ET Now caught up with former Infosys Board Member Mohandas Pai for his views on the top level exits in Infosys. Excerpts:

ET Now: There are two ways of looking at it the top level exits in Infosys. On the one hand, a lot of people say that there was a team that was probably not performing well and now they are exiting and that will probably be a positive for the stock over the long run. The sceptics, on the other hand, would argue that there are a lot of people who have been manning the company for the last many years and it is not a pint-sized company, but a Rs 1 lakh 70 thousand crore behemoth. Why have there been so many high profile exits in the company?

Mohandas Pai: There is a leadership vacuum in the company, because they made the wrong choice of CEO three years ago and that is playing out right now. The company has not performed and in June 2011, they had appointed three members on the board and all three of them have gone now and all three have been extraordinary individuals.

Ashok Vemuri is now the CEO of another company, V Balakrishnan had left and has started his own fund and BG Srinivas, I am told, would now be joining some other company as CEO.

So obviously, all three have been CEO materials. It is obvious that the chemistry did not work, or they were not fully empowered. There is a need for the board to sit down and work out a good succession plan and put a new team in place because the entire layer of people below the executive board are now gone and many of them were outstanding performers.

Yes, a few of them possibly were not pulling the weight, but it is not possible that all of them were not doing so. They were extraordinary people and they are performing at other places.

So there is a need for teamwork and need for people to come together. They need to forget the past and focus on the future, they need to realign the company based upon what the market needs.

The market has changed and so its model needs to change, its management structure needs to change and the set of people who have ruled the company for 30 years have to step down and hand over reins, because they have stayed on for too long. Therefore, I hope that in the next one or two months, the board will come together along with NRN and once and for all close this issue.

ET Now: Where can the breakthrough come from at this point, because you have already stated in the past that the board and Mr Murthy need to take responsibility for the exits. It just seems that the series of exits is not ending. Does this mean that the company may have to also consider forming a completely new team from outside and hiring some expensive resources from outside?

Mohandas Pai: My view is that the layer below BG Srinivas, V Balakrishnan and Ashok Vemuri is an extraordinary layer. You have many good people who have run units. But they have run units and they require one or two years to come up with enterprise.

Enterprise position is very different from a unit position. You could be an extraordinary unit person, but to run an entire enterprise in a very competitive environment, you require some mentoring and some experience.

Now the entire generation of leaders who could have handled enterprise has gone. The next layer of people have done very well and there is great management there, but they need to connect between themselves and NRN who is the executive chairman and will stay for the next three years. That connect has to be fixed and it is up to NRN to do it.

Now it can be done by somebody stepping up to the plate as CEO. He will be inexperienced, he would not have handled enterprise, but being very efficient, in three to six months, he can pick it up.

However, that requires a different style of functioning by NRN. It also means that some amount of bloodletting will happen. In fact, it has to happen when the next generation comes up, because obviously people who are much senior will not stay on and there has to be a cleanup. So in the next two or three months, we have to see a radical change.

It is very difficult to speculate whether we will have an external team of people coming in, because such a team does not exist in any other company, let us remember. It is a very large company, with 160000 people, and $25 billion or $30 billion of market value.

So it requires a certain level of expertise and the board and the chairman have to work with them very carefully. So they have their task cut out and it will help if Nandan Nilekani is asked to come back, because he could provide the link between the chairman and the next layer of people and help to mentor them for the next couple of years, because he had an extraordinarily connect with people, his style is very inclusive and he is a person who empowers his team and gives them full strength to go ahead and stands by them. So getting Nilekani back would be a great strategy.

Team USA is two wins away from an unprecedented World Cup five-peat, and the Americans will take a significant step toward that goal Saturday when they face Spain in the semifinals of the 2026 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup at Berlin Arena in Berlin, Germany.

Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET (1 p.m. CT, 11 a.m. PT), with the winner advancing to Sunday’s gold-medal game against the victor of the other semifinal between reigning Olympic silver medalist France and tournament host Germany, also being played Saturday.

How to watch

The USA-Spain semifinal is set to air on TBS in the United States, with coverage also available via truTV in some listings. The game can be streamed on TBS.com, the TBS app, and HBO Max. Every game of the tournament is additionally available in the U.S. through FIBA’s exclusive streaming platform, Courtside 1891, which is accessible through DAZN for $11.99 a month or $44.99 annually, offering both live and on-demand access to the full World Cup schedule. Cord-cutters can also stream the broadcast through live TV services such as YouTube TV and DIRECTV, which offers a free trial for new subscribers.

Team USA’s path to the semifinals

The United States enters Saturday’s matchup riding a 30-game World Cup winning streak, extended further with four consecutive victories in Berlin. Under head coach Kara Lawson, the Americans went 3-0 in group play, opening with a 94-61 win over China before a tighter 55-52 win over Italy and a 105-64 win over Czechia. Team USA then routed Hungary 108-56 in the quarterfinals to punch its ticket to the semifinal round.

The U.S. squad is playing in its 11th consecutive World Cup semifinal, extending a winning streak in the competition that stretches back 20 years; the Americans’ last semifinal loss came against Russia in 2006. Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier, Jackie Young, Kahleah Copper and Chelsea Gray have anchored the starting lineup throughout the tournament, with Jackie Young leading the team in scoring at 11 points per game. Paige Bueckers, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have provided key production off the bench.

Clark, playing in her first World Cup, has emerged as one of the tournament’s top facilitators, ranking among the competition’s assist leaders with an average of seven per game. Stewart has also been a steady contributor, entering the semifinal averaging 9.8 points, seven rebounds and 2.8 assists across the tournament, with a cumulative line of 39 points, 28 rebounds and 11 assists through four games.

Spain’s road to Berlin

Spain reached the semifinals after going 2-1 in group play, a stretch that included an uncharacteristic upset loss to Mali, before the team rebounded with a blowout win over reigning bronze medalist Australia in the quarterfinals.

The Spanish roster features several current WNBA players, headlined by guard Iyana Martin, a 2026 first-round pick of the Portland Fire who is expected to join the league next season. Martin leads Spain in both scoring, at 16.5 points per game, and assists, averaging 3.3 per contest. She is joined on the roster by Seattle Storm rookie center Awa Fam, Toronto Tempo forward Maria Conde, and fellow Fire center Megan DiLeo.

DiLeo, who played college basketball at Iowa and won conference player of the year honors during her collegiate career, was asked ahead of Saturday’s matchup whether having Clark come off the bench for Team USA might work to Spain’s advantage. She dismissed the notion directly.

“I don’t think so,” DiLeo said. “I think she’s just a great player.”

Head-to-head history favors the Americans

Historically, the matchup has heavily favored the United States. The Americans are 11-0 all-time against Spain in women’s international competition tracked by FIBA, and the two teams met earlier this year in a World Cup qualifying game, with the U.S. winning 84-70.

Despite that lopsided history, Spain’s run through the tournament, including its dominant quarterfinal performance against Australia, suggests the team is playing with confidence heading into Saturday’s semifinal, even against a heavily favored American squad chasing its 12th overall World Cup championship and fifth consecutive title.

What’s on the line

A win Saturday would put Team USA into Sunday’s gold-medal game, held at the same Berlin Arena venue, with the third-place game also scheduled for Sunday and broadcast on TNT, truTV and HBO Max. The tournament’s other semifinal, pitting France against host nation Germany, will determine the Americans’ potential opponent in the final should the U.S. advance.

For Spain, a victory would represent one of the program’s most significant results in program history, breaking a lengthy winless streak against the United States and denying the Americans a chance at an unprecedented fifth straight World Cup crown.

Looking ahead

With four days of group and quarterfinal play now behind both squads, Saturday’s semifinal represents the biggest test yet for a U.S. team that has leaned on balanced scoring, veteran leadership from players like Stewart and Collier, and rising stars such as Clark and Bueckers coming off the bench. Fans in the United States looking to follow the action live have multiple options across cable, streaming apps and subscription services to catch the full game as it unfolds from Berlin.

Minister of state (independent charge) for information and broadcasting, environment and climate change Prakash Javadekar has been busy sorting out the various hats he’s expected to wear in this government.

He spoke to ET on the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s approach towards media, social media, media controls and much more. Edited excerpts…

In terms of communication and messaging, the BJP’s electoral campaign has been termed an object lesson in the field. How can you translate that into the governmental structure?

All communication needs of the government will be handled in our ministry through a social media hub. I am offering this service to all ministers. Their facebook, twitter and other social media outreach will be handled by the new media wing, and the social media and communication hub.

The advantage that the party saw in reaching out through all communication media has been tremendous, and it was felt that the government too use the available platforms. Therefore, this new hub will provide all the help needed by various ministers and ministries for setting up and operating their facebook pages, twitter handles and the outreach throughsocial media. Traditional media is important, of course, but social media vehicles have to be spruced up.

What are your priority areas as far as this (I&B) ministry is concerned?

We have to ensure transparency, make our vehicles more effective. We want to be accessible and accountable too. Now there is a stage three and stage four of digitisation, we will take a call on this only after taking all things into account. The issue is that digitisation increases the revenue of paid channels, but customers want fewer advertisements.

Now 11 crore new settop boxes are required, which provides a great case for indigenisation, rather than just import them. I will take it up with the finance and commerce ministers on how this could be done.

During the elections, an interview of Prime Minister Narendra Modi set off questions on the autonomy of the public broadcaster. As I&B minister, how will you deal with it?

Right off the bat, I would like to say that our commitment for press freedom, and the autonomy of public broadcast is absolute. But freedom or autonomy has its own responsibilities.

Media has the responsibility of being neutral and objective. There’s always a concern that when the government is spending so much, it must reach the public. The public broadcaster is a tool for public awareness. Having said all of this, let me categorically state that we have no plans to enforce controls on the media.

Modi has been described as a “post TV” Prime Minister, in that he reaches out to his audience or voter directly. How would you recast the role of the traditional media?

This is a lesson for everyone on how to put your point across, in the way the Prime Minister does. Minister for law and communications Ravi Shankar Prasad and I have been deputed as spokespersons for the government and we will shortly come up with a communications plan to suit everyone’s needs. This government is different from the way it approaches issues and problems.

For instance, Modiji’s design for the Cabinet. Yesterday, there were some issues related to environment and power. Piyush Goel holds the power, coal and renewable energy portfolio, I hold the environment portfolio, and between the two of us and 10 officials we sorted things which the previous government had tied up in knots in a Group of Ministers (GoM) set up. The emphasis is on synergy. For the media too, there will be things to learn from the new government and its functioning.

Anand Mahindra can’t wait to get back home from the US because all the action is happening in India with a new, stable government led by Narendra Modi in place. Hours after chairing a board meeting of Mahindra & Mahindra at midnight US time, the company’s chairman and MD spoke on Saturday to Satish John at length from Boston on his hopes and aspirations for the country. The new administration has begun well and a lot more is expected from it, he said. Excerpts:

On Modi government’s 10-point agenda.

I think it is almost brilliant to put at the head of the list the fact that bureaucrats should be encouraged to take decisions without fear. In a sense he’s gone to the heart of the problem of the paralysis. The Indian government is extraordinarily large and it is difficult to try and believe that one leader can make all the change. This is a federal system. In a large bureaucracy you cannot exercise the transformation of any situation without coopting bureaucracy.

So empowerment becomes important. It’s a good sign. If you remember, one of the major apprehensions about Modi was an autocratic style of functioning. By putting right at the top of the agenda the empowerment of the bureaucracy I think one has to appreciate and admit that it is definitely not the act of an autocrat.

On disbanding ministerial groups.

Without making much heavy weather of it, he’s been a case study for business schools on how to exercise leadership and have an impact from day one in the new job. He’s setting a clear agenda and is making a clear promise of making a measurement of progress made against that clear agenda. For example, making an agenda for 100 days will make it clear what the matrix would be for measuring success of that agenda. It is important that every day some incremental progress is made towards that agenda and that progress is communicated transparently. He has got his team ready, which is a focused team. To me, every decision needn’t be a big-bang reform but a signal of proactive decision-making and removal of red tape and bureaucracy. And a promise of even speedier decision-making in the future.

On the government’s immediate priorities.

Back in the 1980s, I had written a column headlined ‘Roads to Nowhere’. At that time we were not building enough roads. (Among) America’s competitive advantages happen to be its highways and its transportation network. Those are like blood vessels to the economy and they create job opportunities. Therefore, in a funny sense, the best thing anyone can do to create an inclusive economy is ironically through building roads, because access to markets or the lack of access to markets is one of the most discriminatory things one can do to the poor, especially to the rural poor. It’s not a point that we automatically think of but roads are a mechanism to create inclusiveness in the economy. So, I think, the faster he does that the better for the economy. There is huge economic data to show that roads (give) a bigger boost to rural income than even irrigation. It will help power dual income for families and will allow a kind of diversity from dependence on agriculture which creates productivity.

undefined

On India-US ties.

I’ve been here (in the US) for quite a while now. The Indian elections have generated enormous interest. Most of the diplomatic and political pundits are now urging the leadership in Washington not to miss out on what they feel is the diplomatic opportunity for the US in reaching out to and rebuilding a very strong relationship with India. They feel US has lost ground because of the visa controversy and that they should now rediscover the ground and build a strong relationship.

There is a feeling that both Japan and China have both stolen a march on building this kind of relationship with India. There is going to be, in my opinion, a strong effort from decision-makers here to reach out to the prime minister and his colleagues to rebuild the relationship.

On the perception that the new government will tilt more toward the east — Japan, China, South Korea.

There has been significant interest shown by Japan. It is a country with a liquidity overhang and an investment surplus. Modi is well aware of that. Why Japanese investors have been holding back is because they did not perceive any of the promises we’ve given to be gaining traction.

In the area of construction and large industrial projects, they can take pole position in large projects here. That being said, everybody speculated what the position of the PM and the Cabinet would be and the PM is his own man. My contention is that our PM is a practical man and he knows that any kind of vindictiveness has no role in foreign policy.

I think his whole objective is to enhance India’s economic health and through that gain what should be India’s rightful role in the world. The fact that we are the world’s largest democracy and we are all aware that power and a role in global affairs for a nation comes from economic strength. I think, in his own way and at the right time, he will respond positively when the correct signals are sent out from the US administration.

On FDI in defence

We have been consistent from the time we entered into JVs with foreign companies. We have not changed our stance. Right from the beginning we have been representing to the government that it is a positive step to allow at least 49% investment through the automatic route. Because it encourages the foreign partner to deploy the technology into the JV. Otherwise, there is wariness on their part to provide 100% support to the joint venture. So if you really want the best technology to be manufactured here, then (it should be) a minimum of 49% stake, which we have always advocated.

On Mahindra’s investments plans.

We have never shied away from making investments. Even during downcycles, we never stopped our investments. We invested in the Chakan automotive plant when the economy was down; we also invested in the tractor plant in Zaheerabad when the tractor market was witnessing a downcycle. When the market improved for tractors we were able to ramp up our output. We always have a long-term view of the economy. We have consistently been investing. In defence, for example, if the government starts buying again for the much-needed upgrade then we’ll certainly make the investments. Pawan (Goenka) has gone on record to say that we are considering a Rs 4,000-crore investment, which is independent of the new developments. It was something we were going to do.