Cappuccino Musings

Here is an interesting article about Nandan Nilekani, Infosys CEO's visit to Beijing.

After watching 8-lane highways and digital maps of a
3000-year-old city, after bumping into an architect who says he will build seven
Chinese cities in four years, Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani drives home to
Bangalore past ghostly girders of incomplete flyovers

The quote says it all. When the new buzzword in the tech industry is "Bangalored", it won't be long before China bangalores India.

Nobody in their dreams believed that Bangalore would grow in this magnitude over the past decade. This city was once known to be "air conditioned", where the only hangout places were Cubbon Park and Lal Bhag and where Utility Building was the only major skyscraper landmark. Today the same city has turned out to be the destination of all major IT players in the world. It has seen some worldclass shopping malls which cash in on the spending powers of the Bangaloreans, who now prefer a Forum than Burma Bazaar.

All this comes with a price. The massive growth has created large number of jobs which obviously results in a large influx of people from outside looking out for jobs. Bangalore was ill-equipped to handle this "all of a sudden" glory. It started witnessing huge traffic jams. Anyone who travels via Airport Road to office will tell you that if God gave him a wish, he would ask for wings for his bikes just to escape from the long traffic queues. If you wanted to hone up your driving skills, try maneuvering though the potholes on some of the major roads. We have a government in place which is so concerned about holding it's herd together that it has little time to spend on setting up atleast a basic survival infrastructure. As a consequence, we see incomplete flyovers everywhere and a lacklustre public transportation system.

It wasn't before long that the IT bigwigs started crying foul. Azim Premji threatened to pull out of Bangalore if he didn't get proper infrastructure. Noises and grumbles started coming from all corners. A "Chinese takeover" is now eminent. We have a communist country putting it's heart out trying to make China the most favored offshoring hub in Asia. The wakeup call is long gone and our Government is still sleeping over the whole thing. It is totally blind to the abandoned flyovers. Did you say traffic jams? Did you hear about some neta visiting town and all roads to the Airport will be blocked for 4 hr? Sigh! Wake up Dear Bangalore before the "Great Wall of China" will result in the "Great Fall of India", or should I say "Great Fall of Bangalore".