The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Bill Gates calls on Karunanidhi

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 09, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Bill Gates calls on Karunanidhi

Special Correspondent

Discusses aspects of the Thirukkural with him

COURTESY CALL: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates with the DMK president M. Karunanidhi at his Gopalapuram residence in Chennai on Thursday. Union Information Technology and Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran looks on. — Photo: V.Ganesan

CHENNAI: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates called on Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M. Karunanidhi at his Gopalapuram residence on Thursday evening. The meeting was described as a courtesy call and lasted about half-an-hour.

Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Dayanidhi Maran said at the meeting, Mr. Gates wanted to know more about Thiruvalluvar and his work, Thirukkural. "Kalaignar also presented him with a book which is a translation of his book, Kuraloviyam," he said. Mr. Karunanidhi presented him a copy of Mother (Thai) and also an English translation of a collection of his short stories.

Asked what they discussed, Mr. Karunanidhi said he had requested Mr. Gates to set up more facilities in India in general and Tamil Nadu in particular. He also elaborated the various achievements of the DMK regime in IT and also the developments taking place now. Apart from this, "I also got an opportunity to lecture him on the Thirukkural."

Mr. Gates agreed to consider the requests, he said in response to another question.

Mr. Maran said in the past 10 days there has been a lot of promise of investment from international IT majors. "Craig Barrett (chairman, Intel) was here. Gates is here. I am only trying to showcase one of the best IT spots in India."

The idea behind inviting people like Mr. Gates to visit India was to get more investment into the country, he said. "The important thing is that Mr. Gates has come to India. I invited him to come to Chennai. He had no plans to come to Chennai. In fact the partnership summit was supposed to take place in Bangalore. He has been to Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi. I said I am inviting him to visit Chennai. Not only is it my hometown, it is also my constituency. And Chennai is doing very well in IT. Our industry needs such encouragement."

On investments in tier two cities, Mr. Maran said he had made a request when he met Mr. Gates in Seattle. "I requested him to look at other places in Tamil Nadu such as Madurai, Coimbatore and Tiruchi. But these decisions will be taken by Microsoft."

To another question, he said Bangalore was ahead of Chennai in the IT race. Chennai had to cover "a long distance" to get there. At the same time there was a lot to learn from the Bangalore experience where explosive IT growth was not matched by a corresponding improvement of infrastructure.

Mr. Maran said the roads being bad, he was unable to take Mr. Gates on a visit to TIDEL park.

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