Deshpande's date with who's who

It was raining who's who of the business world and industry at Haliyal, a small town in Uttara Kannada district, on Saturday.

MD & CEO of ICICI Bank K V Kamat, Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, Infosys Foundation chief trustee Sudha Murthy, R Gopalakrishnan, executive director, Tata Sons and host of other business luminaries were there.

The occasion: Inauguration of the V R Deshpande memorial education complex and Rural Development and Entrepreneurship Training Centre.

Minister for cooperation Deshpande was instrumental in getting these luminaries to his hometown.

Added to the list of those present were Mohan Das Pai of Manipal Group, builder G M Rao, Baba Kalyani of Bharat Forge, Jindal Steels Sajjan Jindal, Vikram Kirloskar and Vijay Kirloskar of Kirloskar group, MBBL chairman Ravi Uppal and former chairman of Canara bank R V Shastri.

Speaking on the occasion, all invitees hailed the efforts of R V Deshpande in helping the rural youth to take up self-employment. They promised all help to transform the rural economy.

Kamat urged the state government to set up 200 Rural Development and Self-Employment Training Institutes (Rudseti) in all the districts and said that Rudseti can make 2 lakh people self-employed every year.

Sudha Murthy donated sewing machines to tribal women while Tata Group MD R Gopalkrishnan inaugurated the hostel.