Leeter to Mr.Naryana Murthy - Chief Mentor of Infosys

Dear Mr.Narayana Murthy, Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor of Infosys,

It was with great shock and disbelief that we learned of your acceptance of the appointment as International Advisor on Information Technology to the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

This is being addressed to you whose corporation proclaims (http://www.infosys.com/about/who-we-are/default.asp) that its mission is "To achieve our objectives in an environment of fairness, honesty, and courtesy towards our clients, employees, vendors and society at large" and so the hope is that as a global corporation your society at large would include the next door neighbor Sri Lanka.

As is well known the Sri Lankan government presided by Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa is aggressively perpetrating extraordinary violence on hundreds of thousands of innocent Tamil civilians under the guise of fighting armed liberation fighters in the island.

This violence consistent with the pattern of ethnic cleansing involving among other things State-sponsored riots against Tamils since 1958 has already been characterized legally as Genocide by no less a legal expert than Mr. Bruce Fein former Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Mr. Fein has already filed a 1000-page model indictment with the US Attorney General's office charging the Defense Secretary of Sri Lanka Gothabaya Rajapaksa and the Army Commander Sarath Fonseka with Genocide, War Crimes and Torture under the Genocide Accountability Act of 2007 of the United States. The indictment chronicles "more than 3,750 extrajudicial killings, approximately 30,000 Tamils suffering serious bodily injury, and more than 1.3 million displacements (a number far exceeding displacements in Kosovo which lead to genocide counts before the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia)".

Mr. Fein states in his letter accompanying the model indictment to the U.S. Attorney General: "Count twelve of genocide is indistinguishable from the genocide of 7,000 Bosnian Muslim males in Srebrenica, which had been declared a safe zone by Bosnian Serbs. Count twelve charges Rajapaksa and Fonseka of bombing and shelling 350,000 Tamil civilians into one large "safe area," and, since January 21, 2009, killing and maiming the Tamils who had amassed there by aerial bombing and artillery. In the month of January, according to the model indictment, 750 Tamils have been massacred and more than 2,250 have been seriously injured. On the BBC, on Feb. 2, Rajapaksa declared that nothing should live or breathe outside the Orwellian "safe area." Thus, one hospital outside the area has been bombed three times, including by cluster bombs. More than 1,000 Tamils are in detention camps, and reports of rape have already emerged. "

Even India's Supreme Court Bar Association has condemned the Genocide in its resolution dated Feb 4, 2009.

Sri Lanka has been accused of serious human rights violations in general. It lost in May 2008 its bid to retain its seat in the UN Human Rights Council losing even to countries such as Pakistan and the world body Human Rights Watch reports that ( http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/05/18/nobel-prize-winners-tell-un-vote-sri-lanka-human-rights-council ) three Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter and Adolfo Perez Esquivel had joined Sri Lankan and International NGOs in opposition to Sri Lanka's bid for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

That the Sri Lankan government has a lot of ugly things to hide is evident from its notorious of treatment of journalists both foreign and Sri Lankan. The BBC reports ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7823729.stm ) that the Sri Lankan government has been accused of encouraging violence against the media by branding reporters seen as critical as rebel-sympathisers and enemies of the state and that Amnesty International has said in November 2008 that at least 10 media employees had been killed in Sri Lanka since 2006. Most recently in January 2009 Mr. Laasntha Wickramatunga, a leading Sri Lankan newspaper editor and fierce government critic who had numerous run-ins with the government, was shot dead by unknown assailants. The murder of Wickramatunga came just two days after after the arson attack against private TV broadcaster MBC networks. No doubt it is said that "Sri Lanka remains one of the world's most dangerous countries for independent journalists".

A latest development is ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/srilanka/4613039/Sri-Lanka-plans-to-hold-displaced-Tamils-in-concentration-camps.html ) that the Rajapaksa government has plans to hold displaced Tamil civilians in barbed wire concentration camps like the Nazis did with total loss of privacy and of basic human rights.

Given all this information about the conduct of the Sri Lankan government and of its President and his colleagues, it is clear why the world is dismayed that you have agreed to be the Information Technology advisor to them. Your participation in this will only be like advising Hitler run his concentration camps more efficiently.

Mr. Narayana Murthy, you have said in an interview to the British newspaper Independent you have "a different world view from most businessmen...they forget they are part of society. I believe that unless we are in touch with reality and the common people, we will not be in a position to add value to society." We are sure you are in touch with reality here right in the midst of a calamity. You have also said in the same interview about how, after seeing the response of the world to the 2004 tsunami tragedy, you felt there was affirmation of faith in humanity.

Here again now in Sri Lanka we have a catastrophic human tragedy and the victims there need affirmation of their faith in humanity and many in the world who have always believed in your personality as looking beyond mere business need affirmation in your humanity and your avowed principles.

To that end we the undersigned earnestly call upon you to:

* Remain consistent with your principles and corporate ethics and prove it in this situation
* Reject the offer to you from the Sri Lankan government appointing you as their International Advisor on Information Technology and resign if you already begun serving in that position
* Express your anguish over the situation of the Tamil ethnic minority there
* Condemn the Sri Lankan government over its treatment of the Tamil minoritity
* Serve as a role model for the Indian IT industry and to all of Indian business
* Remind the Indian IT business and profession that they are connected to people and need to be conscious of human events and act conscionably

You have said: "I am relentless. I just do things as if there is no tomorrow. That is why I think I am impatient."

We hope that you will be acting with the same impatience here too.

Yours Sincerely
A Indian Tamil along with all Tamils in the world