The latest cover story of BusinessWeek sums up the attitude that many people face when conducting business in India. Although the story didn’t cover much on Bombay, it faces the same issues as Bangalore and other cities. Which sadly it should not, being the financial hub of the country it generates over 40% of all taxes paid, and also generates a lot of “black money” - unreported income. A great quote is “What Bombay Makes, Delhi Takes.” The contrast is large between the large roads in Noida (near Delhi) vs. the pothole roads in Bombay.
The article talks about “leakage” as a problem, but another equally painful problem is low expectations. You see it everywhere, in newly built flats that just don’t have the fit and finish you expect, the roads have potholes within days of being built, or malls that have very little parking. And because of this low expectation, things are just half planned or half thought out.
(click on the BusinessWeek cover for the full article)
1 response so far ↓
1 Partha Sarathy // Mar 17, 2007 at 7:48 am
Dr VS Rao Director of BITS Pilani Hyderabad campus may think that Chandrababu Naidu was wrong in considering Economics as more important than politics. Who told Economics is urban and politics is for rural? Bihar gave importance to politics instead of economics and see the state of affairs there. Bhagavat Gita says that you cannot do good somewhere without doing bad somewhere else and vice versa. Naidu did not mean to do bad for rural and intended to do good for urban. In West Bengal Left Front used to give importance to Rural and win all votes there but used to loose seats in Kolkata city. Naidu’s Urban development with subsequent rural benefits was indeed wise thinking. Success is not to be measured by CM designations, elections fought and seats won but by the enormous obstacles which were overcome and there is no doubt that with Economic Focus Chandrababu Naidu is indeed a success which pigeon headed fellows have failed to appreciate.
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