Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy advised youngsters working in the Information Technology industry against practices such as moonlighting and working from home. Speaking at the Asia Economic Dialogue conference organised by the Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday, February 23, Narayana Murthy said, “My fervent desire and humble desire to youngsters is please don't fall into this trap of ‘I will moonlight, I will do work from home, I will come to office three days in a week.’” Moonlighting is the practice of working a second job or multiple other work assignments apart from one’s full-time job. In September 2022, Infosys had sent a company-wide email warning employees that they will be terminated if they were found moonlighting.
At the conference on Thursday, Narayana Murthy also said that India needs a culture of honesty, quicker decision making and hasslefree transactions to prosper as a country. "We need to build a culture of quick decision making, quick implementation, hassle-less transactions, honesty in transactions, no favouritism," Murthy said, adding that the only common aspect joining all the developed countries is such cultural attributes.
The Infosys co-founder said both India and China were of the same size in the late 1940s, but the northern neighbour has grown to be six times the size of India courtesy of the culture it has imbibed. "There is a small section of India which works hard, which is honest, which has a good work ethic, discipline. By and large, this is not the predominant nature," Murthy said.
Asking people not to call him an anti-national, he cited an experience of setting up a facility in Shanghai in 2006. He said the mayor of the Chinese city allocated a 25-acre land parcel selected by him the day after it was selected, and such a pace of movement is lacking in India. He claimed that corruption is existent at lower levels and added that those at higher levels are very honest. "If we want the business people to stay only in India and do everything in India, I think they will be very happy to do that. All that we are respectfully requesting is that quick decisions must be taken, they must be implemented quickly and they should be no harassment, no unnecessary hurdle," he said.