Cities - Developments, Projects & Construction

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<b>Bangalore Crumbling</b>
<i>World Economic Forum meets in New Delhi today to buy The Hot India Story. Foreign investors have poured a record $7.3 billion into an economy fuelled by a city that is the country’s biggest global brand. But it could all come undone as a callous Karnataka government pushes India’s Silicon Valley to the brink</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India’s tech homeland urgently needs an international airport, a metro, and—most important—a government committed to a work-plan that should be under implementation every day, says Hoekstra, 59, a Dutchman who’s watched the city’s four-year upturn covert into sharp decline during 2004.

‘‘<b>In the last six months, we have gone back ten years</b>,’’ said Hoekstra, a Bangalore loyalist who said his board could now question a recently approved $50-million new investment. ‘‘Bangalore represents India. If the city does not scale up fast, why come here at all?’’ argues Hoekstra, who in October startled the government by boycotting India’s signature infotech event, BangaloreIT.com. ‘‘If we lose out now, we lose out to China.’’

The damage to India’s biggest brand couldn’t have come at a worse time. Foreign investors have poured a record $7.3 billion into India this year ($1.4 billion in November alone). The topping to the rising cake of success will come tomorrow as some of the globe’s biggest names descend on the World Economic Forum’s summit in Delhi to take stock of India’s journey.

Here, that journey is wobbling—literally.
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