H. Harish Hande, Magsaysay award winner and Managing Director of Selco India, said on Saturday that the country required inclusive growth which took all people along with it. He was delivering the convocation address at the Graduation Day ceremony of Justice K.S. Hegde Institute of Management (JKSHIM), here.
Dr. Hande said that the country was 137th in the world as far as Human Development Index (HDI) was concerned. The increasing disparity between the rich and the poor was a concern and this might even lead to social unrest in the future.
Students should stop taking their degrees seriously. Instead, they should try to get first-hand experience of ground realities, he said. MBA graduates mostly looked at things from the financial perspective and worried about financial sustainability. “If financial sustainability is everything, why did Lehman Brothers collapse?” he asked.
There were two crore street vendors in the country. But their innovative strategies were such that none of them had gone out of business, he said. The basics of any business were balancing financial sustainability, environmental sustainability and social sustainability. “It is essential for MBA graduates to think not just about themselves but also about the welfare of society,” he said.
More than economic growth, the country required decentralisation in all spheres of entrepreneurship. IIT graduates should understand that their education was subsidised by the government. “It is the poor who pay taxes while purchasing salt and sugar which goes into the subsidised education provided in the IITs,” he said.
In countries such as Italy, France and China, corporate heads spoke in the language of their own countries. “But it is difficult to find any non-English speaking corporate head in India,” Dr. Hande said.
Amulya A. Rao won the academic topper award, while the best outgoing student award was bagged by Vignesh S. Gaonkar. The best project award went to Akshath Kumar.
