Capital Convert ; Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan Sheds His Hardliner Image and Begins to Woo Investment, Leaving His Inner Party Detractors Flummoxed and the Opposition Smirking at the Volte Face
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Summary
Power speaks a different language. V.S. Achuthanandan, it appears, is no stranger to this dictum. Elected chief minister three months ago virtually on an anti-big business, anti-MNC plank, he is gradually realising it makes sense to do business with business.
Shrugging off the mantle of an "orthodox" Marxist to don that of a savvy marketeer-something akin to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, his counterpart in West Bengal whose philosophy he had in the past sneered at as "Market Marxism"-Chief Minister Achuthanandan has wasted no time in revealing "reformist" credentials, a tag he had till recently scoffed at as a "Gorbachevian and neo-liberal lurch to the Right". In his very first official pronouncement, Achuthanandan declared the it sector would top his list of priorities. Underlining his intentions, the chief minister granted the first appointment among visiting industrialists to Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO of Infosys. After the meeting, a pleasantly surprised Gopalakrishnan said, "I am overwhelmed by the chief minister's interest in it and business investment. We will expedite work on our campus here where jobs would go up from the present 500 to 5,000 in one year." That was followed by a visit to Technopark, the hub of the state's it industry. "That he chose to come here barely two-three days after taking over as chief minister sent out a strong and positive signal," says Sunil Gupta, chairman of the Management Association of Technopark's 100-odd units. Achuthanandan's sudden munificence towards the sector he had once lambasted for stealing the limelight from issues like agriculture and traditional industries, has caught his detractors off-guard. Ditto for the CII Kerala chapter, whose delegation was elated after a meeting with the chief minister. "The perception that he is anti-industry is completely false for he was very encouraging and informed of our problems," says its Chairman Nawaz Meeran. His son V.S. Arun Kumar, an IT professional, is largely credited with having effected the sudden change in the chief minister.See the full content of this document
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Capital Convert ; Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan Sheds His Hardliner Image and Begins to Woo Investment, Leaving His Inner Party Detractors Flummoxed and the Opposition Smirking at the Volte Face
Camaraderie with the corporate world received a stunning endorsement from the man at the helm when two weeks ago a Rs 1,500- crore cyber project by Dubai Internet City (DIC), pr...
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