Another Amma article in Financial Times (UK)

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http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?

pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1059480183396

 

Technology industry icons, management gurus, business leaders,

India's president, and 100,000 devotees from around the world this

weekend celebrated the 50th birthday of India's "Hugger", a woman who

wields considerable influence over the world's second most populous

country.

 

 

Sri Mata Amritanandammayi, an unmarried woman known as Amma or "a

mother to millions", sends a simple but powerful message

of "unconditional love" by hugging men, women and children. Over four

days ending yesterday, she hugged people endlessly in Kochi in the

southern state of Kerala, a tranquil region previously called Cochin

and known as "God's Own Country".

 

Amma's appeal is strong among ordinary Indians as well as those in

Silicon Valley, California, where many southern technologists live. A

healing centre has even been built in her name in Malibu in

California.

 

At the vast Jawaharlal Nehru football stadium in Kochi, devotees from

scores of countries walked to intoxicating, devotional music,

demonstrating Amma's non-denominational, cross-cultural appeal.

 

Earlier, leading business figures lobbied her to improve India's

investment climate.

 

Amma told them that her only contribution would be love because she

was not qualified to advise on business. She said: "That would be

like telling a squirrel how to climb a tree."

 

But she said "value-based development" could deliver growth in

spirituality as well as in the economy.

 

"I admire her principles and model. She sticks to her core

competence," said software engineer B. V. Jagadeesh, co-founder of

Exodus, the internet infrastructure provider.

 

One of the emerging themes of Amma's developmental work and a

highlight of the event was Pura (Providing Urban facilities in Rural

Areas).

 

The idea is to strengthen village infrastructure to support job-

creating enterprises. Villages would then create more opportunities

for young people who currently migrate to cities, robbing rural India

of productive capacity and adding to urban poverty. "It's a lose-lose

situation," Sabeer Bhatia, the entrepreneur who founded Hotmail, told

a meeting at the event.

 

Dr A. P. J. Kalam, India's president, said rural-based development

would ensure the country grew in a way that embodied "Amma's values".

India's economy is growing at 6 per cent but needs to achieve a

faster pace of economic activity for poverty to be reduced.

 

C. K. Prahalad, professor of corporate strategy and international

business at the University of Michigan, told business leaders

that "traditional models of development" had failed to deliver, and

that a "disruptive change is taking place that is giving hope".

 

That hope is embodied by Amma, and India's, "20-20 vision" designed

to achieve developed economy status in 17 years. The strategies to

achieve this aim would be studied at a new "20-20 centre" to be

managed by an arm of Amma's organisation and co-sponsored by Intel,

the chip manufacturer.

 

Sriram Viswanathan, managing director of Intel's broadband and

wireless networking division in California, said Amma's village

cluster strategy could lead to "a national infrastructure of linkages

and that is good for India and Intel, so we are with her on this".