A SPARKLING START: On Tuesday, February 3, the 12th annual conference of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, the apex body of the Indian IT industry, got underway in Mumbai.
The conference's agenda to look at the issues that the call centre and the business process outsourcing industry is facing today and also create a blueprint for Indian IT services companies that now need to scale up to become global players.
The chief ministers of southern Indian states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh hobnob among the IT industry fairly regularly. But Maharashtra's chief ministers have maintained a fairly low profile in both pushing the state and pitching for investments from among the IT companies.
Yet, Nasscom's annual event held in Mumbai is something that the state's chief ministers have come to understand the importance of. Maharashtra's Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who was on his way to New Delhi to meet with the Congress high command, took time to spell out Maharashtra's IT policy for the audience.
"We have a very proactive, pro-industry IT policy in place. The recently announced policy lays special emphasis on the software industry, is very liberal and open-ended and encourages entrepreneurship," said Shinde.
The keynote address at the session was given by Stephen Timms, Britain's minister of state for energy, e-commerce and postal services. Timms told the audience that despite newspaper reports, the United Kingdom will not try to bring in protectionist measures and will ensure that the country's markets remain free and that British companies are exposed to competition.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde lights the ceremonial lamp along with UK Minister of State for Energy, E-commerce and Postal Services, Stephen Timms. Looking on is Som Mittal, Chairman, Nasscom and President and CEO, Digital Globalsoft