Could you highlight from recent experience some of the inadequacies in corporate governance in the Indian system?
We have a reasonably good rules system. My committee on corporate governance came out with a set of recommendations based on the best practices in many parts of the world and India.
We talked about the whistle-blower policy, related-party transactions, need for independent directors to be truly independent, tenure of non-executive directors, CEO- and CFO-certification on the lines of Sarbanes-Oxley, oversight of subsidiaries.
We need to highlight the success of companies that follow good governance practices so that promoters understand the importance of such practices. In other words, we have to make respect respectable. Today, money is respectable, power is respectable. Everybody is ranked by his or her money.
Business Standard has produced a list of all the billionaires whose wealth has vanished, thanks to the stock market.
But we have not come across any instance of ranking corporate leaders based on their respect in society. If you want good corporate governance, then you have to create role models who command respect in the corporate world.
Image: John Chambers (left), chairman and chief executive officer of Cisco Systems, speaks as Kiran Karnik, the newly appointed chairman of Satyam Computer, looks on during the Nasscom India Leadership Forum 2009 in Mumbai February 11, 2009. | Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/Reuters
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