Bengaluru: Narayan Murthy speaks out against 'freebie culture'

Days after drawing flak for suggesting that youngsters in India must work 70 hours a day in order to compete on the global scale, founder and former CEO of Infosys, Narayan Murthy has made another remark that has divided the internet either for or against his opinion. Speaking at the Bengaluru Tech Summit he expressed his disapproval of the freebie culture. “When you provide those services, when you provide those subsidies, there must be something in return that they're willing to do. For example, if you say -- I will give you free electricity, then it would have been a very nice thing for the government to have said, but we want to see the percentage attendance in primary schools and middle schools go up by 20 per cent, then only we will give you that,” he stated. 

He stressed on the philosophy of compassionate capitalism as the pathway for India’s growth. “I am not against free services being provided. I fully understand, as I also came from a poor background once upon a time. But I think we should expect something in return from those people who received those free subsidies to take a slightly bigger responsibility towards making their own future generation, their own children and grandchildren, better in terms of going to school, you know, performing better. That's what I mean,” he added.