HOWZAT

Despite the mounting gloom – the Indian media are pouncing on stories of job cuts and falling bonuses in the IT sector on a near daily basis – the Infosys boss remains "cautiously optimistic", largely because he does not see the US slowdown extending beyond this year.

To those with more bearish outlooks, Mr Gopalakrishnan can point to the Indian IT industry's past triumphs over tough adversities. Ask Mr Murthy, the chairman, to set current conditions in context and he remembers how in India in the 1970s it would take 3 years and 50 visits to Delhi to get a license to import a computer, at $1,000 a visit.

"If you were importing a machine of $100,000 you paid a duty 50 per cent even before you ordered it," he says.

Similarly, he adds, it took 10 days to get permission to travel abroad one day and three years to get a telephone connection. "In context, I don't think this is a difficult time," he adds. "Anything that has to do with the market, that helps us succeed based on our smartness, I'm always pretty happy about that challenge."

So is the Infosys Eden safe?

The lush Bangalore facility is hardly under wraps. Pristine white golf carts ferry around hordes of jet-lagged foreigners invited to visit the epicentre of India's IT boom.

However, the more cynical visitors say the site reminds them of the set of The Truman Show or The Stepford Wives. "There is something odd about this place, I suppose," a Western employee admits. The disconcerting feeling hits visitors as soon as they arrive at the gate: security on the campus is army-base tight. Strikingly, the chaos of everyday India is firmly locked outside.

If riding out a possible US recession really will take care of itself the truly tough challenge, many of the Infosys board agree, is to close the gap between the rest of India and the island of prosperity Infosys has created on Bangalore's outskirts. "We must build more islands and we must join them up," Mr Murthy says.

Nandita Gurjar, the head of human resources for Infosys, flags the company's funding of tertiary education across the country as marker of its social concerns. Such ventures have made an impression and the group, voted several times India's most admired company, is highly thought of in its homeland. One recent recruit The Times met said he had turned down an offer of 470,000 rupees (£5,900) a year from IBM, the American technology giant, to join Infosys, which pays 270,000 rupees "because of my respect for the company".

The fact that Infosys also spends more than other companies on training (about £2,500 per recruit) also helped, but Ms Gurjar's colleagues in HR point out that half of new staff come from families where only one parent is a graduate. They argue that this shows that the company is opening up a new world of opportunity to India's "lower middle class".

However, in a country where nearly three quarters of the population is illiterate, by themselves such figures do little to counter the notion that India's IT industry is merely fueling the creation of a new elite. Whereas the Brahmins of the old order had a monopoly on the writing of Sanskrit, this new caste pens computer code.

The idea evidently plays on the minds of the Infosys hierarchy. "A clear conscience is the most comfortable pillow," is one of Mr Murthy's favourite sayings. The inference is clear: if Eden is not opened up to the many it will perish.

"We have challenges. The benefits of economic growth have impacted people disproportionately," Mr Gopalakrishnan says.

"Two thirds of the population still live with less than $2 a day. One third on less than $1. So we need to see benefits impacting on the majority of the people. That is the challenge which really needs working on."

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