'Avoid North-South Politics' - Sridhar Vembu Bashes Mohandas Pai

Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu bashed former CFO of Infosys, Mohandas Pai for questioning the government’s decision of not selecting Bengaluru as one of the places to set up the AI Centre Excellence.

Pai expressed disapproval immediately after Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan announced plans to establish three AI Centres of Excellence (CoE) in Healthcare, Agriculture, and Sustainable Cities with the support of AIIMS, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur and IIT Ropar by 2028. 

What Pai said

On Wednesday, Mohandas Pai addressed the Union Minister and wrote on X, “Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, nothing in Bengaluru, the technology capital of India? Why are you and Ashwini Vaishnaw ignoring the South in IT, ignoring Bengaluru?” questioning, “Are we not part of Bharat too?”

Pai added, “Bengaluru voted for NDA but all we get is stepmotherly treatment. Citizens here are very angry and upset at you folks repeatedly ignoring us in the South! Are we children of a lesser God here?”

Then he went on tagging PM Modi and urging him to “intervene” so that Bengaluru receives its “share”. Pai also tagged Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya, Bengaluru Central MP PC Mohan, along with Union Ministers HD Kumaraswamy and Nirmala Sitharaman in the post.

Minister @dpradhanbjp nothing in Bengaluru, the technology capital of India? Why are you and @AshwiniVaishnaw ignoring the South in IT, ignoring Bengaluru? Are we not part of Bharat too? Bengaluru voted for NDA but all we get is step motherly treatment. Citizens here are very… https://t.co/31dQ9V3Ois

— Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) October 16, 2024

Vembu slams Pai

“Are we not part of Bharat too?” Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu commented on social media. He co-chairs the committee that made the decision.  “The committee itself had plenty of us from the South (probably the majority).” Vembu wrote. “Most of us came from the private sector and the Government did not tell us who we should select. We in the committee (again with so many of us from the South and so many from the private sector) did the selection based on a very thorough evaluation of actual projects done.”

He further suggested Pai “avoid North-South politics” explaining the locations were chosen based on the “evaluation of actual projects completed.”

I want to respond to this because I was the Co-chair of the apex committee that decided the 3 AI Centres of Excellence.

The committee itself had plenty of us from the South (probably the majority). Most of us came from the private sector and the Government did not tell us who we… https://t.co/yaqHdQUtie

— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) October 17, 2024

AI CoEs announced in the budget speech

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the establishment of AI CoEs during her 2023-24 budget speech. The Centre has granted Rs 990 crore for setting up these centres as part of PM Modi’s vision to “Make AI in India and Make AI work for India”.

Meanwhile, Manish Gupta, Director at Google DeepMind, and a part of the selection committee supported Vembu. "... I fully stand by our collective decisions. We made our decisions based on what we felt was good for India," he wrote on X.

Incidentally, these Centres of Excellence, established under the project, “Viksit Bharat” will be headed by top educational institutions in collaboration with industry partners and startups, who will conduct interdisciplinary research, create cutting-edge AI applications, and build scalable solutions in these sectors.