Dear Narayana Murthy,

You are a doyen of an Indian industry. So when you say that NO innovation in India happened in the last 60 years, people are bound to listen to you.

What they don't do, is dissect the statement.

1. Before you blame the educational institutions, the politicians, political ideologies and the norse god of thunder, it would be nice if you looked inside. What have you done for innovation?

Your company recruits thousands of young and eager engineers whose minds are fresh and enthusiasm is plenty. And you do what with them?

If they don't waste their precious youth sitting on a bench, in an AC room, waiting for a project to materialize, you make a mechanical engineer slog on Java code and make an Electrical engineer bust his backside off on Oracle? 

So how can they innovate, when they are not given the space and opportunity to do so? How can they innovate when your company is majorly responsible for sucking them into this vortex of mediocrity?

2. Let us speak about the 'innovation' that happens in Infosys. And please, how much ever you try to convince, Global Delivery Centre and 24 Hour work day are not innovations. They have been in the US, since the 30's. Other than Finacle, what major IT Product have you given to the world?

I can understand this big gap if you didn't have money because, hey, innovation is expensive! But you are sitting on a cash reserve of $4.1 Billion, that's Rs. 20,000 crores. If anyone in India could've spent on innovation, it was you. But you didn’t.

Your annual expenditure on R&D, has been consistently reducing over the last three years. It was 907 Crores in 2013, 873 Crores in 2014 and believe it or not, 605 Crores in 2015. Forget India Mr Murthy, your own company is cutting down on innovation.

So please look inwards before you question the cash strapped universities on why they don’t innovate.

3. And finally, innovation doesn't necessarily mean inventing light bulbs or creating websites where you can stalk others. Innovation is bigger than that, and that is happening in India. We couldn't have gone from a wheat importing nation to a food-surplus country, without innovation. We didn't transform from a country that imported milk powder to the world's largest milk producer without innovation. We didn’t send a rocket to Mars, and we didn't gain the capability to launch satellites without innovation. 

Innovation happens everyday in rural India. Just that you don't see it, or you don't know it.

Innovation is happening in India, Mr Murthy

It's just that your definition of innovation is different.

- See more at: http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/open-letter-nr-narayana-murthy-want-innovation-why-not-start-infosys-32321#sthash.vFQY9hFI.dpuf