Infosys Public Services chief Lax Gopisetty unreachable after Nepal floods

Infosys said on Friday that Lax Gopisetty, president and chief executive of its U.S. and Canada public-sector arm Infosys Public Services, is not reachable after the flash floods that tore through central Nepal and the Tibet border. The company said he was in the region in a personal capacity. Its first task, the statement said, is to establish contact and to support his family.

The wording is exact and limited. Infosys did not say he was at a named hydropower site, a trek, or a particular district. It said it is working with agencies to gather information. It said thoughts are with Gopisetty and with everyone caught in the disaster.

By Saturday the Karnataka government had put 17 people from the state on an untraceable list. Gopisetty is on that list. Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said some locations had been fixed and others had not, and that the government was working through the day to trace the missing.

The national numbers sit far above one company statement. The Ministry of External Affairs said at least 320 Indians remain missing and about 400 others are stranded on the Chinese side of the border. Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority raised the death toll through Saturday; tallies published in Indian papers moved from the high 500s to more than 620, with more than 2,400 still listed as missing. Foreign minister Shisir Khanal has asked partners for tunnel rescue skill and DNA capacity rather than general search teams.

Gopisetty runs a subsidiary that sells technology and process work to governments in North America. The Infosys site describes earlier roles at BearingPoint, IBM, PwC and HCL. None of that biography explains why he was in Nepal last week. The company has kept that private, which is consistent with a personal trip and with a family that has not authorised a fuller account.

The floods themselves began with a glacial collapse on the Cuoqian River on the Nepal-Tibet line on 26 August. A debris flow dropped thousands of metres in minutes and ran down the Bhote Koshi system. Hydropower camps, roads, bridges and villages were hit in Rasuwa, Nuwakot, Dhading, Chitwan and Nawalparasi, among other districts. Bodies have been recovered far downstream. An 11-member Indian team that includes medical staff and tunnel rescuers has reached Nepal. Sitamarhi officials in Bihar said they had brought 106 stranded pilgrims back.

For a listed company the immediate legal duty is narrow. Infosys has confirmed a named senior employee is missing on a personal journey. It has not declared a vacancy. It has not named an acting chief for Infosys Public Services. That will change only if contact is not restored. Investors will treat the note as a human fact, not as a change to the parent's order book.

The harder list is the unnamed one. Seventeen people from Karnataka, 320 Indians in the MEA count, more than 2,400 missing in Nepal's bulletin. Many of the missing are hydropower workers, police, soldiers and pilgrims rather than chief executives. Gopisetty's name is public because his employer filed a statement. Most families on the same rivers have no ticker and no press officer.

Until a rescue team or a phone call produces a location, the Infosys note should be read as what it is: a confirmation of silence, a pledge to the family, and one more line in a disaster whose missing column is still growing.