Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda (born 16 November 1942), also known as Sam Pitroda (Hindi:[sɔt̪jɔnaːraːjɔɳɔɡɔŋgaːraːmɔpiʈroɽaː]), is an Indian telecommunication engineer, and entrepreneur. He was the chairman of Indian Overseas Congress.[3] He was born in Titlagarh in the eastern Indian state of Odisha[4] to a Gujarati family. He was also an advisor to then Prime MinisterManmohan Singh and for the United Nations.[5]
On a trip back to India in 1981, Pitroda was frustrated by how hard it was to call his family back in Chicago, and decided he could help modernize India's telecommunications system.[9]
In 1984, Pitroda was invited to return to India by Prime MinisterIndira Gandhi. On his return, he started the Center for Development of Telematics C-DOT, an autonomous telecom R&D organization. He had previously become a naturalized US citizen but renounced his US citizenship to take Indian citizenship again to work in the Indian Government.[10]
In October 2009, Pitroda was appointed as advisor to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations with the rank of Cabinet Minister.[13]
During the 2024 Indian general election, Pitroda made remarks in respect of inheritance tax where he allegedly emphasised the need for a policy of wealth redistribution in India and provided an example of inheritance tax in the United States, stating that "If one has 100 million USD worth of wealth and when he dies he can only transfer probably 45 per cent to his children, 55 per cent is grabbed by the government. That's an interesting law." Congress Member of Parliament Jairam Ramesh distanced itself from Pitroda's remarks and said that they did not reflect the Congress party's position.[17] In the lead-up to the same election, Pitroda also made headlines over his remarks in an interview to The Statesman where he said "We could hold together a country as diverse as India, where people on East look like Chinese, people on West look like Arab, people on North look like maybe White and people in South look like Africa (sic)".[18][19]
The Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan in 2009 for his contribution to science and engineering.[25]
He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in December 2016 for his contributions in the field of telecommunications technology & innovation by the American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin (ASEI) [26]
