 while his father-in-law and brother got elected to local
bodies in the recent local elections. Moreover, Yadav's supporters, at a
rally held earlier this year, projected his teenage son Tej Pratap as "Yuva
Samrat" or "young emperor," clearly indicating that he could well be the
heir apparent in the RJD.

Yadav had Sunday announced that the international seminar on biotechnology
and IT would be held in Patna on November 25 and 26. The state government
would host the event in collaboration with San Francisco-based The IndUS
Entrepreneurs (TiE), the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the IT
Society of India and the Bihar Industries Association, he said.

Noted entrepreneurs and industrialists from India and abroad, including
Wipro chairman Azim Premji, Infosys chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy and
U.S.-based Kanwal Rekhi, as well as Union IT Minister Pramod Mahajan would
be invited for the seminar, Yadav said.

--Indo-Asian News Service