Sam Pitroda

India's telecom architect



Born in Orissa and educated in Vadodara and Chicago, Sam Pitroda, owes both
his fame and infamy to his proximity to the Gandhi family. The infamy part is

politically debatable, but when Indira Gandhi invited him in 1984 from the US to

set up C-DOT, nobody realized the arrival of the architect of India's telecom

revolution. The PCO revolution scripted during this tenure was, unarguably,

because of Pitroda's tireless efforts. Controversy however seems to dog

Pitroda-even after being appointed the chairman of Knowledge Commission by

Manmohan Singh, he was embroiled in the hullabaloo over reservations in premier

institutions. But, Pitroda is a successful inventor and entrepreneur in his own

right. He owns over 50 patents related to m-commerce and is also the founder of

C-SAM.