NEW DELHI -- Dewang Mehta, the prominent and charismatic president of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies, was found dead in his hotel room in Sydney on Thursday. He was 38.
Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan, who was on a networking trip with Mehta in Australia, said his body was found after he failed to wake up in the morning.
"It is a big loss to information technology. If there is any one person who deserves credit for promoting information technology as an industry in India it is definitely Dewang Mehta," he told Star News television from Sydney.
Mehta was named by Computerworld magazine as "Software Evangelist of the Year" for three years in a row and "IT Man of the Year" in 2000. Last October the Geneva-based World Economic Forum selected Mehta as one of the 100 "Global Leaders of Tomorrow."
As president of NASSCOM, Mehta lobbied governments to build a global brand equity for India's software industry and campaigned against software piracy.
He was also a champion of Indian software exports, which have ridden the crest of the global information technology revolution.
At NASSCOM's office in New Delhi, which closed for the day after the news, employees looked stunned and had tears in their eyes.
"I can't believe it's true. He can't leave things halfway," said a tearful woman employee.
Mehta's death comes at a time when the Indian software industry is facing its worst time in years: Its scorching pace of growth is slowing, a direct result of the slowdown in the United States, the main market for India's software exports.
Technology stocks have been battered in Indian stock markets.
"It's shocking," said Nandan Nilekani, president and chief operating officer of Infosys Technologies. "It is a great loss to the Indian software industry."
Vinnie Mehta, director of the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology, said the software industry would be shaken by the news.
"This was the time he was needed most. Industry will really feel his absence," he said. "He was a guy who was so closely identified with the software industry."
Mehta was a jovial, bespectacled man with a shock of black hair and thick sideburns which often drew comparisons with rock star Elvis Presley.
